Monster truck FERMIAC

Abstract

After World War II, Los Alamos was anxious for its own computer. While on a walk along the river during a picnic with their families, Enrico Fermi outlined to L.D.P. King a plan for an analog computer to simulate neutron transport. L.D.P. King built it with materials lying around the Omega Site in Los Alamos Canyon. They used the “FERMIAC” for a couple of years, and it was forgotten, until 1966, when Bengt Carlson found it in his office. The lab drew up some blueprints and it went out on loan to the Smithsonian. It is now on display at LANL’s Bradbury Science Museum. There still are several questions as to how the FERMIAC was used. The FERMIAC is too fragile to handle, so our plan in the summer of 2017 was to build a museum-quality replica, much like the Italians did last year. However, the summer student was leaving before it could be re-constructed. Thus, finding ourselves in a similar situation as Fermi and King, we developed our own one-speed neutron transporter fashioned out of the chassis of a toy monster truck. We describe our “Monster Truck FERMIAC” on an XY problem.

KEYWORD:

• Neutron trolley

Acknowledgments

Gordon McDonough and Linda Deck of the Bradbury Science Museum; Alan Carr, LANL Historian; Deborah Shapiro and Peggy Kidwell of the Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Giancarlo C. Righini of the Enrico Fermi Center; Connor Houdek’s family for the toy monster truck. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract DEAC52-06NA25396). Connor Houdek was funded by the LANL director as part of the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund summer student program. Document release number LA-UR-18-25338.