The creation of nuclear fission started in Germany. "Near the end of 1938 two German scientists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, made a startling discovery. Upon bombarding uranium nuclei with neutrons, they discovered that there was barium in the decay products.This was particularly surprising since barium is only half as heavy as uranium"(Parker, 246). What happened was they had 235 Uranium and it was hit with the neutron, which caused the molecule to split. When this happened this wasn't the first discovery but the first successful experiment to see what would happen.
"After a considerable discussion, they finally realized that the presence of barium could only be explained by a breaking up or "fissioning" of the uranium nucleus. Fritsch told Niels Bohr about it, and Bohr, who was just leaving for the United States, was quickly convinced, and he became very excited. Experiments soon showed that when the uranium nucleus fissioned, two neutrons were released, and each would cause another fissioning. In essence, a "chain reaction" would occur in a tiny fraction of a second, releasing a tremendous amount of energy"(Parker, 246) When this happened, this was a great discovery. Now this could be either used to create a lot of energy, or build a really large bomb. "Bohr realized the potential for a super bomb, and he conveyed the information to Enrico Fermi when he got to the United States. Fermi was one of the leading nuclear physicists in the world and had barely missed discovering fission himself. Leo Szilard, who had fled Europe several years earlier, also soon heard of it and almost went into panic." (Parker, 246) People got the idea that you could split an atom through this, and it eventually got to Einstein through Szilard. Even though this would be used to make a bomb before nuclear energy, the idea of using it for power remained present. It is because each reaction creates so much energy and during this time WW2 was going on, Roosevelt was probably more concerned with using this to help us out in the war rather than help out citizens at home in the U.S. The war industry was very large at this time and was what was bringing the country out of the depression. It created jobs for people who needed them, created something that the country needed badly. This is why splitting uranium could only be used for destructive energy initially and not constructive to help out the community.
Leo Szilard, one of the initial innovators of nuclear fission gave his input in an interview on the use of the A-Bomb."Q Would a United States Government today, confronted with the same set of choices and approximately the same degree of military intelligence, reach a different decision as to using the first A-bomb?
A I think it depends on the person of the President. Truman did not understand what was involved. You can see that from the language he used. Truman announced the bombing of Hiroshima while he was at sea coming back from Potsdam, and his announcement contained the phrase - I quote from the New York "Times" of August 7, 1945: "We have spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history - and won.
To put the atomic bomb in terms of having gambled 2 billion dollars and having "won" offended my sense of proportions, and I concluded at that time that Truman did not understand at all what was involved."(http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html, 05/01/08)
What this article talks about is how even though bombing Hiroshima might have "stopped" the war, if he hadn't a lot of scientists would have kept working. But because they saw how the U.S. reacted when we made the atom bomb, they didn't want to make an even deadlier bomb and then have the government drop it over another country. This was probably due to the fact that Truman didn't really understand too much of what went into making the bomb. Nuclear fission had already been created, they just had to find a way to create an unstable reaction inside of a bomb that would multiply exponentially. Even though Szilard didn't actually discover nuclear fission, he understood the process and he was the first person to patent it. He understood there could be better uses for the energy rather than a bomb. If Truman had known more about what was involved in the making of a nuclear bomb, he probably wouldn't have viewed it as a gamble, and maybe would have come to a different decision.
Even though Einstein may not have totally understood a lot about nuclear fission, he still understood why it was possible. "The fourth was a sort of continuation of his third, creating the equation E=mc(squared) which basically means "energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared". "Although not exactly a recipe for an atomic bomb, it explained why one was possible."(http://discovermagazine.com/204/sep/no-mere-genius/article_print, 05/01/08) How this shows how an atomic bomb is possible is it shows how much energy could come out of nuclear fission at a certain level.
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