A new analysis of surviving World War II artifacts has concluded that the Nazi effort to build an atomic bomb was ultimately derailed by its lead physicist fundamentally botching the procurement math.
Calculations performed on surviving two-inch uranium blocks, known to historians as "Heisenberg cubes," indicate that the legendary quantum physicist attempted to build a working nuclear reactor with roughly half the uranium actually required to reach critical mass.
Modern analysts studying the German experimental reactor at Haigerloch confirmed that the famed creator of the uncertainty principle essentially ruined the Third Reich’s weapon roadmap by failing to provision raw materials at scale.
It is profoundly comforting to learn that the free world was saved because one of history's greatest scientific minds treated a weapons-grade materials order like he was guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar.
Historical records suggest Heisenberg’s team successfully suspended 664 uranium cubes in heavy water, a design that would have achieved a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction had the lead scientist bothered to request an additional 400 cubes from the Oranienburg processing plant. Archival memos indicate Heisenberg may have avoided increasing his initial order to spare himself the embarrassment of submitting a revised budget request to the Army Ordnance Office.
Requisition forms recovered from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute are currently being preserved in a digital archive so that contemporary project managers can review them whenever they feel bad about missing a quarterly deliverable.