Manhattan Project History

How it came to be, nuclear edition It is time to delve into the world of nuclear inventions and wars from a somewhat close past. From nuclear missiles to nuclear energy, there are probably very few people who haven’t heard of the word nuclear. The creation of the Manhattan Project and a new super weapon started an arms race that damaged relations between Russia and the United States that survived into the 21st century and created a way for other countries to become very dangerous and use the weapon for very efficient energy production. The Manhattan Project was started because a group of German scientists had split a uranium atom and discovered how much energy was contained in an atom, enough energy to power a bomb ("The Manhattan Project").

FDR, upon being informed of such a thing taking place, created the Advisory Committee on Uranium, which was made up of civilian and military representatives and their role was to assess the research that had been done and inform the president on what would be the best course of action at the current time ("The Manhattan Project -- Its Story"). FDR then created the project and put General Leslie Groves in charge of the project, which originated in Manhattan, hence the project’s name “The Manhattan Project” (Hook). Albert Einstein was not allowed to work on the project or consult with the hundreds of scientists working on the project because he was German and deemed a security risk ("The Manhattan Project"). Einstein latter said after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that if he knew that the Germans were never going to succeed in create a bomb that he would never have told the president of the danger that the Germans posed ("The Manhattan Project"). Robert Oppenheimer was one of the directors of the project besides General Groves as well as the

The process of “uranium enrichment” was something done to make uranium-235 which was essential to the project because it was the only thing so far that had been used in the testing of nuclear reactions ("The Manhattan Project -- Its Story"). The uranium-235 atom is an isotope which means it has an uneven number of protons and neutrons which also means it is very unstable or “radioactive” making it perfect for starting a nuclear chain reaction (Hook). One process that was being researched at the time was the electromagnetic method which was being experimented on at Berkeley by Ernest O. Lawrence ("The Manhattan Project -- Its Story"). Because of the success of the electromagnetic method, it was recommended that plants using this method be utilized at Site X in Tennessee to produce uranium-235 ("The Manhattan Project -- Its Story"). Site X was built in Tennessee to enhance ordinary uranium to form uranium-235 because the earth yielded little of the highly valuable material (Hook). The Site was a virtual town in the middle of Tennessee with railroads and roads built in the spring of 1943 to house the plant that would produce the much needed uranium-235, that would be used