How Did Otto Hahn Greatest Impact

Thesis: The uses of nuclear energy range from being a clean, renewable energy source to cutting edge medical procedures.

On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt’s death occurred. Harry Truman appropriated the project and the Secretary of War brought him up to date since he was always unaware of the task at hand. President Truman convened with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin and the Potsdam Declaration was written. This declaration offered Japan the opportunity to surrender or risk “prompt and utter destruction” Japan declined and President Truman was left with the decision to release nuclear destruction on Japan. On August 6, 1945, “little boy” the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Truman had picked the target based on the lack of American civilians in the area. Japan refused to surrender. Three days later “fat boy” the second atomic bomb was released on Nagasaki, the residency of the Mitsubishi factory that produced the torpedoes that bombed Pearl Harbor. The devastation and deaths were felt for months after the bombing. The staggering amount of deaths were reported to be between 90,000-146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki. Half of these deaths occurred on the days of the bombings. Japan surrendered to the United States. World War II would be ending.

The U.S’s research in nuclear weapons in the 1940’s contributed to ending the second world war as well as led the way to bountiful ideas in scientific research that we still use today.

This discovery of the process of fission in uranium was made in 1938 by German radiochemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. The enormous energy released when uranium atom splits was enough to power a bomb and two other findings in 1940 and 1941 had established the bomb was achievable and practical and the building of the bomb was made a priority by the United States. Investigation and testing to determine the critical

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.

David Hahn was a Michigan schoolboy who set about trying to build a fast breeder reactor in his garden shed. Having educated himself by reading Popular Mechanics and the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, he wrote off as a certain Professor Hahn for technical advice and help in obtaining radioactive materials. What he could not get from laboratory suppliers, universities, hospitals and nuclear agencies, he made himself. and how he was fascinated by science. While David was working on his “Atomic Energy” badge for Boy Scouts, his attention soon turned to nuclear energy. As you read on in the book you will soon begin to learn that David was really big into blowing things up and trying to make new chemicals;

ground breaking scientific knowledge. The knowledge of nuclear fission lead to: the ending of World

Leo Szilard was a Hungarian and moved to Berlin, Germany to become a physicist during the 1920’s – just around the time the Nazi’s came to power. As soon as Szilard realized what was going on in the country, he immediately left for Vienna and then to London. One day while resting, he thought up the process to nuclear fission. Although he had tried so many time to unlock the mystery of nuclear fission and failed so many times, in 1939 the problem was given a solution. However, Szilard was both excited and nervous at the results, as it could be a great source of energy or a fatal atomic bomb.

Leo Szilard was born on February 11, 1898 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. His father was a civil engineer, and Szilard decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. In 1916, he went to college at a technical university in Budapest for a year before he joined the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1917, Szilard was saved from going to the front lines by an unknown illness. After the war in 1920, he went to school at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Germany. He studied physics with famous physicists Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Max Von Laue. After studying with Einstein, they became close friends. He went far with his academics in Germany, but eventually moved from Germany to London due to the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933 and then

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967) A Nuclear Physicist, was responsible for the invention of the Atomic Bomb. Robert Oppenheimer was born on April 22, 1904 into a wealthy jewish family in New York. In the 1930’s Oppenheimer became drawn into left-wing politics. 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945 during the end of World War II the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bomb was equivalent to twenty thousand tons of TNT. The two bombings resulted in over 129,000 deaths and millions of dollars in damage. The Atomic Bomb still remains the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. Since 1942, more than 100,000 scientists of the Manhattan Project had been working on the bomb’s development to make improvements, such as size reconstruction and more effective of a result.

Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann were experimenting with the idea to bombard the nucleus with neutrons to add more atomic mass to the atom. Their original hypothesis stated that the experiment would create Uranium. The Nazi regime began spreading their reign over Germany in the mid-1930s when Hitler was elected to office. While the Nazis gained more power Jews lost more freedom, so for Lise Meitner it became an unsafe environment to continue her research. Although Otto Hahn fought hard for Meitner’s job he was overruled by their boss. The German government restricted her from leaving, so in 1938 she was smuggled into Sweden for her own safety. Hahn and Strassmann kept her updated on their findings, especially the one in particular result that puzzled them. While attacking the nucleus with neutrons the atomic number actually decreased and created barium. With the help of her nephew Otto

Fritz Haber was born on December 9,1868 in Breslau Germany. He decided to study chemistry at the University Of Berlin Under A.W. And At the school of Charlottenburg Under Liebermann. Once he finished his University studies he volunteered to work for his dad's Chemical business and he also got into Chemical Technology. After a while Haber decided to take on a scientific career. He soon went to work for one and a half years to work with Ludwig Knorr at Jena. After all that he ended up getting confused and started to wonder if he still wanted a career for science technology during that confusion he got offered in 1894 and a accepted an assistantship at Karlsruhe by a professor of Chemical Technology. In 1896 Haber qualified as an Privatdozent

Scientists should never stint the growth of human scientific advancement out of fear of a possible negative application of their work. Scientific advancement, in my opinion, exists outside of humanity and stands for what should be the highest priority of the human race. Many people today condemn the scientists that discovered nuclear fission for the way it was used during World War Two and for the threat it posed throughout the Cold War, but today, humanity utilizes nuclear fission for many applications apart from atomic bombs. Without fission, the human race would still fully rely on gas as the only source of consumable energy. Fission created the idea of “clean energy” as we have it today, significantly contributing to the future of the human race’s energy supply.

Kurt Hahn was born to a wealthy German industrialist and raised in the Jewish faith. At the age of eighteen or nineteen, Kurt got a severe sunstroke and it was during his recovery where he began to focus more of his studies on the educational system. Hahn completed schooling in both Germany and at Oxford, but as World War I started, he was told to go back to Germany. After World War I, he began to work on his educational theory due to all the devastation he witnessed in the war. During the Second World War, specifically in 1933, Hahn was exiled to the UK for speaking out against the Nazis.

Young Rudolf Diesel was sent to Augsburg by his father to live with his cousin in order to continue the education, which he was able to have in France. He was enrolled in the Königlichen Kreis-Gewerbsshule where it provided outlets for all his deepest interests; there was a chemistry laboratory, a workshop equipped with a forge and machine tools and a municipal art gallery.” By his fourteenth birthday he had decided to become an engineer.” (Grosser p11)