The Atom Bomb :: essays research papers fc

The blood cell bomb is one of the most important discoveries in modern daylight science. Countless scientists worked relentlessly on the project and their efforts opened the door for puzzle and future exploration of the atom.Just before the beginning of World War II, Albert wizardry wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Urged by Hungarian-born physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wingner, and Ed ward Teller, Einstein told Roosevelt around Nazi German efforts to purify atomic number 92-235 which might be used to score an nuclear bomb. Shortly after that the United States Government began work on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the United States effort to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans did. "The first successful experiments in splitting a uranium atom had been carried out in the autumn of 1938 at the Kaiser Wilhelm found in Berlin" Just after Einstein wrote his letter. So the race was on. study General Wilhelm D. St yer called the Manhattan Project "the most important job in the war . . . an all-out effort to build an atomic bomb." It turned out to be the biggest development in warfare and sciences biggest development this century.The most complicated recognize to be addressed by the scientists working on the Manhattan Project was the yield of ample amounts of enriched uranium to sustain a chain reaction. At the time, Uranium-235 was knockout to extract. Of the Uranium ore mined, only about 1/500th of it ended up as Uranium metal. The Uranium metal is relatively rare, occurring in Uranium at a ratio of 1 to 139.Separating the one part Uranium-235 proven to be a challenge. No ordinary chemical extraction could class the two isotopes. Only mechanical methods could effectively separate U-235 from U-238. Scientists at capital of South Carolina University solved this difficult problem.A massive enrichment plant was built at oak Ridge, Tennessee. H. C. Urey and his associates and colleagu es at Columbia University designed a system that worked on the linguistic rule of ordnanceeous diffusion. After this process was completed, Ernest O. Lawrence from the university of California in Berkeley implemented a process i nvolving magnetic separation of the two isotopes. Finally, a gas centrifuge was used to further separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. The Uranium-238 is forced to the bottom because it had more(prenominal) mass than the Uranium-235. This Uranium was then transported to a laboratory headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was the major(ip) force behind the Manhattan Project.