The Manhattan Project Essay, Research Paper
Manhattan Undertaking
The Einstein Letter
Leo Szilard, like many other nonnative physicists in the U.S. who had fled fascism, knew Germany was carry oning atomic research. Having learned the Germans had banned the export of U, he believed the Germans were developing an atomic bomb. Fearing what would go on if Germany developed a atomic arm, he urged Dr. Albert Einstein to convert the American authorities to back up atomic research.
On August 2, 1939, a month before Germany invaded Poland, Einstein wrote a missive to President Roosevelt, urging that the U.S. fund atomic research, saying that it could ensue in & # 8220 ; highly powerful bombs & # 8221 ; made of U. Einstein & # 8217 ; s recommendation was based on the research of physicists Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi. Szilard had developed the theory of atomic fission. But it was Fermi who was the first to really bring forth atomic fission in the research lab, which won him the 1938 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Based on Einstein & # 8217 ; s missive, President Roosevelt authorized a survey, but the determination to give full energy to the production of the bomb was non made until December 6, 1941: the twenty-four hours before the Nipponese onslaught on Pearl Harbor.
General Leslie Groves
General Groves was chosen to do the atomic bomb a world, codification named the Manhattan Project. He named J. Robert Oppenheimer, a superb atomic physicist from the University of California at Berkeley as manager. Together they chose Los Alamos, New Mexico, a distant location non far from Santa Fe, as the site for the design and building of atomic bombs. Oppenheimer gathered scientists, many of them Nobel Prize victors, from the most esteemed universities in the U.S. : University of California at Berkeley, University of Chicago, Columbia University, every bit good as several British and Canadian scientists.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built power Stationss, mills, metalworkss, blast furnaces, steel plants, infirmaries, research labs and lodging at Los Alamos. It involved over 200,000 people and be the U.S. two billion dollars. The Manhattan Project was a coaction of American scientific discipline and industry carried out under the way of the U.S. Army. The Manhattan Project was conducted in complete secretiveness non merely from the enemy but from the American populace. Most of the mill workers were incognizant of what they were bring forthing.
Manhattan Project Support Facilities
As portion of the Manhattan undertaking, two different installations were built to bring forth weapon-grade U and Pu. The Manhattan Project was constructing two different types of atomic bombs, a uranium bomb and a Pu bomb, because U was hard to nudge
uce in measures needed. Plutonium, an unnaturally manufactured component derived from U, could be produced in sufficient measure but it needed a different sort of bomb explosion device.
Uranium Production: Oak Ridge, Tennessee
A immense gas diffusion works was built to bring forth weapon-grade U. An highly caustic U hexafluoride gas was pumped through barriers that had 1000000s of bantam holes. The igniter molecules incorporating the needed uranium-235 were diffused faster than the heavier uranium-238 molecules. After the gas had been cycled through 1000s of barriers it was & # 8220 ; enriched & # 8221 ; to a high concentration, 90 per centum, of pure uranium-235.
Plutonium Production: Hanford, Washington
Nuclear reactors were built to supply the neutrons to bring forth Pu from U. When the plentiful uranium-238 isotope is bombarded with neutrons, it changes into a new component. This new component alterations into plutonium-239. Plutonium-239, like uranium-235, undergoes fission and can be used as bomb stuff. Producing plutonium-239 in big measures requires an intense beginning of neutrons.
Trinity Test Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico
The first atomic bomb tested at Trinity on July 16, 1945 proved that the U.S. was in ownership of the most destructive arm of all time devised by adult male. The bomb was powered by the splitting of all the karyon in several kgs of Pu. A domain of Pu the size of a baseball produced an detonation equal to 15,000 to 20,000 dozenss of TNT. When the bomb exploded at Trinity at 5:30 ante meridiem, it vaporized the tower and turned asphalt around the base of the tower to green sand. Suddenly the sky was brighter than several Suns. Seconds after the detonation came a immense blast that sent shriveling heat across the desert.
A monolithic orange and xanthous cloud in the form of a mushroom surged and billowed upward making into the sub-stratosphere up to an lift of 41,000 pess. A soldier 10,000 pess off was knocked off his pess by the force of the daze moving ridge. The flash of visible radiation was seen more than 10 stat mis off, and a soldier five stat mis off was temporarily blinded. The detonation was heard 50 stat mis off.
Russian Spy at Los Alamos
A German refugee working on the British squad of scientists at Los Alamos, Klaus Fuchs, was a Soviet undercover agent. He and other undercover agents passed information about American atomic research to the Soviets from 1942 to 1949. This could explicate Stalin & # 8217 ; s apathetic reaction when Truman told him at the Potsdam Conference that the U.S. had a new arm. Fuchs was caught and convicted of espionage, and sentenced to 15 old ages in prison for unwraping atomic secrets. After his release, he went to East Germany to work in their atomic research centre.
