The Atomic Bomb

The idea that mass could be changed into energy was predicted by Albert Einstein in the earlier part of the 1900’s. John D. Cockcroft and Ernest Walton confirmed this by experiments in 1932. Then in 1938, nuclear fission was discovered by German scientists, and it was feared by many of the U.S. scientists, that Hitler would try to build a

In 1942 Major General Leslie Groves began direction of the Manhattan project, a 4 year project created to make nuclear weaponry. It was headquartered out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but they had many locations across the United States and Canada. Some say that the Us should have dropped the Atomic bomb because of the unknown amount of people who could have died if we didn’t stop. Although, The United States shouldn’t have dropped the atomic bomb because of the cost of life, the health effects on survivors, and it pushed us into an arms race with Russia.

Even before the outbreak of War, the United States was concerned with a fascist regime in Europe researching in nuclear weapons. In retaliation, the United States began to fund an atomic weapon development program which became known as “The Manhattan Project” led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Over the next several years, the Manhattan project started obtaining key materials such as Uranium-235 and Plutonium and testing prototypes until they reached a working model (Coroner).

Well known scientist Albert Einstein, who fled from Nazi persecution, and Enrico Fermi who escaped Fascist Italy, were now living in the United States, on which they both agreed that the President should be enlightened of the vulnerability of atomic technology that was in the hands of Axis power. Fermi made an attempt and travelled to Washington in March to express his involvement with the government officials, who showed little to no concern. Einstein who as well shared a great concern in this topic; penned a letter to President Roosevelt imploring the development of an atomic research program later that year. Roosevelt saw neither prerequisite nor adequacy for such a project, but agreed to proceed gradually. In late 1941, the American effort to scheme and build an atomic bomb which received the code name as the Manhattan Project. The very first research was placed at only a few universities such as Columbia University, University of Chicago, and the University in California at Berkeley. The

The Manhattan project was an organization that was formed to make mass weapons of war. It was formed in fear of the Germans, and we used the project to make first atomic bomb. The first atomic was done “under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.” His research “ushered in the atomic age”, and his group helped us make the first atomic bombs

World War 2 was one of the worst wars in world history. The allied forces, the U.S., France, China, Russia, and Great Britain, were at war against the axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, to stop the nazis from taking over the world. There were many bad events and battles that happened over the 6 year time span of the war; but one of the worst has to be the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings at the end of the war. Some people say that the U.S. Needed to drop the bombs to save American and Japanese lives. Some think otherwise, that the bombs were not nessecary to end the war. Even the scientists who created the bombs believed it shouldn't have been used. Once the bomb was created, there was controversy

The Manhattan Project was a secret project that was kept from public knowledge and even the vice president didn’t even know about the project until the completion of the project was nearly done. The Manhattan Project has hundreds of scientists and was based out of numerous locations spread through out the country and there were many testing sights, but the most common testing sight was the one that was located in a desert in New Mexico and it was the Trinity Test Tower where they would test the effectiveness of the bombs that they made during the Manhattan Project.

Though the scientists themselves were the ones to encourage the creation of the atom bomb, their plans and views differed immensely from those of the military. As World War II raged on, Germany was suspected of harnessing atomic energy and directing it into powering a weapon. Albert Einstein, agreeing with Leo Silzard, the man who first thought into the concept, urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to look further into the study of atomic energy and the possibility of using it for a bomb. President Roosevelt, fearing the German’s advances in this study, quickly agreed and sent money to the University of Chicago to begin the study and research of atomic energy. (Roleff 62) (The Manhattan Project 1) Upon sending this money, the top-secret research program and building of the atomic bomb began. Later moving from Chicago to Los Alamos, New Mexico, this secret project was called the Manhattan Project. (1) Einstein later explained that his recommendation to the president was to only further the United State’s knowledge of this energy and to have an extra line of defense if the Germans were to ever launch a nuclear attack. (Roleff 62) When the possibility of using one of these weapons was

At the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II scientist started to develop new ways to to react to wars.Scientist like Julius Robert Oppenheimer with the help of Albert Einstein created the first atomic bomb called the “Little Boy” and the “FatMan”. Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. He was incharge of gather the best minds to develop weapons of mass destruction. Oppenheimer along with 200 other physics developed weapons that would change the world forever.

Then he went to teach at Berkley University.4 Another main person in the research project was Enrico Fermi. Fermi was a graduate of the University of Pisa, where he received his Ph.D. Fermi then went to the University of Rome teaching chemistry and biology. Fermi played a major role in the development of the bomb by creating a sustained nuclear fission chain reaction, which was critical to making the atomic bomb.4 Richard Feyman was another scientist which worked on the atomic bomb. Feyman graduated from Princeton where he excelled in physics and other scientific studies. Feyman's big duty on the Manhattan Project was to break big problems into smaller easier to do problems.4 The Manhattan Project, also had to have facilities for the research and testing of the atomic bomb. Some of the facilities built by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers included: power stations, factories, steel works, hospitals, laboratories, and housing for everybody that worked on the project.. Other facilities that were built for the construction of the bomb were plants to make the radioactive material needed to construct the bomb. Oak Ridge, Tennessee was used to make uranium which was used as an explosive to react with plutonium. The plutonium itself was made in Hanford, Washington.5 To make this explosion possible, a piece of uranium was fired at another piece of uranium to make the critical mass that was needed for an explosion. Critical mass is the exact amount of

The invention of the atomic bomb took several years and after many trials and errors the invention was finally complete. Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939 about

The Manhattan Project was created out of the fear of their current enemy, Germany of making the first atomic bomb and using it in the war. The current President of the United States was Franklin Roosevelt. It was seen that Germany was making great advances in the war which worried many. But the people who were very worried were three prestigious scientists. Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller who were Hungarian scientists who immigrated to the United States during the war. Szilard and the other scientists wished to advocate for the start of a program that put all efforts into making an atomic bomb. But of course they were very intelligent on how to get their cause across seriously. “Though the three men, particularly Szilard, were well known

Leo Szilard was a Hungarian Physicist who dedicated himself to learning how to create a successful chain reaction to make an atomic bomb before the Germans had a chance to do so. Szilard convinced Albert Einstein to help research with him on how to create an atomic bomb. The “Einstein-Szilard” letter, sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt led to the foundation of research into nuclear fission by the United States government. This ultimately encouraged the development of the program, the Manhattan Project.

It was the year that the Second World War began that scientists discovered the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. One of the most famous scientists in the world, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the president explaining "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" (Grant, 1997) that might be built. A group of the top nuclear scientists worked together with Robert Oppenheimer as their scientific director, as what was knowing as the Manhattan Project. Just under $2 billion US dollars was spend on funding the Manhattan Project, today that equals to $37863713073.60 Australian dollars.

A man who is almost synonymous with the development of the atomic bomb as well as with the conflicts between the desires of the government