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| Fig. 1: Trinity Tower Test Site. (Courtesy of the DOE. Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
On December 21st, 1938, two German Scientists split a uranium atom for the first time ever. [1] As the scientific community began to realize the potential of a nuclear chain reaction, the race to develop the first atomic bomb had begun. Albert Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 urged the United States to create an atomic weapon program before the Germans were able to finish theirs. [1]
Beginning in 1942, the Manhattan Project featured collaboration between many of the worlds top scientists and the U.S Army Corps of Engineering. With President Roosevelt's backing, General Leslie R. Groves hired Americas top industrial firms to construct and operate the extensive facilities needed for the creation of a bomb. Grooves used and executed the management technique known as compartmentalization. [2] The Manhattan Project employed over 125,000 people in 30+ locations across the US, UK and Canada. [3] Due the heighted security measures of the operation, Groves went to great lengths to make sure that most of the project's employees did not know what they were working on until the first bomb had been dropped in 1945. Even with all the security and secrecy surrounding the operation, the U.S later learned that several spies had infiltrated the project. [3]
The first test of a nuclear bomb took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico under the code name Trinity. The bomb was dropped from a hundred-foot steel tower, shown in Fig. 1, which was consequently evaporated. The magnitude of the explosion was so great that a flash could be seen for a 250-mile radius. [4] The news of the successful explosion reached President Truman on July 16th, the same day that 60+ scientists signed a petition that the bomb should not be used against Japan without a convincing warning and an opportunity to surrender. [3] However, on August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima. Little boy derived its explosive power from the nuclear fission of U-235. The bomb was 9,700 pounds and had a blast yield of 15 kilotons of TNT (6.4 × 1013 joules). [4] The overwhelming majority of the public initially supported the dropping of the bomb, but as news about the damage and death brought upon Hiroshima, the support began to wane. [3] While the ethics of the bomb being dropped is an entirely different topic, the fact is that the incredible teamwork and capability of the men and women that worked on the Manhattan Project will be remembered forever.
© Ben Hallock. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] F. G. Gosling, "The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb," U.S. Department of Energy, DOE/MA-0001, January 1999.
[2] J. Lee, "The Manhattan Project," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2012.
[3] C. C. Kelly, ed., The Manhattan Project (Black Dog and Leventhal, 2010).
[4] T. Merton, Original Child Bomb (New Directions, 1962).
