Two Stories About Tacit Knowledge - by Rohit
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To build a nuke or (can) not build a nuke
Here are two stories about tacit knowledge. Lawrence Radiation Laboratory hired three fresh PhDs with little nuclear physics background and asked them to go build a nuke, and they did. The DoE in the 1990s realised they didn't know how to make a particular foam crucial to nuclear warheads, and spent a decade and $70m inventing a substitute - (h/t Leopold) They pleasingly mirror each other, which is nice for storytelling but kind of a paradox. In one, we spend untold millions in figuring out the smallest moving part to manufacture, and in the other some smart alec fresh faces postdocs made…
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