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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Marvin Wilkening

PhysicistChicago, IL

Hanford, WALos Alamos, NMOak Ridge, TNTrinity Site
Manhattan Project VeteranScientistTrinity Test Eyewitness
Chicago Listen to Marvin Wilkening’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Marvin Wilkening, a physicist, traveled the Grand Circuit of the Manhattan Project, pursuing his specialty of measuring neutron intensity. He was at the first chain reaction in Chicago, then moved to Oak Ridge, next to Hanford, Los Alamos, and Trinity. He witnessed the Trinity test and before the Army restricted visitors, he regularly took his New Mexico Tech physics students on field trips to Trinity. 

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