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Lot 1051
MANHATTAN PROJECT: VIEWING WINDOW GLASS Glass specimen, approximately 150 x 121 x 72 mm.
25 October 2022, 14:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$20,400 inc. premium
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MANHATTAN PROJECT: VIEWING WINDOW GLASS
Glass specimen, approximately 150 x 121 x 72 mm.
Provenance: From the Manhattan Project's Hanford site in southwestern Washington.
This high-tech glass specimen is composed of a high percentage of lead oxide, 70%, producing its deep yellow color. Specifications for this heavily leaded, extraordinarily clear glass were highly exacting as many layers were needed to protect scientists from radiation. Due to it's high lead content, it reacts more like a metal than a glass, crumbling when ground or cut, and sweating like ice when heated. Emitting an eerie yellow glow, it evokes the material's atomic origin. Despite the material's provenance, the glass is not radioactive.
The viewing window from which this derives was employed in the production of plutonium by the Secret WWII Manhattan project bomb program, which developed the Atomic Bomb Little Boy, the Trinity Test, and the first ever Hydrogen Bomb, as well as the Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. The original viewing windows were used at the Manhattan Project's Hanford Site, located in Southeastern Washington. Subsequently purchased from the federal government by a salvage operator for its metal window casements, the glass passed through the hands of a collector and into the hands of the present owner.
The Manhattan Project is known as the most ambitious weapons program in human history, with J. Robert Oppenheimer as its scientific director, and a team of some of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century working in nearly 40 laboratories, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Enrico Fermi and Harold Urey, to name but a few. Recognizing its historical significance and contemplating its continued influence on our world remain central to our understanding of the evolution of the human species and the dual nature—both destructive and creative—of human ingenuity.
Provenance: From the Manhattan Project's Hanford site in southwestern Washington.
This high-tech glass specimen is composed of a high percentage of lead oxide, 70%, producing its deep yellow color. Specifications for this heavily leaded, extraordinarily clear glass were highly exacting as many layers were needed to protect scientists from radiation. Due to it's high lead content, it reacts more like a metal than a glass, crumbling when ground or cut, and sweating like ice when heated. Emitting an eerie yellow glow, it evokes the material's atomic origin. Despite the material's provenance, the glass is not radioactive.
The viewing window from which this derives was employed in the production of plutonium by the Secret WWII Manhattan project bomb program, which developed the Atomic Bomb Little Boy, the Trinity Test, and the first ever Hydrogen Bomb, as well as the Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. The original viewing windows were used at the Manhattan Project's Hanford Site, located in Southeastern Washington. Subsequently purchased from the federal government by a salvage operator for its metal window casements, the glass passed through the hands of a collector and into the hands of the present owner.
The Manhattan Project is known as the most ambitious weapons program in human history, with J. Robert Oppenheimer as its scientific director, and a team of some of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century working in nearly 40 laboratories, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Enrico Fermi and Harold Urey, to name but a few. Recognizing its historical significance and contemplating its continued influence on our world remain central to our understanding of the evolution of the human species and the dual nature—both destructive and creative—of human ingenuity.