The atomic bomb development started when German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission in 1938. It began with a theoretical explanation by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch that gave hope to the development of an atomic bomb. America bore fears that this discovery and theories would allow the Germans to develop atomic weapons before the Americans did, especially amongst scientists who were refugees (expressed in the Einstein-Szilard letter).
In the late 1939, the United states then prompted a preliminary research. However, progress was sluggish till late 1941, when there was the arrival of the British MAUD Committee report. Initially, tons of un-enriched uranium and a neutron moderator (e.g. heavy water) were required for the manufacturing of the bomb. However, they presented ground breaking findings and found that only 5–10 kilograms of isotopically enriched
…show more content…
These were headed by Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., whose position in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was to design and build the atomic bombs. He then appointed J. Robert Oppenheimer who aided in the organization and direction of the project in Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico where the bomb was designed.
Eventually, two types of bombs were developed - Little Boy and Fat Man (named by Robert Serber). Little boy was a gun-type weapon whose development was overseen by Lieutenant Commander Francis Birch's group of Captain William S. Parsons's Ordnance (O) Division at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory. Fat Man was a implosion-type nuclear weapon which was more complicated, more powerful and efficient. Even though the Japanese also had a nuclear weapon research undergoing, it lacked resources in every aspect of the Manhattan Project resulting in stagnated progress in the development of an atomic