Tickling the Dragon's Tail

[cimmo]

I watched the first 10 minutes. It seems to be shallow and sensational ("it contains the energy forged in an exploding star!").

Does it get better?

No.
All gloss and no real substance.
I still wonder why they bothered to explain uranium's daughter products, but not one mention of the "P" word for the entire two hours. On the few occasions where plutonium is exclusively used in practice and not actual uranium (eg: the RTG description), they resort to euphemisms - "nuclear".

Clearly a decision was made to simplify the story and by avoiding mention of plutonium, then that avoids the need to explain how it is made from uranium. And yet the show is peppered with trivial irrelevancies like the etymology of the word "dollar".

[JohnnyP]

Yes, time to dust off my copy of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

I have always been fascinated by the bomb, wondering how people figured out it could be done.

It must have been the early '90's when I found it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble.  But, that was before the internet, when I had time to read.

[Rick Law]

Yes, time to dust off my copy of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

I have always been fascinated by the bomb, wondering how people figured out it could be done.

It must have been the early '90's when I found it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble.  But, that was before the internet, when I had time to read.

The movie Fat Man and Little Boy answers many of your questions.  It was am entertaining version of the Manhattan project and more or less true.  (Lots of drama but enough truth in it not to be totally misleading.)

[TerraHertz]

This dumbed down glossy presentation will now give the Dunning-Kruger types just enough information for them to think they know it all (and have no need to find out more) - when what they have been told is only a fraction of the real story.

What do you think is the purpose of such productions?
For every significant historical event, there are one or more such efforts.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
-- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981.

Given all the other 'victor's history' examples from WWII, I doubt we'll ever know how far Germany had developed their nuclear program. And what, if any, interactions there were with the Manhattan program.

I hope the Iron Sky 2 sequel is as side-splitting as the first.

[Someone]

I watched the first 10 minutes. It seems to be shallow and sensational ("it contains the energy forged in an exploding star!").

Does it get better?

No.
All gloss and no real substance.
I still wonder why they bothered to explain uranium's daughter products, but not one mention of the "P" word for the entire two hours. On the few occasions where plutonium is exclusively used in practice and not actual uranium (eg: the RTG description), they resort to euphemisms - "nuclear".

Clearly a decision was made to simplify the story and by avoiding mention of plutonium, then that avoids the need to explain how it is made from uranium. And yet the show is peppered with trivial irrelevancies like the etymology of the word "dollar".

And despite ruining the catchy phrase "Tickling the Dragons Tail" they avoided mentioning the early criticality measurements which brought it all about (and killed people in the process)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godiva_device
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

[EEVblog]

No.
All gloss and no real substance.
I still wonder why they bothered to explain uranium's daughter products, but not one mention of the "P" word for the entire two hours. On the few occasions where plutonium is exclusively used in practice and not actual uranium (eg: the RTG description), they resort to euphemisms - "nuclear".

Yes, I found this very surprising too, thinking when will they bring up Plutonium but they never did.
Also, no mention of half-life at all and how that works with Uranium and it's "daughters".

Clearly a decision was made to simplify the story and by avoiding mention of plutonium, then that avoids the need to explain how it is made from uranium. And yet the show is peppered with trivial irrelevancies like the etymology of the word "dollar".

I was also surprised in the end credits to find that Derek didn't write any of it, he was just the presenter. Just some extra camera work by him. Strange given his background.
Seems like he took some time out to shoot some personal Veritasium footage on the wordwide trip