The Manhattan Project The Project To Create

The Manhattan Project: The Project To Create The First Atomic Bomb Essay, Research Paper

Early Atomic Science

The theory that atoms make up all matter in the universe can be dated back as far as 500 BC in ancient Greece. It was not until the time of Sir Isaac Newton, 1665, that Newton came up with a theory that all atoms were made up of three subatomic particles: protons, electrons, and neutrons. What Newton could not figure out was how the three parts were kept together. With this piece of vital information a mystery, Newton s theory would lead to the conclusion that an atom cannot keep it self together, and was unstable, and this could not be because it was very apparent that atoms did indeed hold together.

The answer to Newton s dilemma would not be answered until centuries later, in 1922, by a young Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. He developed a theory from the work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck. Bohr used quantum theory to explain the apparent paradox. His development of the atomic model earned him a Nobel Prize in physics in 1922.

There was still speculation in the physical science community about the energy required to hold an atom together. One theory came 17 years earlier from the world famous Albert Einstein who developed the equation: energy equals mass times the speed of light, squared. This equation stated that was nothing more than frozen energy. If this equation was true, if the energy in one ounce of matter was released, the result would

be an explosion with the power of millions of tons of TNT.

Most scientists blew off the idea that matter could be converted into energy. Even Einstein himself was skeptical of the idea that it could be done. A theoretical physicist, Leo Szilard, was engrossed in the idea that it could be done. Leo Szilard was a Hungarian Jew who was educated and lived in Berlin until 1933. He fled to England to flee the rising Nazi party who encouraged anti-Semitism and religious persecution. The story had become common among many European scientists at the time. By 1939 almost 100 European scientists fled to America in fear of Nazi Germany. In England, Szilard devoted his work to discovering the power within the atom and how to release it.

In 1939, Szilard had discovered an experiment that proved a chain reaction to penetrate an atom s nucleus was possible. Szilard reasoned that only a neutron, a subatomic particle with no charge, could be used to penetrate the nucleus. But a neutron, with no charge, could go through the electrons, and protons.

A group of physicists, Enrico Fermi, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman conducted an experiment in which the scientist bombarded the most unstable element known, Uranium, with neutrons. The result was the first atom ever split. The nucleus of the atom was split into two new and different elements. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch showed that at the same

time that the atom split, a tremendous amount of energy was released. Frisch gave it the name fission (fission is the Latin word meaning to split).

Scientists all over the world rushed to study the fission process. This new discovery had Szilard worried about the possibility of a chain reaction large enough to create mass destruction. At the same time he and others realized that the energy harnessed by fission could be a massive boon to humanity. With new global political turmoil originating from the hateful Nazi Germany, what if the ultra-nationalist supremacist leaders of the Nazi party in Germany were to hold this power. The result would almost certainly be catastrophic to humanity. (Schwinger, Julian, Blow, Michael)

The Coming Storm

After the largest war the world had ever seen, The Great War (known today as World War One), Germany was left in pieces. The economy had been brought down to a state lower than any other German economy before it. The German people had massive depression, not only in it s economy, but in the spirit of its people. The German people were a defeated people. The entire world was going through an economic depression.

After the war, an organization was created called The League of Nations. Similar to the United Nations, it was setup to ensure that a

major war such as World War One would never happen again. The League of

Nations and its members had signed treaties to downsize their armed forces. By the beginning of 1939 the United States of America had an Army smaller than Rumania. The U.S. Navy was almost 80% dismantled. Despite the Leagues efforts to create treaties to prevent aggressive Nations like Germany and Italy from forming armies, they failed to take direct control of these nations to prevent them from regaining the power they once held. There were limits on the amount of arms these countries could manufacture and build up, and the kind of arms they used. By the time it was obvious that they (especially Germany) had openly and definitely disobeyed their agreements, they had more arms than most of Europe combined, so the world couldn t do anything without initiating aggression.

In August of 1939, Leo Sizzled, Eugene Winner, and Edward Teller, all agreed that they must warn the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, about the dangers of a possible atomic weapon falling into Germany s hands. They also had to warn him that Germany s leader, Adolf Hitler, had cut off uranium supp