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Nuclear Weapon: The Manhattan Project

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The Manhattan Project was a concealed military project launched in 1942 to build a nuclear weapon that would assist the Allies in World War II. The project, which costed 2 billion dollars (about 26 billion of today’s dollars), was led by the United States with the backing of Canada and the United Kingdom. It took place in various sites across the United States and because those sites had high security, not many knew of the project while it was in progress. The people placed in charge of this project were General Leslie R. Groves and U.S. physicist Robert Oppenheimer. These directors had recruited many excellent scientists, mathematicians, and engineers to reach their objective. There were over 125,000 people who took part in this project, and …show more content…

One type was the gun-type bomb, which has the shape of a capsule. Gun-type assembly involves conventional explosives, a gun barrel, a neutron initiator, a hollow, subcritical fissile “bullet,” and a subcritical fissile core. In this type of bomb, the core, which is made up of the same material as the bullet, is secured at the opposite end of the bullet and the conventional explosives. Near the core lies the neutron initiator. The gun barrel is used as a path that leads the bullet to the core. When conventional explosives are detonated, the bullet is fired down the gun barrel at the core. When the bullet and the core are driven together, a critical mass is formed. Simultaneously, the neutron initiator fires some neutrons into the critical mass. When this happens, some atoms of the mass are split, and the neutrons produced by those splitting atoms strike nearby nuclei of other atoms, causing additional fission to occur. (This is known as a chain reaction.) When these atoms split, immense energy is released as the devastating explosion of the bomb. The gun-type bomb can only be fueled by the uranium isotope, U-235. Little Boy was one of the atomic bombs that were assembled this way and was powered by U-235. Thin Man was also a gun-type bomb, but unlike Little Boy, scientists strived to construct this bomb with a plutonium core (Pu-239), which did not work, so it was never …show more content…

The assembly of this type of bomb includes a hollow sphere that contains explosives, detonators, a neutron initiator, a pusher, and a subcritical fissile core. In the implosion-type bomb, the neutron initiator is positioned at the center of the sphere. The core surrounds the neutron initiator, and covering the core is the pusher. (The core has a shape of a sphere and has enough space in the middle of it for the neutron initiator to be placed.) Meanwhile, the explosives and detonators are placed around pusher. When the detonators set off the explosives, the pusher compresses the core with the spherical shockwave of the explosions to a high density, triggering the core to become critical. The neutron initiator inside the core is crushed as the core compresses and releases neutrons. These neutrons cause a chain reaction to occur in the core, which makes the bomb explode with overwhelming power. This type of bomb can carry either a uranium core or a plutonium core and is much more destructive than the gun-type bomb. Both the Gadget and Fat Man were implosion-type bombs that were fueled by the plutonium isotope,

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In New York Times article “First Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan,” written by Sidney Shalett announces America dropped the first made atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. This news has brought the world to chaos by the weapon that the United States invented to bring destruction to another country. This weapon of the United States called an atomic bomb, has wiped out everything in Hiroshima to nothing. The author of this article, Shalett, captures the effective of the bomb as “an immense steel tower has been “vaporized” by the tremendous explosion.” When the author uses the word “vaporized” to describe the power that atomic bomb hold, this word tell atomic bomb can make think to disperse by the time it went explode.

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The first bomb, a Fat Man prototype, was detonated at a testing range in New Mexico that was code-named Trinity. The result of the bombing was successful and soon after, the Little Boy bomb was complete. By this time, Colonel Tibbets and his 509th unit had already been relocated to Tinian, in the Mariana Islands to start more training and missions to Japan, which was dubbed Manhattan in the Pacific (Bateman 2004, 127-128; Posey 2011). The flights leading up to the main mission of the project were designed not only to test bombs with similar weight and size as Little Boy and drop them on various munition plants, but they also served as a distraction in order to make the Japanese government complacent of the types of bombs the United States

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Paul Boyer, the author of By the Bomb’s Early Light, has an unusually high level of expertise on the subject of atomic bombs. He is an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is at the top of his field, and is a perfect candidate to write this book. Not only will he be an expert in the science of atomic bombs, but he will know the history of this kind of technology. Paul Boyer’s main idea in this book is more of a discussion of Nuclear Policy and a look back at the nuclear age.

