The Manhattan Project Research Paper

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 Manhattan Project was a secret problem barely anyone knew about.Many of the scientists that were involved with the Manhattan Project heard about the Axis powers gaining knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons that could destroy a whole nation.The Manhattan Project produced two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the first atomic bomb because it was a large port city with an army base. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki missed its target by over a mile.

The beginnings of the Nuclear Age started when Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt warning him of a dangerous weapon the Nazis had begun researching, known as the atomic bomb. (1) Though, when President Roosevelt first read this letter, he was too preoccupied with events in Europe to be bothered with such ideas. He at the time did not take the creation of such weapon to seriously, nor did he believe America had the resources for such a task. (2) Finally, on October 19, 1939 President Roosevelt wrote back to Einstein stating that the United States had begun to research the power of uranium. (2) With the help of the British, whom reluctantly gave the United States leadership on this project, in June of 1942 the Manhattan Project had begun, though most of the world had no idea that this was even happening, not even Vice President Truman. (2)

President Theodore Roosevelt approved the process, known as the Manhattan Project, on December 28, 1942. On September 19, 1943, General Leslie Groves acquired 59,000 acres of land 20 miles east of Knoxville, Tennessee. The town was first named “Site X” and soon changed to “Clinton Engineer Works” after the nearest town. The name was then changed to Oak Ridge after the war was over.

Leading up to this time the fascist dictators began to gain power in European countries. The big three being the countries of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, Italy, Benito Mussolini, and Japan, Emperor Hirohito. In 1935 Italy invades and conquers Ethiopia, shorty after Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation. In 1937,Japan, lead by Hirohito, invaded China. Joseph Stalin, of Russia, signs the German-Russian non-aggression pact; which allowed Hitler to invade Poland. But when news of the German invasion of Poland spread Britain along with France joined the war to oppose the Germans. Germany only continues in it’s quest for conquest by invading Denmark and Norway in the year 1940. Meanwhile the United States is remaining completely uninvolved under it’s Neutrality Act that was passed in 1935. The United States, lead by president Franklin D. Roosevelt, enacted it’s Lend Lease Act in 1941 in order to trade and sell to allied forces, for payment after war. Japan realizes that the U.S. wasn’t exactly being neutral so it sent suicide bombers to attack our naval base in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Thus leading into the use of the atomic bomb, but first the construction, an event referred to as the Manhattan Project. The name Manhattan Project came about because the program began under the Manhattan Engineering District of the War Department.

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).

     When the first atomic bomb was detonated in Alamogordo New Mexico on June 16, 1945, all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project understood the great destructive power of radio-active isotopes. Although the atomic bomb was a very destructive force our world would not be as good without it. Because of the government funding involved in the project coupled with the need for an atom bomb, much research that otherwise may not have occurred took place in the US. The Manhattan project opened the door to nuclear advancements and applications.

U.S. intelligence operatives reported that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were already working on a nuclear weapon.

The research for the first Atomic bomb took place in the United States, by a group of nuclear engineers; the name of this research was called, “The Manhattan Project”. On July 16, 1945, the detonation of the first atomic bomb was tested near Los Alamos, New Mexico. As the atomic bomb was detonated, it sent shock-waves across the globe, which demonstrated that nuclear power would forever change the meaning of war.

The process of building the two atomic bombs was long and hard. The Manhattan project employed 120,000 people, and cost almost $2 billion. Although there were 120,000 Americans working on the project only a select group of scientist knew of the atomic bomb development. Vice president Truman never knew about the development of the bombs until he became president. The axis powers did not know what was going on with the development of the atomic bomb; there was a soviet spy in the project. The soviet spy was Klaus Fuchs, and he had become one of the few people who knew of the bombs.

The origins of the Manhattan Project go back to 1939, when Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, who had moved to the U.S. in 1938 to conduct research at Columbia University, became convinced of the feasibility of using nuclear chain reactions to create new, powerful bombs. German scientists had just conducted a successful nuclear fission experiment, and based on those results, Szilard was able to demonstrate that uranium was capable of producing a nuclear chain reaction. Szilard noted that Germany

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.

The Manhattan Project was the code name of the America’s attempt to construct an atomic bomb during World War II. It was named after the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, because a lot of it’s earlier research was done in New York City. An atomic bomb is a weapon that uses the energy from a nuclear reaction called Fission for its destruction.

In 1941, The United States began an atomic bomb program called the “Manhattan Project.” The main objective of the “Manhattan Project” was to research and build an atomic bomb before Germany could create and use one against the allied forces during World War II. German scientists had started a similar research program four years before the United States began so the scientists of the “Manhattan Project” felt a sense of urgency throughout their work (Wood “Men … Project”).

Most of the early research done on nuclear energy consisted of trying to make nuclear weapons. The experiments were performed in New Mexico under the name of the Manhattan Project. Their efforts were a success with the creation of the first atom bomb. After World War II though, the use of nuclear energy was turned more peaceful uses. In 1946 Congress created the Atomic Energy