The MAUD Committee
In England, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, two researchers at Birmingham University, issued the Frisch–Peierls memorandum in March 1940. The memorandum contradicted the common thinking of the time that many tons of uranium-235 would be needed to make a bomb, requiring delivery by ship. The calculation in the memorandum showed that a bomb might be possible using as little as one pound of uranium-235, and could be quite practical for aircraft to carry.
Frisch and Peierls's professor, Marcus Oliphant, passed the memorandum on to Henry Tizard, chairman of the Committee on the Scientific Survey of Air Defence who requested the MAUD Committee be established secretly - the "MAUD" standing for "Military Application of Uranium Detonation". The first meeting was on April 10, 1940 and the committee consisted of Sir George Paget Thomson as chairman and Marcus Oliphant, Patrick Blackett, James Chadwick, Philip Moon, and John Cockcroft as members. Ralph H. Fowler was also asked to send the progress reports to Lyman Briggs.
Read more about this topic: S-1 Uranium Committee
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