The manhattan project and the reasons why american created and used the bombs

Bythe Germans were ahead in the race for the atomic bomb. They had a heavy-water plant, high-grade uranium compounds, capable scientists and engineers, and the greatest chemical engineering industry in the world. Even before its entry into the war, the United States had become very concerned with the nuclear threat of the Axis powers.

References Abstract The pivotal engineering and scientific success of the Twentieth century was the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project assimilated concepts and leaders from all scientific fields and engineering disciplines to construct the first two atomic bombs.

From the study of nuclear physics and chemistry to the practical engineering and processing of uranium and plutonium and the final construction of the weapons, scientific knowledge grew at an exponential rate to critical levels.

The presence of communication amid scientific minds was equally important to the success of the Manhattan Project as scientific intellect was.

The only cloud hanging over the impressive achievement of the atomic researchers and engineers is what their success truly meant; hundreds of thousands of innocent lives obliterated. Yet this grave definition of success cannot diminish the impressive collaboration and efficiency of the Manhattan Project.

Introduction The Manhattan Project was the American program for researching and developing the first atomic bombs. The weapons produced were based solely upon the principles of nuclear fission of uranium and plutoniumchain reactions liberating immense amounts of destructive heat energy.

In the quest for an atomic-powered weapon, the secrets of nuclear physics and chemistry were exposed. Following the theoretical assessment of producing a controllable nuclear chain reactor, physical engineering was employed to construct the specific mechanics required.

Communication contributed as much to the success of the Manhattan Project as did scientific discovery. Although the creation of the first atomic weapon was clearly a technological triumph, the question of morality and responsibility to ethics will forever plague the topic.

Regardless of whether America was morally justified in deploying atomic weaponry on Japan, though, the Manhattan Project will always be an excellent example of collaboration and communication in scientific and engineering fields.

The Atomic Age, a period of incessant discovery and revelation of atomic and subatomic wonders - an age that revolutionized the physical world - began on a vacant playing field beneath the University of Chicago stadium on December 2, In the late afternoon of this momentous day, Fermi and Leo Szilard created the first controlled nuclear reactor, a model later reconstructed into five different reactor prototypes.

The first atomic bomb, a weapon harnessing the devastating power of nuclear fission, was developed as an end to World War II and all war thereafter. Comprehension of the bomb and its historical development is attained by breaking the subject into three related components: The Chemistry Aspect Fission is an elementary chemical interaction between subatomic particles.

Nuclear fission is defined as the splitting of an atom by nucleus bombardment. Atoms consist of three subatomic particles: Atomic nuclei are dense cores of atoms composed of neutrons and protons, and are thus positively charged.

Chemical reactions, from basic acid-base titrations to nuclear fission, involve the collision of atomic particles. Fission begins with the high-energy collision of neutrons with the nucleus of another atom. Protons cannot partake in nuclear bombardment because of the electrostatic repulsion between positively-charged protons and nuclei.

For fission to proceed, a neutron fired at the atom must fuse with the nucleus, producing a less-stable isotope. It is this constant amplification of energy that constitutes the devastating power of an atomic weapon.

If every atom were fissionable, there would be no stability to matter and the world would be an uninhabitable chaos of energy transformations.

Thus, only certain isotopes of few atoms will undergo a fissile chain reaction. Nobel physicist Neils Bohr discovered that Uranium, the ninety-second element, is an example of a fissionable atom. If a neutron traveling at adequate velocity and the appropriate angle collides with a uranium nucleus, the unstable nucleus absorbs the neutron, consequently increasing to an exceedingly unstable state.

Instantly the U splits into two atoms of different elements, emitting 2 neutrons that carry on the chain reaction, and liberating large quantities of gamma radiation.

As scientists probed further into the capabilities of fission, they began to visualize, as Fermi did, the awesome destructive potential of only a minute mass of uranium Thus, the dream of a weapon with unmitigated atomic power was spawned. With this basic knowledge of atomic chemistry and the motivation of a world crisis, the Manhattan project began in Two prominent challenges delayed the successful unleashing of nuclear energy: Dunning and Booth managed to separate the two isotopes of uranium before the institution of the Manhattan project, proving that it was indeed possible.

But the level at which their research was performed was purely scientific; a project tasked with ending a world war required much more intensive and efficient processing. Additionally, no one had any experience constructing a dimensionally-feasible nuclear reactor in deployable size.

As the Manhattan team quickly learned, the relative abundance of uranium was not only extremely small, but when found, uranium ore was nearly impossible to purify into U Natural uranium ore is comprised of a mixture of isotopes and Typically, one percent of the mass of uranium ore being considered is composed of the unstable isotope, while the rest is relatively useless U Lawrence of the University of California, Berkeley developed the first technique to isolate a practical amount of uraniumusing a modified mass spectrometer.

Uranium is a lighter isotope than Uranium The reason the bombs were dropped can vary according to who answers. But certain members of the government, military, engineers and scientists involved, wanted it to be used, and not just once.

They wanted a weapon to quell any enemy at any time. The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first He discovered that the American project was smaller than the British, and not as far advanced.

Much remained to be done. The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were like laboratory pieces; work would be required to make Branch: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Manhattan Project produced three bombs: the first bomb was known as "Gadget" and was used as a test model.

Due to the enormous expense and slow production rates for explosive material, no further tests were conducted. The Manhattan Project included work on uranium enrichment to procure uranium in high concentrations and also research on reactor development. The goal was twofold: to learn more about the chain reaction for bomb design and to develop a method of producing a new element, plutonium, which.

Three reasons. First of all, the U.S. only had 3 functional bombs. The first to be detonated was called "the Gadget", on 16 July at the Alamogordo . The Manhattan Project was the Allied effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. Led by Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves and J.

Robert Oppenheimer, it developed research facilities across the United States. The Project was successful and made the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.