IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB621898765

Secrecy and the Genesis of the 1951 Dutch-Norwegian Nuclear Reactor (2021)

Kleemans, Machiel (Author)

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Volume: 51
Issue: 1
Pages: 48-86
Publication date: 2021
Language: English

URI: https://online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article/51/1/48/116292/Secrecy-and-the-Genesis-of-the-1951-Dutch

DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2021.51.1.48

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Scientific communities; interprofessional relations Information networks Secrecy Nationalism Knowledge circulation International cooperation Nuclear reactors 20th century, late Netherlands Norway

Despite the restrictions on knowledge and materials of the Anglo-American nuclear monopoly in the early Cold War, Norway and the Netherlands managed to build and operate a joint nuclear reactor by July 1951. They were the first countries to do so after the Great Powers. Their success was largely due to the combination of the strategic materials of heavy water (Norway) and uranium (the Netherlands). Nonetheless, they had to overcome significant political and technical obstacles. In that process a number of specific nuclear secrets played a central role. This case is used to study how and why knowledge circulation was impeded by secrecy. Specifically, I will explore four different secrets that illustrate how the Netherlands and Norway, being outside the British and American secrecy regimes, chafed against those regimes. Knowledge circulation was enabled through relations within networks that were at the same time scientific, diplomatic, and personal. I will identify three main factors that affected the mobility of information: the availability of strategic nuclear materials, the scientists’ individual interactions, and national interests.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB621898765

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Munns, David P. D.; (2013)
A Single Sky: How an International Community Forged the Science of Radio Astronomy (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320933/)

Article Hilgartner, Stephen; (2012)
Selective Flows of Knowledge in Technoscientific Interaction: Information Control in Genome Research (/p/isis/citation/CBB001221397/)

Article Sætre, Alf Steinar; Wiggins, Joel; Atkinson, Ola Thomas; Atkinson, Beate Kristin Ellerås; (2009)
University Spin-Offs as Technology Transfer: A Comparative Study among Norway, the United States, and Sweden (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032363/)

Article Jaehwan Hyun; (2019)
Doctors Discussing “the Root of Koreans”: Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987 (/p/isis/citation/CBB687025250/)

Book Anderson, Robert S.; (2010)
Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India (/p/isis/citation/CBB001020066/)

Article Na, Hang Ryeol; (2012)
Nationalism as a Factor for an International Environmental Regime: Korea and the East Asian Biosphere Reserve Network (EABRN) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001231667/)

Book Latham, Michael E.; (2000)
Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (/p/isis/citation/CBB000330839/)

Article DiMoia, John; (2012)
Transnational Scientific Networks and the Research University: The Making of a South Korean Community at the University of Utah, 1948--1970 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001231664/)

Article Leung, Ricky C.; (2012)
Network Building in the Innovation Journey: How Chinese Science Institutes Jump on the Nanotech Bandwagon (/p/isis/citation/CBB001251505/)

Article Julia Harriet Menzel; (2021)
Wilsonian Renormalization in the 1970s: Labor Markets, Geopolitics, and the Rise of a New Theory (/p/isis/citation/CBB977754516/)

Article Tang, Li; Hu, Guangyuan; (2013)
Tracing the Footprint of Knowledge Spillover: Evidence from U.S.--China Collaboration in Nanotechnology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320128/)

Book Alison Kraft; (2022)
From Dissent to Diplomacy: The Pugwash Project During the 1960s Cold War (/p/isis/citation/CBB579502917/)

Article Elbers, Astrid; (2012)
De relaties tussen Nederlandse astronomen en hun Sovjetcollega's tijdens de Koude Oorlog: tussen pragmatisme en idealisme (/p/isis/citation/CBB001251320/)

Book Helvoort, T. van; (2005)
De KNAW tussen wetenschap en politiek: De positie van de scheikunde in de Akademie in naoorlogs Nederland (/p/isis/citation/CBB001232407/)

Book Helvoort, Ton van; (2008)
De chemie van de universitaire wetenschapsbeoefening: Een halve eeuw scheikunde in Groningen, 1945--1995 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001232406/)

Article Rolv Petter Amdam; Robert Fredona; Sophus A. Reinert; (Summer 2019)
Breaking Even: Political Economy and Private Enterprise in the Norwegian Glass Industry, 1739–1803 (/p/isis/citation/CBB139620027/)

Article Alison Lynn McManus; (2022)
Science, Interrupted: Censorship and the Problem of Credit Allocation in the American Advisory Committee on Scientific Publications, 1940–46 (/p/isis/citation/CBB982908408/)

Chapter DiMeo, Michelle; (2011)
Openness vs. Secrecy in the Hartlib Circle: Revisiting “Democratic Baconianism” in Interregnum England (/p/isis/citation/CBB001250320/)

Thesis Santiago Guzmán Gámez; (2023)
Science for Colombia : Scientific Nationalism, and the Case of Enrique Pérez Arbeláez, 1929-1957 (/p/isis/citation/CBB062961078/)

Article Davids, Karel; (2005)
Public Knowledge and Common Secrets: Secrecy and Its Limits in the Early-Modern Netherlands (/p/isis/citation/CBB000640032/)