Part 2/10:
In 1944, the arrival of plutonium samples from the first reactor bred at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, signaled a turning point for the Los Alamos project. The only existing plutonium had previously been produced in minuscule quantities via the Berkeley cyclotron. However, the new samples exhibited alarming behavior in terms of alpha particle emissions. A standard sample from the cyclotron registered approximately one count per month, but the larger reactor samples were emitting an astounding eight counts in just three days.