The Manhattan Project was the secret name of the United States' pre-World War II project to design and build a nuclear weapon. With the discovery of fission in 1939, scientists discovered that nuclear and radioactive materials could be used to make bombs of epic proportions. The idea of building such a weapon originated with Albert Einstein, who shared his idea with President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. The first atomic bomb was detonated at Los Alamos, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. A month after development of first atomic bomb shut down; the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese islands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In 1938, many people believed that Adolf Hitler had produced an atomic bomb in Germany thanks to his scientists being able to split uranium. Hitler's racism towards Jews, however, caused many Jewish scientists to seek safety in the United States. One such scientist who looked to America for safety was physicist Albert Einstein. Einstein, a well-known pacifist, ignored his beliefs and wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt. In his letter, Einstein advised President Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb before Hitler could. Soon Roosevelt agreed with Einstein and developed the Manhattan Project, a secret project designed to build an atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project was not known to many people. It took place privately through numerous agencies and was not shared with the public. By 1945, the Manhattan Project had up to 40 operational laboratories and up to 200,000 operational personnel building the first atomic bomb. Before the Manhattan Project began, physics and the reactions of different elements were being studied. Even though these scientific discoveries were happening, the political fabric of countries was being torn apart. Japan was beginning its military expansion, eventually invading Manchuria in 1931. In Europe, Hitler's rise to power was beginning and his expansion of Nazism was overtaking Europe. The breakdown of political stability did not happen only in these countries. Italy was undergoing the transition to fascist rule under dictator Benito Mussolini. Other countries experiencing political instability occurred throughout Central Europe and Spain. The rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union led to the Great Purge of 1936-1938, with the people of the Soviet Union facing political oppression and discrimination. The rise of Hitler and Japan was causing political turmoil around the world. Hitler began to institute the Nuremberg Laws, thus beginning the persecution of Jews in Germany. In March 1936, Germany began its invasion of Europe by conquering the Rhineland. In July 1937, Japan invaded China, causing a shift in power in Asia. In November 1937, the Axis Alliance was created from the countries of Germany, Italy and Japan. In March 1938 Germany took control of Austria and in September took control of Czechoslovakia. The actions of the Axis Alliance marked the beginning of what is now known as World War II. This world period causes many other countries to fear the possibility of an atomic bomb. The power to create such a weapon became more and more plausible as the war continued. The discovery of fission came when Germany began to resort to conquest by force, rather than simple intimidation. Although he wasn't sure if he was at the timeIt is possible to control the release of atomic energy, many European physicists did not want to find out the hard way with Hitler in power. European scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt addressed by Einstein, in which they warned the United States of the possibility of the Axis Alliance using nuclear weapons. The letter, which is now known as the "Einstein Letter" was delivered to the President on October 11, 1939. The President then called a meeting of the Uranium Advisory Committee, also known as the Briggs Uranium Committee, in Washington D.C., primarily because of the constant lack of interest; progress on the topic has been half-hearted and questionable for the United States. The next step in plans for a nuclear weapon came in the United Kingdom, when the United States was not seriously considering nuclear war at the time. In 1940, the German army invaded Denmark. Denmark was the home of one of the most important scientists in the field of atomic research in the world, Niels Bohr. The Allies feared that Germany would take over Denmark and its homeland, and were therefore forced to work for Nazi Germany to build an atomic bomb for Germany. Before he could be captured, British intelligence helped him escape to Sweden, which allowed him to flee to the United States to escape Nazi Germany's seizure of power. Throughout the 1940s, Germany and its scientists worked on a project similar to the Manhattan Project. If German scientists had implemented their project before the United States, the war could have ended in disaster for the Allies. General Wilhelm D. Styer told Colonel James Marshall to form a district of the Army Corps of Engineers to take over and merge the development of the atomic bomb. In August 1942, Marshall formed a new district group under the misleading name "Manhattan Engineer District", which is now known as the Manhattan Project. Although