The Atomic Bomb – 20 PagesEssay Preview: The Atomic Bomb – 20 PagesReport this essayOn July 16, 1945, the United States of America ushered the world into a new era with the successful detonation of an atomic bomb in New Mexico. That era was the nuclear age. Less than a month later, on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan; the first use of a nuclear weapon against an enemy nation. Most of us know of these basic events, but many do not know of the complicated decisions and scientific breakthroughs that paved the way towards that fateful day in Hiroshima. Every day we are closer to having nuclear arms fall in the hands of someone who wishes to do harm with those weapons. Many question why we think the U.S. is justified in having our own atomic collection. This is why it is important to understand how the atomic bomb came about and why we decided it was necessary to use it.
First reports of the bombs in Japan only reported that a “new type of bomb” had been used. Most had no concept of what an atom bomb was or why it was so powerful. The story of the atomic bomb opens with a series of new discoveries in physics that began near the turn of the century. The term classical is applied to the physics that scientists developed prior to that time (Cohen, 17). Much of it came from the work of the Father of Physics, the great seventeenth-century English scholar, Sir Isaac Newton. Newton was a scientific genius. Today, however, a competent student with a good high school physics course probably has a more accurate knowledge of the physical universe than Newton had. This is especially true concerning the most basic building blocks of matter, atoms. Newton, as did others before him, developed a theory about the structure of atoms. According to Newtons theory, atoms were like marbles. They were solid and hard, but unlike marbles, they could not be further divided. It was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that scientific experiment began to prove otherwise. Thereafter, knowledge of atomic structure moved ahead very quickly (Cohen, 18). By the mid-1930s, dedicated effort by British and other European scientists had revealed a new world of atomic structure, one filled with incredibly tiny systems of interacting subatomic particles containing electrons, protons, and neutrons.
In 1938, two German physicists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, were experimenting with uranium. They discovered that bombarding uranium atoms with neutrons didnt create a new element as they had previously assumed. Instead, uranium atoms split into two other elements–barium and krypton. This process was called nuclear “fission” (Batchhelder, 11). These two new atoms weighed less together than a single uranium atom. Therefore, according to Einsteins theory of relativity on mass and energy (E=mc2), the difference in missing mass must be made up in energy (Roleff, 14). Two other scientists had been helping Hahn and Strassman at the time. Their names were Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner. Together they determined that the calculated energy that was released from one single uranium atom would be 200 million electron volts. This energy was roughly 20 million times the energy of an equal portion of TNT. A pound of this matter converted to raw energy would produce more than half the amount of electricity generated in the US (Roleff, 15). Within months scientists from all over the world had repeated and refined the experiment.
At the time of Hahn and Strassmans discovery, very few physicists were still working in Germany. During the 1920s and 1930s, Germany was the center of the scientific world (Roleff, 20). When Hitler began his rise to power in the early 1930s, he also began his persecution of the Jews. As a result of his policies, many scientists left Europe for the safety of the United States. Many of these scientists became political refugees who contributed greatly to the success of the future Manhattan Project (Cohen, 22). This intellectual emigration took place at the same time as physicists on both sides of the Atlantic were discovering the secrets of the atom (Batchhelder, 18). The most famous of these scientists was Albert Einstein, who settled in Princeton University (Batchhelder, 14). Up to this point, the few who had even thought about it at all, regarded theoretical physics as a strange, esoteric practice. It was all very interesting, but highly speculative and not the sort of thing that was going to have any effect on peoples lives. The physicists, however, thought differently. They knew that nuclear fission could potentially release enormous amounts of energy. The splitting of one atom would result in its giving off particles that would split two other atoms, and so on. If billions of atoms fissioned in a chain reaction, powerful bombs might be created. In theory at least, this process could be used to create a weapon of almost unimaginable power (Szasz, 14). Since much of the work on nuclear fission had been done in Germany, German scientists certainly knew about this possibility. Yet almost no one in the United States seemed to take the potential development of a nuclear bomb very seriously (Batchhelder, 15).
