Analyzing Meiner's Accomplishments

The nuclear fission process that Meitner had discovered would end up playing a crucial role in World War II and the world. The atomic bomb, created by Robert Oppenheimer and his team, was based on the basic elements of nuclear fission. Meitner accomplished nuclear fission by bombarding a large isotope with a smaller one, commonly a neutron. The collision caused the larger isotope to break apart into two or more elements, which is called nuclear fission. Reactions of this type also release a lot of energy. The energy comes from the atomic and subatomic particles that change into the form of energy during the explosion. You can prove this by attempting to make an extremely accurate measurement of all the masses of all the atoms and subatomic particles you start with prior to the explosion and all the atoms and subatomic particles are returned, and then calculate the difference in mass in the two sums, you find that the answer is larger than 0 – which proves that mass goes disappears during the transition. This loss of matter is called the mass defect. The missing matter is converted into energy. To calculate the energy released or the mass defect, you can use the equation Einstein is famous for discovering: E=mc2. In the equation, ‘E’ represents the amount of energy produced, m is the so called “missing” mass, more formally known as the mass defect, and c is the speed of light, which is an extremely large number. Therefore, we get the equation that m = E/c*c. The speed of light is squared, making that part of the equation a very large number that, even when multiplied by a small, minute amount of mass, yields a huge amount of energy. If we look at the equation for the fission of U-235, we would notice that one neutron created three. These three neutrons, if they encountered other U-235 atoms, could initiate other fissions, producing even more neutrons, that would in turn, initiate other fissions. It’s the domino effect – except this time, instead of a row of dominos, it is a wide-spread fan of dominos. In terms of nuclear chemistry, fission a continuing cascade of nuclear fissions that can be dubbed a

Scientists from Germany were making huge progress on the topic of nuclear fission. Fortunately, many of these scientists escaped the authoritarian Germany. These refugees, including Albert Einstein warned the United States about the German’s nuclear weapons capability. Consequently, the United States created the Manhattan Project in 1942 under fears of a nuclear attack by the Germans.

It was understood that fission was capable of making a massive bomb, way more powerful than chemical energy. According to an article from…………...Just one kilogram of plutonium or uranium could be capable of producing the same explosion as 20,000 tons of TNT. Scientists used a very fast nucleus which would run into other nuclei and then produce more and more all the way up to about 80 times each giving off atomic energy. All of this would happen in one millionth of a second and produce a temperature that exceeds anything here on earth. It can reach up to about ten billion degrees. The first thing that happens when a bomb explodes is, there is an initial blast wave, then there is a electromagnetic pulse followed by a thermal wave. There is also the radiation damage and then local and global fallout. The initial blast wave will crush anything in its path with 750 mile per hour air speed. The electromagnetic wave would shut down and damage all electronics over a huge radius. The thermal wave will burn anyone exposed to it and create many

Nuclear research all started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered into World War II. When the United States realized that Germany attempted to build an atomic bomb, Americans began to concentrate on their research about creating an atomic bomb more heavily. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Manhattan Project, which included a group of top scientists, under General Leslie R. Groves, who worked around the clock to try to develop an atomic bomb within three years (Beyer, Page 15). The Americans and the British combined their efforts to research the development of the bomb and created plants and factories to work in the atomic bomb. They created plants for three separate processes: electromagnetic, gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion. These plants helped create the plutonium and uranium 235 needed to manufacture the atomic bomb ("Key Issues: Nuclear Weapons: History: Pre Cold War: Manhattan Project.", Web). The secrecy of the Manhattan Project was essential in order to develop the atomic bombs to end World War II.

During the early 1940’s atomic science had just began to mature. Many people were exploring the powerful mystery of the atom. Two of those people were Eugene Booth and John Dunning, who, in 1941, synthesized uranium-235. Immense scientific growth followed their contribution, since it allowed for nuclear fission (Griffith). In the years following this discovery, nuclear science took a turn. Once only used as a constructive power source, atoms began being explored for their destructive power. In 1942 the United States government funded the Manhattan Project that sole goal was to develop a nuclear bomb. The initiator for this endeavor was surprisingly the famous scientist Albert Einstein. He wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt , and tipped him off

In the late 1930s, global tensions crystallized into war and a quest for a new super-weapon quietly began around in the world in numerous, underfunded laboratories. As Europe crumbled under the might of the Axis powers, American scientists began to explore the possibilities of nuclear fission in warfare.

Adventure’s in the Atomic Age displays the idea that financial barriers and difficult courses should not be what is stopping someone from being successful in the field of science. “Scientists would feel a sense of purpose and inner satisfaction even if their efforts were not important to the world in which we live. In actuality, of course, there is no group of persons on whom society as a whole depends so heavily” (292).

