Atomic Bomb
It was during the Second World War that the United States became a world power, thanks in a large part to its monopoly on atomic weapons. The atomic bomb is a weapon with great explosive power that results form the sudden release of energy upon the splitting, or fission of the nuclei of such heavy elements as plutonium or uranium. This new destructive force wrecked havoc on two Japanese cities and caused the end of World War II. It also saved thousands of American lives because a ground invasion of Japan was no longer necessary. The decision to create the bombs was that of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt under a secret military project that was called The Manhattan Project. The Beginnings of the Manhattan Project In 1939, after German dictator Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, German scientists shocked the scientific world when they announced that they had split uranium atoms by man-made means for the first time. Upon hearing this news, a nuclear physicist, Leo Szilard, was convinced that a chain reaction of this process could be used as a weapon to release an awesome burst of power. Szilard knew that this knowledge was now in the wrong hands of the enemy Germans. On a July day in 1939 Szilard and his associate,
In early 1942, the Manhattan Project moved its headquarters to Chicago. There the scientists set up a laboratory under the stands of the University of Chicago football stadium. It was there that the turning point of the project occurred; the first nuclear chain reaction was created. On December 2, 1942, to conduct the test, the three brilliant men built a graphite nuclear reactor the size of a house. By the pulling of a rod attached to the reactor the experiment began. The meter on the counting machine ascended to the highest point and stayed there. "Gentlemen, the pile has gone critical," Fermi announced, signaling that it was a success. Fermi then ordered the control rod to be pushed back before the reactor exploded and perhaps taking a large part of Chicago with it. The chain reaction was the evidence that proved that an atom bomb could be made. Most of the scientists were overjoyed, but Szilard said to Fermi, "This is a black day for mankind." Since much of the United States early nuclear research been conducted at New York's Columbia University, the federal government assigned the Manhattan District of the Army Corps of Engineers to construct the primary research and production facilities for the project. Hence the "Manhattan Project" became the code name for the atomic-bomb development program.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1989
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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