Questions And Purpose Of The Atomic Bomb

On December 2, 1942, Leo Szilard would accurately predict the implications of the event he had just witnessed: “A black day in the history of mankind”. Szilard was attending a demonstration at the University of Chicago, where he looked on as Italian physicist Enrico Fermi conducted an experiment that would lead to the development of the atomic bomb. In a repurposed squash court under the recently abandoned Maroons football field, Fermi would produce the first controlled chain reaction in uranium. This event was a pivotal moment in the multi-national effort to construct and utilize the power of atomic weaponry, and would eventually lead to the decimation of two major cities and the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people. While Fermi’s experiment

They were working together to defeat the Nazi terror that had descended over Europe, and understand the vast secrets of the atom. While the work these researchers were conducting was incredibly exciting and innovative, the implications of the weapon they were developing began to raise eyebrows. The first major question about the project arose in the early stages of the bomb’s development: How destructive would the bomb really be? The answer to this question was very unclear prior to the first test of the bomb, in fact, one researcher suggested that the bomb might destroy the entire world if it ignited the nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere. This suggestion would later be proved to be very unlikely, with the later official estimates ranging from 300 tons to 45,000 tons of equivalent TNT. The eventual Trinity test would produce a blast of 18.6 kilotons (18,600 tons of TNT). After viewing the test, Oppenheimer would famously declare: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”. This was a destructive power that had never been seen before, and no one on Earth had ever been a victim of a weapon of this