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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2017 [1].

High Explosive Research

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:45, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

After Tube Alloys and the British contribution to the Manhattan Project comes the third article in the series, High Explosive Research. Jim, Bernard and Sir Humphrey decide build an atomic bomb. I'm afraid that aspects of the article may make no sense to a non-British reader. Although it is a new article, created in February, it has passed GA and A class reviews. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:45, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Support Comments on prose by Finetooth

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Having reviewed the Hanford Site article many years ago at GAN, this sounds pretty familiar. Even so, I don't know enough to critique the claims involving complex science or engineering. Here are suggestions related to prose, style, and the MOS. Nothing big, but lots of little things caught my eye. The article seems to be in generally good shape.
Lede
Tube alloys
Manhattan Project
End of American cooperation
  • ¶1 "Roosevelt's naval aide, apparently misfiled by someone unaware of what Tube Alloys was, who thought it had something to do with naval guns." – Does the "who" refer to the naval aide or to the "someone"?
    Changed "who" to "and". Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Organisation
Decision
  • ¶2 "The meeting was about to decide against it on grounds of cost, when [Ernest] Bevin arrived late and said "We've got to have this thing. I don't mind it for myself, but I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country to be talked at or to by the Secretary of State of the United States as I have just been in my discussion with Mr Byrnes. We've got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs... We've got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it." – Words within direct quotations should generally not be linked, per MOS:LINKSTYLE. Ditto for linked terms in the other block quotes in this section.
    Generally, but the words do not appear in the surrounbding text, and the user may not know what they mean.
  • ¶3 "in charge of the Ministry Of Supply's Armaments Research Department" – Lowercase "o" in "Of"?
    Typo. Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ¶4 "officially requested an atomic bomb in 9 August 1946" – "on" rather than "in"?
    Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Uranium
  • ¶1 "Sir John Anderson and US Ambassador John Winant hammered out a deal with the Belgian government and Edgar Sengier, the director of Union Minière, in May 1944 for the mine to be reopened and 1,720 long tons (1,750 t) of ore to be purchased at $1.45 a pound." – I'd prefer "negotiated" to "hammered out", and I think the sentence would flow better if you started with "In May 1944,".
    Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ¶3 "the principal reason the Americans reopened the negotiations resulting in the Modus Vivendi" – Should this be rendered as "a modus vivendi" or possibly more plainly as "a provisional accord"?
    No, this was a particular agreement. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nuclear reactors
  • ¶1 "British staff at the Montreal Laboratory designed a larger reactor, known as BEPO, in 1945 and 1946..." – "British staff at the Montreal Laboratory had designed a larger reactor, known as BEPO, in 1945 and 1946..." since BEPO is explained in Uranium metal plant, and the action is in the past?
    Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ¶2 "Such an event that did indeed occur in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986." – Remove "that"?
    Deleted. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Plutonium-processing facilities
  • ¶3 "After 1946, the only source of plutonium was from the NRX reactor in Canada, and irradiated rods from there did arrive in Britain under mid-1948." – Should this say, "did not arrive until"?
    Yes. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Gaseous diffusion plant
Bomb design
Testing
Outcome
  • ¶3 "The was desired..." – "This was desired..."?
    Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ¶3 "led to the United States Atomic Energy Act being amended in 1958..." – Slightly smoother as "led to amendment of the United States Atomic Energy Act in 1958..."?
  • You are welcome. All looks good with the exception of the links within the blockquotes. I halfway agree with you. I wouldn't think it strictly necessary to link "great power", "isolationist", "Secretary of State", or "Foreign Secretary" within the quotes since I think most readers can suss out the meaning OK, but "Mr. Byrnes" is a different matter and possibly "Union Jack". Regardless, I'm happy to support on prose, as noted above. Finetooth (talk) 15:05, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