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hydrogen bomb or H-bomb, weapon inferring an extensive bit of its vitality from the atomic combination of hydrogen isotopes. In a nuclear bomb, uranium or plutonium is part into lighter components that together weigh not exactly the first iotas, the rest of the mass showing up as vitality. Not at all like this splitting bomb, the hydrogen bomb capacities by the combination, or joining together, of lighter components into heavier components. The deciding item again weighs not as much as its parts, the distinction afresh showing up as vitality. Since to a great degree high temperatures are required with a specific end goal to start combination responses, the hydrogen bomb is otherwise called an atomic bomb.

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It was dropped by the U.S. on Japan. The atomic bomb was under a program called the Manhattan Project which was a secret war time effort to build the world's first nuclear weapon. The explosion had the force of more than fifteen thousand tons of dynamite and instantly devastated 4.4 square miles. Seventy thousand were killed immediately by the end of the year the death toll had passed one hundred thousand.

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During World War II, the United States discovered that the energy of the atom could be used in a new form of bomb. However, the Germans also discovered this, meaning that it would be a race to actually complete the weapon. The U.S. knew it needed to act fast and so three facilities were created for the development of the weapon in Washington, New Mexico, and Tennessee. The plants in Tennessee were based in almost the middle of nowhere.

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First used in war on August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on to Hiroshima killing thousands. On that fateful day a door was opened out of which came a monster the world had no idea how to deal with. The ability to destroy a massive amount of the population so effortlessly has created a world-wide issue that continues to this day. Tension runs rampant in international relations, many times due to the power behind atomic bombs and the advancements thereafter. There has been controversy over whether or not U.S. President Truman made the right decision by using the atomic bomb on Japan.

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29 Oct. 2015. This site is a foundation on the Manhattan project and the bombs included in it. I gathered information about the structure of the little boy bomb. This source also included pictures of the bomb and a bomb footage video.

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On August 6, 1945 the United States ordered to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, a city in Japan. The bomb instantly killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people but due to the radiation more people suffered death after the attack. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was known as “Little Boy” which was the first atomic bomb created. The plane that had dropped the bomb was known as the Enola Gay a B-29 bomber flown by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets. On August 9, 1945 the second nuclear bomb was dropped by the US on Nagasaki.

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The Manhattan Project was constructed during World War II by the United States to develop the first nuclear weapon/atomic bomb (The Manhattan Project” 2015).

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The reason that nuclear bombs explode and release tons of radiation is because of a thing called nuclear fission. America soon learned about Germany’s success and started experimenting with nuclear bombs themselves, this was called the “Manhattan Project”. A lot of people worked hard to make these, but not really for the right cause.

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1. Immediate Aftermath On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., an atomic bomb by the name of “Little Boy” detonated 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima. The bomb exploded directly above the Shima Surgical Clinic with the force of about 16 kilotons of TNT, causing the burst temperature to exceed 1 million degrees Celsius and creating a massive fireball measuring 840 feet in diameter. The explosion killed an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 and injured a similar number.

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There were two bombs, there names were Little boy and fat man. Little boy destroyed Hiroshima and fat man destroyed Nagashima the atomic bomb was made by splitting atoms, causing a chemical reaction making an enormous explosion. The idea of an atomic bomb was presented by Albert Einstein in the 1940’s then was later produced in the Manhattan project.

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There are many things that factor into being able to make an atomic bomb. Whether it is trying to get the right people to make this bomb, to the space of making it, and even the tools of getting

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There were 2 atomic bomb that was dropped in the World War II. The 2 atomic bombs is called The Fat Man and The Little Boy. Little boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. An American B-29 (a type of plane) called the "Enola Gay" was piloted by Paul W. Tibbets, dropped a uranium atomic bomb that is called The Little Boy, the bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb with its name Little Boy on Hiroshima, Hiroshima was Japan's seventh largest city. In minutes, half of the city was destroyed.

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