The timer consisted of a precision-engineered, thermister-looped, roto-motor that slowly lowered a wedge-shaped chip of glass through one arm of a Michelson interferometer. As the optical path of that arm lengthened, due to the light’s passage through progressively thicker and thicker segments of glass, so the successive maxima and minima of the fringe pattern were counted by a phototriode. At the end of twenty counts a safety-catch was jettisoned and the acousto-responsive timing mechanism triggered. The safety catch activated another of the bomb’s highly subtle anti-tampering devices: the ‘H.T. resistive bomb protector’. This worked by passing a potentially lethal 100 amp current through the bomb’s outer casing. Both the current, and the fact that it caused the bomb’s casing to glow red-hot, were intended to deter any casual interference with, or handling of, the device. So, with the countdown progressing and the bomb approaching red-hot, everything now looked to be on schedule.
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