Purdue and The Manhattan Project

The United States late involvement in world war two didn’t just bring Americans into the fight, it also began the most secretive national defense program in the history of our country. The government had started a product so shrouded in mystery, and upon its completion ushered civilization into a new era of weaponry and scare tactics. Dubbed the Manhattan Project by President Eisenhower, it was so shrouded in mystery and secrecy that not even vice president Truman knew of its existence until he would ultimately take office. But with all that was going on in the artificially created Oak Ridge, Tennessee regarding the project, not many people know of its existence here at Purdue.

It is definitely not common knowledge to the students that there was heavy cooperation between Purdue University professors and the highest of officers in the Manhattan project. These professors were approached and asked to leave their studies to work on the project. When they complied, they began to meet and work together on theoretical nuclear processes; all in the basement of the union.

Students cannot find this room in the union however, because there was so much secrecy involved with the work that the scientists upon completion of the work had the room fully closed. The room has been since lost and is (obviously) inaccessible in the basement of the union. But the legacy of Purdue’s involvement with the Manhattan Project will forever live on in the world of nuclear sciences. Coined in one of the many secretive meetings of theirs, one of the scientists referred to the nucleus of a Uranium atom as being “as big as a barn”. Since then the “barn” has been a unit of area in the nuclear science world that has stuck and is still used today.

                                         Image taken from Bloomberg.com

While there is no way you can actually go and visit the manhattan room in the union, you should take some time exploring the basement of the Union if you have never been there. It is a mysterious looking place and definitely the kind of environment you would expect the world’s most secret scientific operation to have unfolded. It is quite a silent observer of American history.