Who invented nuclear bomb

At the time World War II broke out in Europe, America’s scientific community was fighting to catch up to German advances in the development of atomic power. In the early 1940s, the U.S. government authorized a top-secret program of nuclear testing and development, codenamed “The Manhattan Project.” Its goal was the development of the world’s first atomic bomb. Much of the research and development for the project occurred at a facility built in Los Alamos, New Mexico. In July 1945, Los Alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site, located in nearby Alamogordo. The Manhattan Project Beginning in 1939, some American scientists–many of them refugees of fascist regimes in Europe–advocated the development of ways to use nuclear fission for military purposes. By late 1941, the federal government’s Office of Scientific Research and Development, headed by scientist Vannavar Bush, took control of the project. After the United States entered Did you know? The residents of Los Alamos–known as site or project "Y"–lived highly restricted lives: Their mail was censored, their phone calls were monitored and even their interaction with family members was tightly controlled. All mail and official documents listed the site's location only as P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Much of the initial research had been performed at Columbia University in How Production Worked A medium-sized reactor built at Oak Ridge produced uranium-235 and plutonium, b...

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union tested the largest nuclear device ever created. The "Tsar Bomba," as it became known, was 10 times more powerful than all the munitions used during World War II. While its original purpose was to prove to the world, and especially to the United States, that the Soviet Union was capable of producing such devices, it also brought a surprising twist to the future testing of nukes. The Military Race Is On At the beginning of the 1960s, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States was tense -- the countries were in the middle of the Cold War, struggling for geopolitical, ideological, and military dominance. The United States had already tested the world's first hydrogen bomb -- called "Mike" -- in 1952 and their biggest nuclear device -- called "Castle Bravo" -- in 1954. The Soviet Union was also working on developing a hydrogen bomb and managed to detonate its first true one in 1955. But that was just the beginning. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was keen to show off the U.S.S.R.'s military prowess, so he ordered the creation of the most powerful bomb ever made. Who Was Who In Creating The 'Tsar Bomba'? How Does A Hydrogen Bomb Work? The Tsar Bomba was a hydrogen aerial bomb, also known as a thermonuclear weapon, which is usually described as a more advanced and powerful version of an atomic bomb. While atomic bombs use either uranium or plutonium in most cases, hydrogen bombs also need additional isotopes of hydrogen, ...

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic weapon during World War II. The controversial creation and eventual use of the atomic bomb engaged some of the world’s leading scientific minds, as well as the U.S. military—and most of the work was done in Los Alamos, New Mexico, not the borough of New York City for which it was originally named. The Manhattan Project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s—and that Adolf Hitler was prepared to use it. America Declares War The agencies leading up to the Manhattan Project were first formed in 1939 by President At first, Roosevelt set up the Advisory Committee on Uranium, a team of scientists and military officials tasked with researching uranium’s potential role as a weapon. Based on the committee’s findings, the U.S. government started funding research by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard at The Advisory Committee on Uranium’s name was changed in 1940 to the National Defense Research Committee, before finally being renamed the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in 1941 and adding Fermi to its list of members. That same year, following the Japanese attack on The Army Corps of Engineers joined the OSRD in 1942 with President Roosevelt’s approval, and the project officially morphed into a military initiative, with scientists serving in a supporting role. The Manhattan Project Begi...

In the first decades of the 20th century, In January 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany and suppressed Jewish scientists. Physicist per se, as the possibility of chain reaction was still very speculative. Szilard subsequently assigned the patent to the neutron inducted chain reaction, he was not sure about the use of isotopes or standard forms of elements. Despite this uncertainty, he correctly theorized uranium and thorium as primary candidates for such a reaction, along with beryllium which was later determined to be unnecessary in practice. Szilard joined with Enrico Fermi in developing the first uranium-fuelled nuclear reactor, In Paris in 1934, In December 1938, After learning about the German fission in 1939, Szilard concluded that In the Between 1939 and 1940, Perfectionnements aux charges explosives, meaning Improvements in Explosive Charges) being the first official document explicitly mentioning a nuclear explosion as a purpose, including for war. Uranium appears in nature primarily in two isotopes: By the start of the war in September 1939, many scientists likely to be persecuted by the Nazis had already escaped. Physicists on both sides were well aware of the possibility of utilizing nuclear fission as a weapon, but no one was quite sure how it could be engineered. In August 1939, concerned that Germany might have Roosevelt responded by setting up the Organized research first began in Britain and Canada as part of the For 18 months British research outpac...

In just 27 months, America accomplished what other nations thought impossible. How did the United States achieve the remarkable feat of building an atomic bomb when Germany, Italy and Japan failed? Hundreds of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers were needed to design, build, and test the world’s first atomic weapon and the Unites States government did everything in its power to lure these individuals to the Manhattan Project. To Bulgarian-born journalist Stephane Groueff, the Manhattan Project was an outstanding example of the “American way”: a combination of creativity, courage to try unorthodox approaches, and a relentless determination to succeed. Leadership The Manhattan Project benefited from an unusual number of extremely intelligent, experienced, and effective leaders. Their enormous energy and undaunted spirit carried the project forward despite the odds against its success. Some of these exemplary leaders included the Army Corps of Engineers’ General Leslie Groves, physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, DuPont’s Crawford Greenewalt and Kellogg’s Percival Keith, MIT’s Vannevar Bush, Harvard’s James B. Conant, and Berkeley’s Ernest O. Lawrence. To ensure that the nation fully engaged its scientific and technical resources in World War II, Vannevar Bush asked President Roosevelt to create the Office of Scientific Research and Development. As its director, Bush forged an unprecedented alliance between government, academia and industry. Under Bush’s d...

The story of the atomic bomb started around the turn of the century when a small number of physicists began to think about, discuss, and publish papers about the phenomenon of radioactivity, the behavior of alpha particles, and the properties of various materials when irradiated. Initially, these persons included well-known scientists such as Ernest Rutherford of New Zealand and Great Britain, Neils Bohr of Denmark, Pierre and Marie Curie of France, and Albert Einstein of Germany. Later, the "nuclear group" was joined by Leo Szilard of Hungary, Otto Hahn of Germany, Michael Polenyi of Hungary, Walter Bothe of Germany, Lise Meitner of Austria, Hantaro Nagaoka of Japan, and others of similarly diverse backgrounds. By the early 1900s these scientists were studying the structure of the atom and the deflection and scattering of alpha particles. In 1908 Rutherford showed that the alpha particle was in fact an atom of helium; in 1911 he announced that he had found the nucleus of an atom to be a minute but concentrated mass surrounded by electrons in orbits. By the 1930s the nuclear scientists were exploring the revolutionary concept of splitting an atom of uranium with a neutron. The early 1930s saw the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and Russia. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and the Nazis began to abolish the civil rights of German Jews and to start their campaign of persecution. German scientists who were Jews realized that the Nazis posed a deadly threat, and t...