McAllister Hull was just 21 when he began working at Los Alamos Labs in 1944.
"The work was interesting, the significance of the war was understood, and it never occurred to me to think of my age," Hull said in an e-mail interview.
His memoir, Rider of the Pale Horse, documents his experience casting explosions for what would be the atomic bomb.
"The title of the book comes from my feelings of responsibility for some of the deaths of civilians in Japan who were killed or severely wounded by the nuclear bomb," he said.
The book was published August 8, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japan. It was the Nagasaki bomb that had parts made by a crew of scientists of which Hull was foreman.
He said he wrote the book to inform people about the positive and negative uses of physics by society, like the use of nuclear energy for power and weapons.
"Nuclear weapons provide the prime example of the need for the citizens of a democratic society to find out what the deployment of a given technology may bring to that society and how it should be controlled to give maximum benefits with minimum disasters," he said.
Hull said he thought the general public would like to hear from the ranks of workers in Los Alamos about what happened and its consequences. But he also said he hopes readers find it an enjoyable story.
ull is a retired physicist professor and former provost at UNM. After his to-year stint at Los Alamos, he spent 25 years at Yale, earning his PhD, teaching and studying the effects of the creation of the atomic bomb. Although Los Alamos was the most intense two years in his career, he said perhaps his eight years as provost was harder.
Writing the book was easy, he said, since he just wrote down what he said in class lectures. He said his students were especially interested in his lab experience and his explanation translated easily into memoir.
"The biggest secret of Los Alamos was that a bomb could be built," Hull said. "Any technological society could then duplicate the effort if it wished."
He said the increase of nuclear weapons in the world is dangerous. Many people who worked on the bombs did not know the immensity of what they were doing, he said. But Hull said they faithfully did the jobs they were asked to do.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
He said the hardest part of his experience was knowing the next step after the success of the Trinity Test would be to use the bomb on civilian and military enemy targets.
Hull said he hasn't worked on weapons since his research with others on the hydrogen bomb.
"But I would return to such work if the country was in danger," he said.
