Atomic Bomb Essay, Research Paper

On August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein wrote

to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was right before the start

of World War 2. In this letter Einstein and several other scientists

told Roosevelt of the efforts Hitler was making to purify U-235 in which

he hoped to make an atomic bomb. This is when the United States started

the Manhattan Project. This was the project of making an atomic bomb.

In the project many brilliant minds were

used. The most famous of these people is Robert Oppenheimer.

He was the major person behind this project. He basically ran the

operation and oversaw the hole project from start to completion.

Other great people like H.C. Urey, Ernest Lawrence, Isidor Rabi, and Ken

Bainbridge also worked on the project and put just as much into it.

The most complicated process was the process

of getting enough uranium to sustain a chain reaction. In that time

it was very hard to extract U-235. The ration of Uranium ore to the

Uranium metal is 500:1. Then out of this Uranium metal 99% of it

is U-238 which is non-fissionable. Finding a process to refining

the Uranium was the first step in developing the atomic bomb.

A massive enrichment laboratory/plant

was built in Oak ridge, Tennessee. H.C. Urey and other associates

at Columbia University devised a system that separated the Uranium using

the principle of gaseous diffusion. Ernest Lawrence shortly following

this invention came up with a process using magnetic separation. This process

was quicker then the first. After the Uranium metal was separated

form the Uranium ore it is put into a gas centrifuge to separate the U-235

and U-238. The first step of building an atomic bomb was completed.

They now had the U-235 to build a bomb.

Over the course of six years, 1939-1945,

scientist worked on equations to make the U-235 into a bomb. It took

some of the greatest minds to make these formulas. At the end of

the six years and after spending $2 billion they had what they thought

was a working bomb or a very expensive dud.

At 5:29:45 (Mountain War Time) on July

the 16th, 1945 the “Gadget”, the code name for the bomb, was tested in

the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico. This was the first atomic

bomb ever detonated. The Gadget caused a white blaze to stretch across

the skies of New Mexico. The light then turned orange as the fire

ball started upwards at 360 ft/second. A characteristic mushroom

cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 ft. All that remained

of the soil were fragments of jade green radioactive glass. The heat

reaches 7,000 degrees F. It is so hot that the soil turns into glass.

The Gadget worked. People from a nearby community said the

saw the sun rise twice that day. It is said that a blind girl 120

miles away saw the flash.

The creators of the Gadget had mixed

feelings. Some felt that the equilibrium in nature was upset.

Others were glad that the project had succeeded. Robert Oppenheirmer

was excited that the project was a success, but quoted a fragment from

Bhagavad Gita. “I am become death the destroyer of worlds.”

Several of the creators signed a petition against releasing the monster.

Atomic bombs have only been used twice

in warfare. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

It was a Uranium bomb that weighed over 4.5 tons. It was a 20 kiloton

bomb that was nicknamed Little Boy. It was dropped on Hiroshima on

August 6th, 1945. The Aioi Bridge was the targeting spot. It

was to expelled 1,800 ft above the city. At 08:15 the bomb was dropped

from the Enola Gay. At 08:16 hours the bomb exploded 2,000 ft above

Hiroshima . It was only 800ft off target. It instantly killed

66,000 people and 69,000 people were injured. Total vaporization

was up to ½ mile away from the center of the explosion. Total

destruction ranged up to 1 mile away from the center. Severe damaged

ranged up to 2 miles away and anything flammable burned up to 2.5 miles

away.

The second bomb that was dropped was three

days after the first bomb. This one was a plutonium bomb. Plutonium

does the same thing as Uranium, but it is manmade so they don?t have to

go through the process of refining the Uranium. This bomb was only

a 10 kiloton bomb. This bombs nickname was Fat Man. The Fat

Man was dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb missed its target point by

over a mile and a half, but it still killed 39,000 people and injured 25,000

people. It destroyed over half the city.

The Little Boy (left) and Fat Man (right)

were the only bombs used in war. They caused

many deaths. The Little

Boy caused 200,000 people to die because of its affects. The Fat

Man Caused 70,000 people to die. With this many number of deaths

it is questionable if they should have been dropped. Both sides argue

there sides, but what happened cannot be changed.