the Manhattan Project was formed in August, the real work did not begin until September. Groves' aggressive and forceful behavior did not make him a fan among the scientists who were working on the Manhattan Project. Many scientists hated Groves and his technique. However, after the war, many scientists appreciated Groves and his attitude because they realized how important his executive and decision-making intelligence was to the Manhattan Project. Scientists from around the world contributed to the Manhattan Project to help dismantle the Axis powers under Groves' command. Scientists from the United States, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Great Britain and Italy worked on the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. Winston Churchill, leader of Great Britain, and President Roosevelt were both concerned about the possibility of Germany producing a nuclear weapon before the Allies. The possibility of Germany obtaining nuclear weapons worried many Allied leaders. The two leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill, met in Canada in August 1943. During the meeting it was agreed that they must do everything possible to stop Germany's pursuit of nuclear weapons. In February 1943, Special Operations Executive saboteurs took over a bomb plant at the Rjukan nitrate industrial unit in Norway. After the plant was rebuilt, 150 US planes successfully bombed the plant, destroying it once again. In January 1944, a Norwegian resistance group sank a German ship carrying many resources vital to a nuclear program. By 1944, work on the Manhattan Project was in full swing. The process was about reaching outthe actual development of the weapons, the construction of the fissile material and the transportation of the weapon. In July 1944, the Manhattan Project was awarded the first priority project in the United States. The project cost two billion dollars to obtain the materials and equipment needed to make the Manhattan Project a success. The Manhattan Project had many laboratories, but three of the main ones were Hanford, Washington, Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Each of these was assigned different responsibilities during the Manhattan Project. Oak Ridge Laboratories was to supply the element Uranium-235, while Hanford scientists supplied the United States with weapons-grade plutonium. The Los Alamos laboratory was the essential site used to assemble the nuclear weapons used in the war. Four of the atomic bombs produced by the United States were produced at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Uranium-235 is the main component in the manufacture of an atomic bomb. Chemically, uranium-235 cannot be separated from its more abundant group, uranium-238. The only way these two elements can be separated from each other is physically. The Manhattan Project tried many different means to divide the two elements, settling on two of the processes. One means of splitting the two elements is the electromagnetic process. This process of splitting elements was discovered by Earnest Orlando Lawrence at the University of California. The other process is the diffusion process made available at Columbia University. Both processes mentioned require huge and difficult structures and buildings, and both processes require extreme uses of electricity to accomplish. The diffusion method primarily required large amounts of electricity to be successful. Both processes require these facilities and large amounts of energy to produce only a small amount of the separated element, uranium-235. A third process was created by Phillip Abelson called thermal diffusion, which was used for a time to separate elements. These methods were used primarily at the Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee. Another essential element in the atomic bomb manufacturing process is plutonium-239. The method for obtaining this element was developed by Arthur Compton in a laboratory at the University of Chicago. The procedure involves alteration in a reactor mound of uranium-238. In December 1942, Enrico Fermi finally managed to build and operate a fission chain reaction in this reactor in Chicago. Valuable production of plutonium-293 required the construction of a large, energy-efficient building capable of discharging 25,000 kilowatt-hours of heat for every gram of plutonium produced. It involved creating chemical removal methods that would work in a way that had never been done before. An intermediate step in the realization of this process relied exclusively on the production of the Oak Ridge laboratory, while the larger reactors were built in the Washington laboratory at the Hanford Engineering Works. During the summer of 1945, the Manhattan Project finally received enough plutonium-239 to produce a quality nuclear explosion from Hanford Engineering. Progress in weapons development and weapon design innovation, along with obtaining the necessary elements for the nuclear bomb, have been completed enough that a test of the nuclear weapon can be planned. The test was not simple to carry out, having to obtain complicated and highly structured equipment that had to be built and assembled to achieve a successful atomic bomb test. In 1945 the Manhattan Project achieved its goal of producing an atomic bomb. After six.
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