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A candid letter recounting Feynman's late 1945 tour of plutonium facilities for the Manhattan Project, among his last work on the project. The letter captures Feynman in a period of personal and professional transition, as he reflects on the atomic bombings, contemplates his post-war career, and grapples with tragedy in his marriage. In September 1945, Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was coming to the end of his three-year stay at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined the Manhattan Project immediately after completing his doctorate, and jointly devised the formula for predicting nuclear energy yields. This letter describes, in couched language, a safety inspection tour of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington - the two vast factory cities producing plutonium for the atomic bomb. Feynman's work as a safety inspector is among the lesser-known of his contributions to the project. During a previous trip to Oak Ridge, he comprehensively reworked the plant's arrangements for storing uranium, leading many of the workers to credit him with preventing a catastrophic accident. Much of the letter is devoted to his observations of the American landscape, and particularly the Rocky Mountains, from the air - as he put it, "I sure like to fly". The typically jaunty tone disguises a period of intense personal tragedy for Feynman. In June 1945, his wife and childhood sweetheart Arline died from a long-standing tuberculosis infection. Feynman initially coped with the loss by immersing himself in the final preparations for the Trinity test on 16 July, making a concerted effort to avoid sympathy. As he was to record years later, it was only while he was in Oak Ridge, with the main work of the project complete, that the sight of a pretty dress in a department store window led him to break down over her death. The letter also alludes to his impending appointment as associate professor at Cornell, a post arranged by his director at Los Alamos. Feynman reflects that this was "a kind of surprise. I thought we would be stuck up here for one or two years - I didn't dare hope our thing would finish the war". Carol Field (1924-2023) grew up in Cedarhurst, Long Island, a little over a mile away from the Feynman family home in Far Rockaway, Queens. The letter and envelope include the Box 1663 heading: for several years this was the only address the outside world had for Los Alamos. Single sheet of Feynman's printed letterhead (241 x 158 mm), written on both sides in pencil, totalling 38 lines, with envelope addressed in Feynman's hand and franked Santa Fe 18 September 1945. Light creasing, edges crisp, slight browning and foxing to envelope: in very good condition.
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