Paper Sample: The Manhattan Project and the Role of Scientists in the Development and Use of Atomic Bombs

The atomic bomb is a powerful weapon that uses nuclear reactions as a source of energy and can explode a wide area (Waldinger, 811). Nuclear weapon technology was first invented by scientists who played a significant role in World War II. The atomic bombs were used two times in WW2 with all incidences associated with the U.S. bombing two cities in Japan (Genay). They marked the end of WW2 after bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, killing about 140,000 and 80,000 people, respectively (Waldinger, 812). After the two historic atomic bomb explosions, nuclear proliferation followed and the Cold War whereby scientists from different countries vied for supremacy in nuclear arms to prepare future actions. The scientists played a critical role in the discovery, development, and advocation of nuclear bombs' usage in World War II.

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The first atomic bomb was made in 1938 by nuclear scientists who worked in a laboratory located in Berlin, Germany (Waldinger, 816). It was made possible after Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission together with scientists Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman. The three scientists realized the atom of radioactive materials could split into lighter particles and produce high-power energy. Nuclear fission recognition as a power source was a significant invention that allowed scientists to use atomic technologies as weapons during World War II (Hartcup). Atomic bonds use the technology of fission reaction to them to function and be assertive.

America started efforts to develop functional atomic bombs during WW2 naming the program as the Manhattan Project. The project began as a reply to a letter that Hitler's scientists were making weapons using nuclear technologies since the 1930s (Mason et al., 37). Upon receipt of the warning letter, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the project's start to develop uranium arms in late 1942. Several scientists were brought together and joined with the military leaders to research nuclear and create atomic weapons.

The most sensitive work concerning the program happened in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The chief supervisor was a scientist called J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is recognized as the atomic bomb founder. He led the other team in testing the first bomb in a remote desert location near the Alamogordo area in New Mexico on July 16, 1945 ("Manhattan Project Documents"). The first bomb testing at Alamogordo was named the Trinity Test. The atomic bomb launch was successful as it formed a massive mushroom cloud at about 40,000 feet higher in the sky, and it marked the start of the Atomic Age (Hartcup).

The American scientists working at Los Alamos made two different atomic bombs by 1945 using uranium and plutonium (Einstein). The uranium-based design atomic bomb was named the "Little Boy," and the plutonium made the nuclear bomb the "Fat Man" ("Manhattan Project Documents"). Europeans ended the war in April; however, the fight extended to the Pacific, which involved the U.S. troops against the Japanese forces. In late July, President Harry Truman called for the Japanese forces to surrender by warning the Japanese in the Potsdam Declaration. In the announcement, the U.S. swore to destroy Japan if they failed to admit defeat.

U.S. troops released the first atomic bomb from the sky of Hiroshima city on August 6, 1945 (Mason et al., 39). U.S. used a B-29 bomber plane called the "Enola Gay" to drop the explosive device on the Japanese civilians. The uranium made the atomic bomb detonated with a force of approximately 13 kilotons destroyed about five square miles of the city and killed around 80,000 Japanese residents. More people died later because of injuries and exposure to dangerous radiation (Waldinger, 814). The aim was to make Japan surrender, but they hesitated to led to the second bombing. The plutonium bond (Fat Man) was the second atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki city three days after the Hiroshima attack. The attack killed an estimated 40,000 people and the Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japanese troops on August 15 (Waldinger, 820).

After a letter written to President Roosevelt by scientist Albert Einstein, the U.S. started the Manhattan Project, a celebrated physician. Albert had a great understanding of the relationship between mass and energy and developed a famous formula E=mc2, which gave insights into the power of mass when converted to energy (Genay). In 1939, the scientist resided in the U.S. as an immigrant from Hitler's Germany and was an official at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (Waldinger, 823). Leo Szilard was also a scientist and a friend of Einstein. He was a Hungarian migrant from Nazi Germany and was very troubled about the Germans' developing an atomic weapon to use in fighting the Allies.

Szilard, out of fear, approached Einstein and requested him to sign a letter addressed to the U.S. President about the dangers of the German's atomic weapons. The letter said that the U.S. could process uranium into new and vital sources of power in the near future (Einstein). He expressed the concern that Germans could construct powerful bombs from the uranium. The President pleaded in the letter to keep his government closely connected with the "group of physicists at work on chain reactions in America"(Einstein). As a result of the message, the President took the initiative to start the Manhattan Project, a significant U.S. program for creating atomic weapons (Genay).

After reading the letter, President Roosevelt set up an Advice-giving Committee on Uranium, which Lyman J. Briggs ruled with the role and responsibilities to assess U.S. capacity concerning uranium investigations and to suggest measures the U.S. administration could play. Even though Einstein was involved directly in the Manhattan Project in making the uranium-made bombs, he contributed to the bombs' development through a letter to the President ("Manhattan Project Documents"). Einstein's colleague, Leo Szilard, made historic discoveries on atomic chain reactions that contributed significantly to the U.S. making the two functional nuclear bombs.

