Manhattan Project

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out the nuclear fission information from a German physicist named Leo Szilard. He then told it to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and urged him to start an investment toward atomic research. 3The research would then help construct an atomic weapon of mass destruction. Roosevelt was not especially concerned about investing in atomic weapon research because he didn't plan on getting involved in the War. When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, Roosevelt entered the war and sent significant funds to the construction of the atomic weapon. Roosevelt speeded up the process of research by having General Groves setup a committee of the brightest minds from all around the world. Because most of the work done on research of the bomb was done in the Manhattan District of New York, at the US Army Corps of Engineers, the name given to the lay out was "The ".3 The man that General Grooves chose to head the was Robert J. Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was a Jewish born child who was raised in ...

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was used to make uranium which was used as an explosive to react with plutonium. The plutonium itself was made in Hanford, Washington.5 To make this explosion possible, a piece of uranium was fired at another piece of uranium to make the critical mass that was needed for an explosion. Critical mass is the exact amount of fissionable material needed to maintain a fission chain reaction. Once Critical mass was obtained it compressed Plutonium and when the Plutonium was compressed enough, atoms from plutonium were split and it made an explosive bomb that could destroy a medium sized city.3 Security was tight on the Los Alamos site because there was fear that bomb secrets would be spread ...

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