The Manhattan Project: The Hydrogen Bomb

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 Manhattan Project was created with the simple suppose of creating an atomic bomb before Nazi German. When the Project arose the research was done in three different colleges, Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the University of California at Berkeley. It wasn’t until a breakthrough in December 1942 when a man named Fermi led a group of physicists to create the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. After this breakthrough there were nuclear facilities built to allow for a much deeper research ability. The main building, and the most famous, was the one at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project

“We believe that . . . an early unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons. Much more favorable conditions could be created if nuclear bombs were first revealed to the world by a demonstration in an appropriately selected uninhabited area.” The initial test for the atomic bomb was dropped in Alamogordo, Mexico with experts observing more than 20 miles away. The explosion was estimated to be a blast of about 10,000 tons of TNT. The Atomic bomb’s intense and destructive power frightened many scientists who were working on the Manhattan Project (Knebel 78). Including the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer felt as if he had created something that would bring forth destruction to the world, instead of using his brilliant scientific mind to improve and usher the world into an era of peace like he intended to. In fact, many scientists within the Manhattan Project were shocked and against using such a powerful weapon as the atomic bomb against other humans, so much that a group of scientists and

“ The atom bomb was no ‘great decision.’ It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.” This quote was said by Harry S. Truman the first President who used an atomic bomb. The program that was able to create this monstrous power was known as the Manhattan Project. Creating this weapon was their main priority. The United States was in the midst of World War 2. The atomic bomb is considered to be the main factor that ended that war. It was a race against the multiple enemies of the United States, to be the first to acquire this power and use it when necessary. The Manhattan Project was kept strictly confidential and, created the foundation of the future and more powerful nuclear weapons to come.

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.

     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.

Thesis Statement: The Manhattan Project was the American program for researching and developing the first atomic bombs because of the project it cost a lot of people their lives.

Oppenheimer had named the first tested nuclear explosion “Trinity”. This test was for the implosion-design plutonium bomb, which had the same design as Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki. After the successful testing of Trinity, Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, “If radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

In the summer of 1945 Robert Oppenheimer was prepared to test the first atomic bomb. Which was July 16, 1945 the bomb was tested. The bomb was tested at the

The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The Manhattan project was the invention of the first two nuclear bombs, Fat man and little boy. These two bombs were dropped on Japanese islands to end World War II.

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.

What is the Manhattan Project?The point of the project was for the U.S to design and create nuclear weapons.The project was running slow until August 1942,where the U.S army took over.The U.S army changed the name of the project to The Manhattan Engineer District (MED)gen.Leslie R.Groves was

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.

Through the efforts of the “Manhattan Project” and the scientists within it, several nuclear bombs were created. Two of which, “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” ended up being dropped on Japan. “Little Boy,” the only uranium bomb created was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (Batchelder 99-105). “Fat Man,” the second nuclear bomb ever used in warfare, detonated above Nagasaki on August 11, 1945 (Batchelder 95-105). The leaders of the United States, decided that dropping the newly developed atomic bombs on Japan was the smartest action they could take at the time, given the current situation that the United States and the world was in. Dropping the bombs on Japan was mainly motivated by the belief that human lives could be saved. A massive invasion of the Japanese mainland was the only other option if no bombs were going to be dropped. The fact that the Japanese main army of approximately two million had never before been defeated on top of the Japanese terrain which was much better suited for guerrilla warfare than the mechanical ways of the U.S. put estimated American deaths alone well over the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (Batchelder 114-118).