An Introduction To Chapter 1

An introduction to chapter 1 Warning this is a rambling unpolished personal journal produced over a 3 day period. It may contain plot spoilers. You might want to read the novel and ignore the chapter introductions entirely. I have decided upon a unique structure for this novel. It is going to be produce in a serial format for the Internet much the way Dickens wrote his novels for magazines. I am committing myself to Produce a chapter each month starting in the middle of the month. Before I begin the actual work I am going to spend the first 3 days writing about The process and where I expect to go during the month. The introductions will be separate from the actual work and intended for those Who want to take a look behind the scenes and see how the thing evolves. If you do read the introductions it may take away for the story. This introduction is due Oct. 15 2006. the first chapter is due Nov. 11. The novel began with a conversation with Gary Christopherson. He had a plot outline for a thriller about a plane load of refined uranium that was supposed to be flown by a bush pilot From Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories to Nevada. We were to work on it together. It was a good story but during the process I discovered that it wasn’t my story. The story that evolved was about Werner Heisenberg the German scientist who was head of the Nazis effort to build an atomic weapon. Germany should have developed a nuclear weapon before the USA. At the start of the war all of the scientists working on nuclear physics were German with the exception of a handful that were working with Nils Bohr in Denmark. In addition to scientific expertise the other two things necessary to produce an atomic weapon were fissionable Uranium and heavy water to control the reaction. The only large source of pitchblende from which fissionable Uranium could be extracted was in the Belgian Congo, which was controlled by Germany. The only source of deuterium oxide or heavy water was Norway where heavy water was being produced for Bohr in a remote Hydro electric plant. In the novel I am going to focus on three explanations for Germany’s failure to produce a nuclear weapon. Einstein and other key scientists fled from Germany. Heisenberg made an error in Calculation, which lead the Nazi’s to believe that the amount of uranium necessary to produce a weapon would be prohibitive (was this a deliberate error?) and the allies blew up the passenger barge, which was bringing a precious cargo of heavy water to Germany. Had the heavy water reached Germany experimental evidence would have

refuted Heisenberg’s erroneous calculations. To add tension and suspense I have place Heisenberg’s wife and daughter on the barge. In the first chapter Heisenberg wins the Nobel Prize. (In the Novel Heisenberg will Become Hoffstein). He returns to Germany not as a hero but as a pariah a “Jewish thinker” who is publicly vilified. He decides not flee but to stay in his beloved fatherland The chapter ends as he bids farewell to his wife and daughter who he sends to the safety of Norway to stay with researchers who are working at the heavy water plant.