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The Atomic BombScott Parr

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The Theory of the Bomb

On August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt telling him of Nazi Germany’s effort to build an atomic bomb

They had begun refining Uranium (U-235) in an effort to purify it for bomb use

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The Challenges

The idea of an atomic bomb was only theoretical in 1939

There was no way to refine uranium to extract U-235 in 1939

The process of building the bomb would require the greatest physicists, chemists and engineers in the world

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Fission: How the Atomic Bomb Works In an atomic reaction, atoms are

split and crash into each other creating a chain reaction

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Fission: How the Atomic Bomb Works Refined U-235 is typically set to

crash into more U-235 and thus set off an atomic chain reaction (Little Boy design)

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The Manhattan Project

The leading scientists from the USA, Canada and Britain (along with some former German scientists) worked in secret at a base in Los Alamos, New Mexico

The bomb was called “the gadget” by those working on the project

The chief scientist was Robert J. Oppenheimer

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The Test

The bomb was first tested on July 16, 1945

The blast could be seen 120 miles away.

Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”

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How to use the A-bomb?

In a secret meeting in September, 1944, the Allies decided that an Atomic Bomb would be used against Japan rather than risking a costly invasion

This was partly motivated by the fear that Japanese suicide “kamikaze” attacks had generated

US military experts estimated 1 million casualties in an invasion of Japan

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Hiroshima & Nagasaki

The “Little Boy” bomb was dropped from a B-29, the “Enola Gay” flown by Colonel Paul Tibbitts from the US air base on the island of Tinian on August 6, 1945

The blast at Hiroshima was the equivalent of 15 000 tons of TNT

Ground zero was 1980 feet in the air Instantly 66 000 people were killed and

69 000 injured. More died from the effects of radiation

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Hiroshima

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Hiroshima

The injuries/burns were horrific. Cancer and other genetic disorders

still plague the people of the area.

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Nagasaki

The “Fat Man” bomb used on Nagasaki was an implosion model that delivered the destruction of 22 000 tons of TNT

It was dropped from a B-29 called “Boxscar” on August 9, 1945

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The Results

Japan surrenders unconditionally on August 10, 1945 and signs a formal document of surrender on the deck of the US battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945

The world enters the “Atomic Age”