The origins of nuclear power, in fact, should be enough to give one pause; fission reactions (albeit uncontrolled ones) were originally intended to be used as weapons: the weapon, of course, being the atomic bomb. The nuclear program began in earnest when Einstein himself, afraid that Hitler had a team working on such a weapon, wrote to President Roosevelt to inform him that such a weapon might be possible to build (Shrader-Frechette 7). The development of the A-bomb by the Manhattan Project, its use in Japan and the effect on World War II are all well-documented. (After the initial test at Alamagordo, New Mexico, one of the bomb’s major developers, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was rumored to whisper: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” when he saw the level of destruction his new creation had achieved.) Less well known are the recommendations made by a panel of Manhattan Project scientists about the post-war uses of nuclear energy. The panel’s report concluded, “The development of fission piles solely for the production of power for ordinary commercial use does not appear economically sound nor advisable from the point of view of preserving natural resources”; in other words, the first panel of experts on commercial nuclear energy and its resources felt uranium was too expensive to waste on

The fear of other nations developing a weapon powerful enough to decimate the US led to the authorization of research to develop an Atomic bomb in 1939. Before WWII people were fearful of the involvement of nuclear science in war because of its’ unfamiliarity. Physicists knew that if Hitler developed the technology that could potentially begot the development of an Atomic bomb, mass destruction would occur. Upon realizing the necessity of nuclear involvement in war, Albert Einstein signed a letter to the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) addressing his concerns that Germany was developing a nuclear bomb. Einstein urged FDR to fund a research program, Roosevelt agreed and the U.S. set out in October 1939 to study the recent advances in nuclear fission. One key factor that cannot be ignored was that from 1941 the US was involved in war with Japan and because of the attacks on pearl harbour it seemed necessary to develop a weapon of this caliber.

The idea that nuclear fission could be a significant producer of electrical power and a powerful military weapon occurred to many physicists, engineers and scientist around the world. Due to the escalating conflict in Europe, many scientist no longer published their discoveries and advancements for fear of it aiding enemy scientist. There was one difficulty encountered early on in the development of Manhattan Project, this problem was the difficulty of mining or creating the proper uranium isotope. Uranium-235 was the only isotope of uranium that underwent fission and only 0.7% of the uranium found in nature was of this isotope. More commonly uranium-238 was found, which actually inhibited the nuclear chain reaction. There were however several techniques which will be mentioned later for enriching the uranium. Do to how rare and expensive uranium-235 was it was first necessary to determine how much would be needed to create fission reactor or bomb.

The Manhattan Project involved a long process of different steps to start the project and develop the atomic bomb. After President Roosevelt in scientists “took steps in 1939 to organize a project to exploit the newly recognized fission process for military purposes” (“Atomic”). One aspect of development was the “scientists at Oak Ridge [that] worked on uranium and others at Hanford on plutonium” (Schneider 197). The actual production of the weapons from the materials produced by Hanford and Oak Ridge were at Los Alamos with the direction of Berkely physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Bondi 493). Nuclear fuel for atomic weapons was opened for production after Italian refugee physicist Enrico Fermi produced the first uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction (Schneider 211). It is a “self-sustaining process of energy release from atomic fission. By the end of the same year many scientists believed that the process of nuclear fission could be used

Lecture 2 talks about nuclear energy and weapons and their impact on society. Overconfidence and too much optimism inhibit clear thinking and allow an avoidance in realizing the negative consequences and unpleasant ideas in the world. Also vital to understand is the concept that science and reality are not identical. Science describes reality, whereas our ideas reality are biased albeit unique. The fusion bomb, first created in 1952, is equal to 10 to 50 megatons of dynamite. It is 500 to 2500 times more powerful than the earlier created fission bomb. The fission bomb, as well as nuclear power plants, split large atoms into smaller atoms in order to create energy. The fusion bomb creates its larger energy by doing the reverse process. The

Growing up in Austria, Meitner as a woman faced many hardships. At that time, girls in Austria were expected to get education up to the age of 14 then stop altogether. However, due to the fact that her father was a famous lawyer she was able to obtain a private tutor to help with her studies. After years of studying in private she was able to successfully get into the University of Vienna, where she received her Doctorate in Physics in 1906—being the second woman to do so.

Throughout the course of history, scientific discoveries have led to the birth of new knowledge. Humanity’s increase in knowledge has helped to achieve new heights of understanding in a variety of fields such as medicine, nuclear power, and nuclear weapons. While some of these achievements in science can generate much prosperity, some technology has created significant amounts of controversy. The Honors 2400 class entitled The Chernobyl Incident has granted me over the course of the semester the opportunity to analyze these scenarios and understand the challenging questions that are associated with the pursuit of knowledge. From many examples discussed in class, I understand the importance of limiting knowledge, the discoveries that humanity should or should not pursue, how individuals pursue confined questions, and who is ultimately responsible for approving or disapproving of these scientific questions.

Getting energy from nuclear reactions is a well-established science, tracing back to the discovery of radioactive elements, and eventually to harnessing the energy within those reactions for human needs. The basis of nuclear power is the use of nuclear fission to generate heat, which changes water into steam, and powers a turbine. Nuclear fission is related to radioactive decay, which was discovered in the late 1800s by Henri Becquerel and furthered by Marie and Pierre Curie. Nuclear fission itself was the work of Enrico Fermi – a physicist from Italy. Fermi would later help create the first self-sustaining chain reaction on the grounds of the University of Chicago in 1942. The understanding of nuclear fission and the ability to create chain reactions would lead to the Manhattan Project, culminating in the dropping of two nuclear bombs over Japan at the end of World War II. The technology would later be adapted into more peaceful purposes such as generating energy. Nuclear fission works by bombarding the radioactive element – usually uranium, but sometimes plutonium – with neutrons. When the neutron hits the element, it will split into two lighter atoms, releasing more neutrons, and energy. Those