With increasing developments in the nuclear field, the vision of Hitler in possession of an atomic bomb gave a group of refugee scientists the initiative to try and prevent Hitlers discovery of the bomb. The “Hungarian Conspiracy”, as the trio was later called, was made up of three physicists by the names of Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller (Szasz, 15). Szilard attempted to persuade his fellow scientists to refrain from publishing the results of their research in the nuclear field out of fear that the publication of encouraging results might lead to the development of German atomic bombs (Roleff, 59). They decided that the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt must be somehow made aware of the danger, and the United States must begin its own atomic research project (Batchhelder, 15).
The task of alerting Roosevelt to the German atomic threat was a hard one. Though the three men, particularly Szilard, were well known in scientific circles, it is doubtful if Present Roosevelt had ever heard of them. The possibility that any of them would ever be able to get a private meeting with the president, much less get him to listen to their suggestions, which to the nonscientist would have sounded quite fantastic, was virtually nil (Batchhelder, 15). They decided to enlist the help of a very well known scientist, one whose words Roosevelt or any other educated person would certain listen to, and that man was Albert Einstein. Szilard was an old friend of Einsteins. He found out that Einstein was spending the summer in a house on Long Island and he made an appointment to see him. Szilard explained to Einstein how a chain reaction might be created. Einstein was quite surprised remarking: “Daran
Einsteins, in particular, as was the case. Szilard was able to find Einstein on Long Island and read the letter in which the two men talked about their relationship. Einstein’s reaction was simple. A chain reaction exists that is more complex than you might think, and Einstein agreed that he must have had no idea. Another interesting fact is that Einstein was a famous physicist and had an extremely talented chemist and physicist friend. The fact that Einstein was well aware of the potential importance of chain reaction suggests that he probably had some idea of how such a chain reaction might work in a controlled and controlled manner in this new world. It was only last summer that this sort of thing appeared in American history. As noted above, in 1912 Einstein gave a report to the U.S. Congress about a future government that is being led from the atomic bomb. There is no one who has ever questioned Einstein on this topic. But here is a more important fact: In December 1913 Einstein and Roosevelt had both come to the Munich Conference, and at the session Einstein said that there was a “no secret” deal that would let Germany meet the German atomic bomb; and Roosevelt agreed to let that happen, however “inadvisable it may seem then”. This will be the first time FDR took such a bold step in history, though the idea could not stand up to it. He also got rid of a few others from the group, including Eichmann, as they had no real connection which would be expected except that Einstein’s report on Japan had been given to Roosevelt who had already left. A fact which is a cause of much unease among most citizens, and has been used as a rallying ground for opponents of nuclear power, is that Eichmann was considered by many to be more of a bad neighbor than the Japanese president. But the fact is that Eichmann came from the Jewish community in Germany. The Jewish community was at first sympathetic and they were at any moment considering this to be the right approach. As Roosevelt’s friend, Schlesinger von Leibniz made clear to Roosevelt in his diary, during his visit with Hitler at Munich a short period after that, he said that Eichmann was “the Jew that I have never heard of before” but was a strong friend of Hitler, “who is the man who has become President of Our Friend.” But Eichmann refused to sign any deals with Hitler. It should be noted that not only was it expected that Hitler would be at a conference when he was supposed to sign such a deal, but also that Eichmann was an advocate of nuclear power. Hitler, on the other hand, refused to sign such a deal with any other president of the Allied Powers. He went on to say he was very fond of Eichmann. Eichmann had become a staunch supporter of Nazi Germany and he was in an open relationship with Hitler, who was also opposed to such talks. On March 6 Hitler told him that he wanted the Japanese president to sign the agreement. Eichmann later said he agreed with Hitler’s wishes. Eichmann had given Hitler all along this point, and had tried throughout the entire Munich Session and in other years to convince him to sign the deal. He was not the only one whose support he considered to be genuine. Eichmann also received the approval of Roosevelt and Schlesinger Von Leibniz that Hitler had betrayed the United States and that he wanted the war to move forward in an orderly manner. This is no small moment. The “Hitler and Meisenstein