Atomic Bomb Research Isabella Narvaez

Period 3 Mr. Albers

Fear Spreads● In 1939 the scientific community learned that

German physicists had learned how to split the uranium atom.

● Fear spread over the possibility the Nazis could build a bomb of complete destruction.

Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi

● Scientists Albert Einstein who escaped Nazi Germany and Enrico Fermi who escaped Fascist Italy were now living in the United States.

● They wanted the US government to know about the power the Axis powers were wielding.

● Fermi traveled to Washington to express his concerns but was met with deaf ears.

● Einstein then wrote a letter to FDR urging for the development of an atomic research program.

● Roosevelt reluctantly agreed to proceed with the research.

The Manhattan Project

● In late 1941 the American effort to build the atomic bomb received its code name - The Manhattan Project.

Early Research

● At first the research was based at only Columbia University, University of Chicago, and Berkeley

● Major breakthrough occurred in December 1942 when Fermi and other scientists were able to create the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.

The Project Gains Steam

● This major milestone allowed the project to start gaining more funds, and advance more quickly.

● A main assembly plant was build in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

● 2 billion dollars● 120,000 Americans

employed

Secrecy

● Germans or Japanese could not learn about the project.

● Stalin should be kept in the dark.● Keeping 120,000 people would be

impossible; only a select few actually knew about the development of the bomb.

● Vice President Truman didn’t know about the project until he became president.

Testing● Robert Oppenheimer

was in charge of putting all the pieces together in New Mexico.

● Summer of 1945 Oppenheimer was ready to test the bomb.

Trinity Site● July 16th 1945 at 5:30 AM -

Scientists prepared to watch the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb.

● A blinding flash visible for 200 miles, a mushroom cloud that reached 40,000 feet and blowing out windows of peoples homes 100 miles away.

● The surrounding desert surface fused to glass.

The world entered the nuclear age...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki● A month after the

first atomic bomb was tested at the Trinity Site, two more atomic bombs produced by the project were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Bibliography

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/362098/Manhattan-Project

http://www.ushistory.org/us/51f.asp

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/einstein/peace-and-war/the-manhattan-project