so when i was a teenager i got really
excited by a film called the heroes of
telemark this is how it was
this is where it happened about
six norwegian
commandos
who raided a factory making heavy water
d2o
and destroyed the plant
frustrating german plans to make an atom
bomb stay quiet
stay close
stay with us
come right inside the heavy water plant
at telemach
and the whole raid was done without
injuring anybody over the years i've
read several books about it including a
really nice one here called skis against
the atom
wonderful title written by one of the
guys who actually took part in the raid
then out of the blue just a few weeks
ago i got an email from a guy called
john pearson who'd seen our video on
heavy water where he mentioned this raid
and he said that his father sid pearson
had been involved as a technician
making the film the heroes of telemark
at the plant
where this heavy water is still made he
also said
that his father when the filming ended
was presented with a sample of heavy
water
by the plant
as a souvenir
and john pearson
had this sample of heavy water sitting
on the shelf in his study and offered to
give it to me
so that i could show it to my students
and people who are interested in
chemistry
so of course i said yes and here it is
and you can see it's got a beautiful
label saying deuterium oxide with a
picture of a viking longship on it and
the lid is nailed down but you can pull
it off
and inside
is a really nice polished stainless
steel tube which has
at the top a picture of the viking long
ship
and on the front here has the label of
the company north caidro
which made the heavy water
it's called hydro because it's a
hydroelectric company using this cheap
electricity to electrolyze water so that
you can isolate the heavy water
this is real heavy water
and i will unscrew the container
see i dropped it
and
inside
is the vial of heavy water with my shaky
hands i don't trust myself to take it
out but i'll let you take it out to show
our viewers well i think they blew up
mostly the tanks that contained the
heavy water
and part of the electrolysis plant
sadly
from the point of view of history
it was repaired fairly quickly
in that case answer me this
how long will it take before production
gets back into high gear again
so a second attack had to be made
and this was also in the film
in which
the
train
or the two tanker cars taking the heavy
water away from the plant they were
sabotaged on a ferry that was taking
them across the fjord
you probably know in norway they have
these narrow
fingers of the sea going in which are
very deep
so if something sinks
you can't easily
salvage them again this was successful
the tanks went to the bottom
but sadly several people who were
innocent passengers on the ferry
were killed
in wartime
presumably it was felt that this was a
risk worth taking to prevent the heavy
water getting into the hands of those
who might have built an atom bomb
heavy water
is important because
in a nuclear reactor
the
important thing is to control
neutrons
the neutrons that cause
the uranium to split
to
undergo fission and ordinary water
absorbs
neutrons very strongly
whereas heavy water which contains
deuterium does not so you can make a
nuclear reactor
using uranium and heavy water
and you need the water to remove the
heat because otherwise the uranium would
overheat
and you'd get a bomb or an explosion
while you were still doing the reaction
to produce
presumably the plutonium that they
wanted to produce experimentation with
heavy water that's all with deuterium
oxide yes yes we know so norway was
occupied by germany was it it was
invaded in 1940
the commandos that carried out this raid
escaped to
the uk they were trained
in sabotage
in scotland and then they were flown
back to norway for this raid the
explosions only destroyed
the tanks inside
and
my understanding was that they were
like several hundred liters it was not
like an oil refinery
you want to know what it's all about
all right
i'll tell you
that's what it's all about
you understand what are you gonna do
with that now
so well at the moment i'm keeping it in
my study
and
when after the pandemic i go back to my
office at the university i may well take
it there
and
i'm really pleased to have my own sample
of heavy water and to show people and to
inspire
young scientists of the future
especially
with the great story about this
particular sample the other thing is
that
it turns out sid pearson
father
made
films or took part in the making of lots
of my favorite films from when i was
young
there's a web link
which will show you
a list of everything that he made so you
can see how productive he was
and
this is a great souvenir to have
and a great way to
continue the memory
of a very talented technician
that martin polycov has been on us to do
for a while so we're finally finally
going to get it get around to doing it
he's very excited about it and what
we're going to talk about is deuterium
oxide okay so deuterium oxide is often
referred to as heavy water