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  • "The first nuclear reactor in the UK, a small research reactor known as GLEEP, went critical" Is not criticality required specifically for nuclear power rather than bombs? I assume that it is an intermediate stage for a bomb, but clarification would be helpful.
    Nuclear reactors can be used to breed plutonium, which is used in bombs. When a uranium-235 nucleus absorbs a neutron, it splits in two parts, releasing energy and more neutrons. In a reactor, we have a controlled nuclear chain reaction in which the number of neutrons in the system stays steady. In a bomb, there is an out-of-control nuclear chain reaction that blows everything apart. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is unclear at the end. It should be stated that Blue Danube was designed by HER, and that the hopes for a renewal of the special relationship were because the missile was a failure (if this is true). When did HER end?
    With the development of the atomic bomb. Added a bit to this effect in the lead. Blue Danube was a free-fall bomb, not a missile. It would be nice to have a picture of it, but the only one we have is a fair-use image. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Anglo-Canadian Montreal Laboratory" The Canadian role has not been explained.
    The Canadian role in the Manhattan Project is detailed in the Montreal Laboratory article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Attlee set up a cabinet sub-committee, the Gen 75 Committee (known informally by Attlee as the "Atomic Bomb Committee"),[52] on 10 August 1945". As this is going back to an earlier date than the previous section, I think "Attlee had set up" would be clearer.
    Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which functioned as both an advisory and an interdepartmental body" I am not clear what this means. What was the interdepartmental function?
    An advisory body provides the government with advice; and interdepartmental body co-ordinates the work of different government departments. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "had met in Washington, DC, in November 1944, and drawn up a proposal for an atomic energy research establishment" Was this to be a purely British establishment, even though they met in Washington? If so, I would delete the location as confusing.
    Inserted "British". Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I got confused about your comments about a reactor and separation plant. You appear to say that Britain could not afford both, and then that a facility for both was approved.
    Slightly re-worded to make this clearer. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "was approached by C. P. Snow" What office did Snow hold?
    He was a Civil Service Commissioner. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am not sure any change is needed, but it is interesting that there seem to have been two quite different reasons for building a bomb, Bevin's that it was required for prestige, and Attlee's reasonable argument that at the time it looked as if the USA might revert to isolationism, and Europe have to face an aggressive Soviet Union alone.
    Yes. But note that Attlee's reasons disappeared with the formation of NATO in 1949, but HER continued. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There was no known alternative fuel for nuclear reactors other than uranium, so securing an adequate supply was crucial to the British atomic energy programme." You have mentioned above plutonium as an alternative for bombs. Does the comment here refer to reactors for nuclear energy?
    Yes, "nuclear reactors" means for energy. You can power a reactor with plutonium; but you need uranium to produce the plutonium, which puts you in a chicken-and-egg situation. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • More to follow. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "on the site of a poison gas plant" a former poison gas plant?
    Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:22, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead you say the project terminated in 1953, but in the 'Gaseous diffusion plant' sub-section you appear to imply that it carried on until 1961. Were weapons of the later 1950s designed under a successor project?
    High Explosive Research built the plants. The plants continued to operate for many years after. The successor project was the British hydrogen bomb programme. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:22, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry but I have abandoned this review. I cannot read pages with flashing images. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    You can disable them in your browser. If you are using Firefox, go into the about:config and set image.animation_mode to "none". In Google Chrome, bring up the "Animation Policy" and disable them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:22, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "For safety reasons, he wanted the core inserted like a plug while the bomber was in flight." No change needed, but was he aware of the decision to make a similar change to Little Boy in case the plane crashed on take off?
    I do not know. However, Penney was present on Tinian, so it seems highly likely. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Responsibility for the development of atomic bombs lay outside the realm of the Ministry of Defence. One reason for this was that it was only created in October 1946, with Tizard as the departmental scientific advisor." I do not understand this, although this may be because I have forgotten something you said earlier in the article. You say in the lead that the decision to launch the project was taken in January 1947, and it came under the Ministry of Supply. DNB on Tizard says he returned to Whitehall as chairman of the defence research policy committee in January 1947, but the committee was debarred from discussing nuclear weapons. So are you saying that the Ministry of Defence was excluded because it was considered too new to take responsibility for nuclear weapons, and because Tizard was regarded as an opponent of them?
    Tizard was appointed the CSA to the MOD in November 1946. He became chairman of the DPRC in January 1947. I have elaborated on this. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The possession of nuclear reactors, the means to produce nuclear fuels and a repository of scientific knowledge led to the creation of a vast nuclear power industry." No change needed, but I have seen it argued that nuclear power was based on uranium instead to the safer thorium because thorium reactors would not produce fuel for bombs. Do you give any credence to this claim?
    Thorium was of interest in the early days because it was known to be abundant, whereas uranium was thought to be scarce. But once uranium became valuable, people started prospecting for it, and it was found to be not nearly as rare as first thought. The idea was that thorium can be irradiated to produce uranium-233, which is fissile, and can therefore be used in a reactor. Like plutonium, you first need to have a reactor to produce it. You can then breed more uranium-233 from thorium than you consume. This can be attractive to a country like India, which has plenty of thorium but not much uranium. For the rest of us though, it is far more convenient to breed plutonium from uranium-238, because uranium-233 has nasty decay products that are powerful gamma ray emitters, and it is therefore more difficult to handle than plutonium. Uranium-233 can be used in bombs; India has done so, and the Americans once built a bomb using uranium-233, just to show that they could. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:35, 16 August 2017 (UTC) I reviewed this article at GAN and again at Milhist ACR and have reviewed all the changes made since then, and consider that it meets the FA criteria. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:35, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: Unless I've missed it somewhere, we still need a source review. It can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:28, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review from Ealdgyth

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Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:59, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: I think we just need a response to Ealdgyth's last query about Carey Sublette. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:08, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: It might be worth someone checking duplinks as we have one or two close together. Otherwise, between this and the A-Class review, I think we are good to go. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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