history of the Atomic Bomb :: essays research papers fc

History of the Atomic Bomb The atomic bomb1 is the most destructive weapon known to mankind. A bomb of this nature is capable of obliterating anything up to four square miles and anything reaching outside that area receives very extreme damage. Albert Einstein was the man who had convinced the United States to research the Atomic Bomb.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Manhattan Project2 was the name given to the research and development of the atomic bomb. It was called the Manhattan Project after Manhattan Engineer District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, because most of the early research was done in New York. The person that was chosen to lead this project was General Leslie Grove and Robert Oppenheimer was appointed to lead the day-to-day running of the project. In order for an atom bomb to be produced the scientists had to separate the Uranium-235 from the much more common Uranium-238. The facility that was used to separate the Uranium-135 from the Uranium-238 was not held __________________________ 1 Atomic Bomb – Bomb using Uranium-235 for mass destruction. 2 Manhattan Project – Name given to the development and research of the atomic bomb in the U.S. in New York but in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The cost of this project was two billion dollars, which is equivalent to 26 billion dollars in today’s world and the factories employed 200,000 people, that was more then the amount of people employed in the United States auto mobile industry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When the first bomb was made a site in Alamogordo, New Mexico was chosen as the testing ground. In order for the bomb to explode, all the nuclei of the several grams of Uranium would have to be split. A sphere of Uranium the size of a baseball would cause an explosion that equaled the strength of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. When the bomb had exploded there was a tower and the explosion had turned the asphalt around the tower into green sand, the sky was extremely bright and seconds after the explosion came a huge blast that sent unbelievable heat across the desert. Also, there was a huge mushroom cloud that reached the sub-stratosphere that was at an elevation of 41,000 feet. 10,000 feet away a soldier was of right off his feet by the force of the shock wave and another soldier stationed five miles away was temporarily blinded. The explosion was able to be herd 50 miles away.