This is a transcribed letter my aunt sent me, from my grandpa, Jerry, to my grandma Doris.
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July 6, 1945
My Dearest Sweetheart,
Did you hear the big news today about those atomic bombs and the production of atomic power? Wow, but the future is catching up with us fast. I have known for some time that the production of atomic power was possible. In fact, it has been accomplished on a small scale. The trouble was that it was terribly expensive and the material from which it was produced was very rare. It was produced first from the element uranium-235, the number 235 is to distinguish it from several other isotopes of uranium which have different atomic weights. But in the whole world there wasn’t much more uranium-235 than there was radium, so it was impossible to produce much atomic power. For myself I’m wondering just how they have accomplished this recent miracle. I wonder if they have found methods for transmuting other elements into uranium-235 or have they approached the problem from another direction such as using Munroe hollow charges of explosive to create pressure and temperatures high enough to crush the atoms. You see, if explosives are shaped like this [drawing] the power of the explosive is focused into a small jet, which has terrific speed and power. It can punch holes in armor plate like it was wax. That’s the secret of the bazooka shell, which is able to smack out all but the heaviest tanks. If a large number of these hollow charges were focused on a single small point they might be able to crush the atom.
I think they have used uranium, though, because that was by far the most promising method, and now that we have atomic power there are ever so many things we can do that weren’t possible before, such as flight through space. We may be reading before long about trips to Mars or Venus or the moon. You may remember I wrote about that just a few days ago. Most important of all though, I hope it will give the Japs some incentive to give up.
P.S. Sorry this is another academic letter, but I have to talk to someone.
With all my love,
Jerry
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-Grace Claiborn
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Very cool, Grace! There are a lot of things that are quite interesting and also amusing about that letter. It's interesting that this is the sort of stuff your grandfather would tell your grandmother about in a letter. What a neat historical connection!
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