During the period of the Manhattan Project, Szilard worked with Enrico Fermi on creating a controlled chain reaction at the University of Chicago. They both evolved successfully in conducting the first lab-regulated chain reaction in the University's laboratory in 1942 (Mason et al., 40). In so doing, it was clear that creating an automatic weapon was possible. Szilard worked jointly with both Social and Political Committees of the Metallurgical Laboratory scientists employed on the bomb project but based in Chicago. Nobel Laureate scientist James Franck was the head of the committee at the Chicago lab and reported that the U.S. could first show the bombs' power to Japanese officials before being applied to Japanese citizens. However, the scientific committee that controlled the Manhattan Project was against the suggestion with recommendations for the military use of the bombs without first demonstrating to their enemies (Oppenheimer). The U.S. did the project in secret, and the Japanese did not expense such an attack on their cities.

Joseph Rotblat was also a scientist who participated in the development of the atomic bomb. He was from Poland and moved to London to accompany James Chadwick and work together. Rotblat was disturbed by the Germans' attempts to create nuclear weapons, which made him work with the British atomic bomb project (for the Allies), and later was a member of the U.S. Manhattan Project. The scientists thought that the Allied nuclear bomb would be crucial to frighten the Germans and forbid them from the use of atomic bombs. He contributed significantly to making the functional atomic bomb for the Allies in the Manhattan Project. Some scientists advocated for using atomic weapons to deter Hitler's team from using the atomic bombs while others approved the weapons against their enemies (Waldinger, 827).

Scientists were the people behind the use of the atomic bombs by the U.S. against the Japanese. In 1944, about six thousand scientists and engineers from foremost learning institutions and industrial research laboratories committed to developing the world's first nuclear arm (Genay). The Manhattan Project was controlled and managed by a scientist Robert Oppenheimer who headed the research and facility of Los Alamos National Laboratory ("Manhattan Project Documents"). The reason behind its location in a remote place was for security purposes.

The U.S. government representative in the Manhattan Project was Major General Leslie Gloves. Private corporations helped secure raw materials necessary for the formation of atomic weapons such as uranium. DuPont was one of the foremost corporations that supplied the components required to make the bombs. The nuclear materials used in the project were completed in reactors located in different places such as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford. The atomic bombs project employed 130,000 Americans across the 37 facilities across the country ("Manhattan Project Documents"). The scientist also helped in the first nuclear bomb detonation at the Alamogordo military test. In the incident, the bomb-shattered house windows that were more than fifty miles away.

The secret U.S. nuclear weapon project was participated by many past and future Nobel laureates, among them Arthur Compton, during World War II (Genay). Compton directed the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where Nobelist Enrico Fermi supervised the first reactor's construction. Nobelist Eugene Wigner, who originated from Hungary, was the champion in designing the plutonium-production reactors built at Hanford (Waldinger, 822). One of the facilities started to create atomic bonds. Another scientist who also won a Nobel prize and worked on the Manhattan Project was Glenn Seaborg. Seaborg developed the first chemical process for extracting plutonium from irradiated uranium (Mason et al., 42).

The U.S.'s atomic bombs against Japan destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities, loss of lives, and World War II. Scientists played a critical part in creating nuclear bombs to help the Allies deter the Germans from atomic weapons. Scientists such as James Franck, Eugene Wigner, Jews, and Enrico Fermi, a non-Jewish, helped America create the first atomic bomb (Mason et al., 43). On the part of Germans, they had organized a particular scientific unit headed by Werner Karl Heisenberg to build an atomic weapon using uranium (Heisenberg).

Work Cited

"Manhattan Project Documents". Atomicarchive.Com, 2020, https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/pdfs/00285807.pdf.

Einstein, Albert. Einstein-Szilard Letter, 1939, https://www.atomicheritage.org/key-documents/einstein-szilard-letter. Accessed 26 Sept 2020.

Genay, Lucie. "Remembering the Atomic Bomb in its Birthplace, New Mexico." Les Cahiers de Framespa. Nouveaux champs de l’histoire sociale 24 (2017). https://journals.openedition.org/framespa/4366

Hartcup, Guy, and Bernard Lovell. The effect of science on the second world war. Springer, 2016.

Heisenberg, Werner, and An Authentic German Hero. "German Genius Werner Heisenberg: In WW2 He Helped the Scientific Community, It Plotted to Eliminate Him." (2018). https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/german-genius-werner-heisenberg-in-ww2-he-helped-the-scientific-community-it-plotted-to-eliminate-him/

Mason, Thomas E., et al. "The early development of neutron diffraction: science in the wings of the Manhattan Project." Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations of Crystallography 69.1 (2013): 37-44. https://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?wl5168

Oppenheimer, J.R. "Science Panel's Report to The Interim Committee | The Manhattan Project | Historical Documents | Atomicarchive.Com". Atomicarchive.Com, 2020, https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/manhattan...