The Einstein Letter
Physicist Leo Szilard had throughout the 1920’s worked in Berlin and was familiar with the various projects and experiments being conducted up until the time he left Berlin to move to London, England in 1933. Scientists on both sides (Allied and Axis) had both been successful in splitting an atom but had as of yet been unsuccessful in creating a sustainable nuclear reaction that would be required to make the technology cost effective and yield the greatest results.
Physicist Leo Szilard had throughout the 1920’s worked in Berlin and was familiar with the various projects and experiments being conducted up until the time he left Berlin to move to London, England in 1933. Scientists on both sides (Allied and Axis) had both been successful in splitting an atom but had as of yet been unsuccessful in creating a sustainable nuclear reaction that would be required to make the technology cost effective and yield the greatest results.
In 1933 Szilard came up with the idea of using the element uranium in splitting atoms to sustain nuclear reaction and in theory he believed he had solved the problem and that Nazi Germany would soon also be successful in creating a working bomb.
In August 1939 he decided to visit his friend and mentor Albert Einstein in order to relate his concerns to him in the hopes that Einstein would use his influence to convince then President Roosevelt the need to pursue and perfect making a bomb of this magnitude before Germany was successful.
Szilard’s believed that the German’s were using the right method but that they had not perfected the correct way in which to use the graphite. The graphite that Germans used to sustain a chain reaction contained trace elements of boron which in fact was enough of a barrier to stop the chain reaction. Szilard believed that utilizing boron free graphite would sustain the chain reaction required to achieve nuclear fission.
Together with his friend Einstein they drafted the letter you see above warning President Roosevelt that Germany was working on this bomb, that if successful the bomb would be a devastating weapon capable of changing the outcome of the war and urged the United States to initiate their own project to complete the bomb before the Germans completed theirs.
The letter was mailed in August 1939 but did not reach the President’s hands until November 1939. Once Roosevelt realized the gravity of what the letter meant he commissioned a committee of top scientist to begin to study the possibility of the type of weapon that Einstein and Szilard had described. This commission headed by Lyman James Briggs and became known as the Briggs Commission. This commission would lead eventually to the testing of a working bomb with Operation Trinity and the Manhattan Project which would be used to develop the bombs that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Szilard’s believed that the German’s were using the right method but that they had not perfected the correct way in which to use the graphite. The graphite that Germans used to sustain a chain reaction contained trace elements of boron which in fact was enough of a barrier to stop the chain reaction. Szilard believed that utilizing boron free graphite would sustain the chain reaction required to achieve nuclear fission.
Together with his friend Einstein they drafted the letter you see above warning President Roosevelt that Germany was working on this bomb, that if successful the bomb would be a devastating weapon capable of changing the outcome of the war and urged the United States to initiate their own project to complete the bomb before the Germans completed theirs.
The letter was mailed in August 1939 but did not reach the President’s hands until November 1939. Once Roosevelt realized the gravity of what the letter meant he commissioned a committee of top scientist to begin to study the possibility of the type of weapon that Einstein and Szilard had described. This commission headed by Lyman James Briggs and became known as the Briggs Commission. This commission would lead eventually to the testing of a working bomb with Operation Trinity and the Manhattan Project which would be used to develop the bombs that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Operation Trinity and the Manhattan Project
Operation Trinity was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The plutonium-fueled implosion device was detonated on a 100-foot tower at 0530 hours, 16 July 1945. The test, which occurred on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico, had a nuclear yield equivalent to the energy released by exploding 21 kilotons of TNT. It left a depression in the desert 2.9 meters deep and 335 meters wide.
People as far away as Santa Fe and El Paso saw the brilliant light of the detonation. Windows rattled in the areas immediately surrounding the test site, waking sleeping ranchers and townspeople. To dispel any rumors that might compromise the security of this first nuclear test, the Government announced that an Army munitions dump had exploded. However, immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, the Government revealed to the public what had actually occurred in the New Mexico desert.
The Manhattan Project is the code name for the US government's secret project that was established before World War II and culminated in the development of the nuclear bomb.
This was in 1939. In 1942 Enrico Fermi, a physicist, successfully controlled a nuclear reaction in his reactor called CP-1 (Chicago Pile 1). CP-1 was located at the University of Chicago under a squash court.
Later in the project the first atomic bomb was exploded at Los Alamos. This was on July 6, 1945. The director of Los Alamos J. Robert Oppenheimer stated his feelings at the time on tape. This shows the emotional state of mind he was in when the bomb was successfully tested.
People as far away as Santa Fe and El Paso saw the brilliant light of the detonation. Windows rattled in the areas immediately surrounding the test site, waking sleeping ranchers and townspeople. To dispel any rumors that might compromise the security of this first nuclear test, the Government announced that an Army munitions dump had exploded. However, immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, the Government revealed to the public what had actually occurred in the New Mexico desert.
The Manhattan Project is the code name for the US government's secret project that was established before World War II and culminated in the development of the nuclear bomb.
This was in 1939. In 1942 Enrico Fermi, a physicist, successfully controlled a nuclear reaction in his reactor called CP-1 (Chicago Pile 1). CP-1 was located at the University of Chicago under a squash court.
Later in the project the first atomic bomb was exploded at Los Alamos. This was on July 6, 1945. The director of Los Alamos J. Robert Oppenheimer stated his feelings at the time on tape. This shows the emotional state of mind he was in when the bomb was successfully tested.
J. Robert Oppenheimer in response to the effectiveness of the bomb he had created
Soon after the Manhattan Project became a success, the Soviet Union developed an atomic bomb. With these new weapons that could destroy entire cities and civilizations, the atomic arms race and cold war would begin. Below is a series of films that goes into more detail the importance of the Manhattan Project, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II.
The Manhattan Project 1/5
The Manhattan Project 2/5
The Manhattan Project 3/5
The Manhattan Project 4/5
The Manhattan Project 5/5
Below are two additional films that are not required that you view but that you might find interesting. The first is a reenactment of the meeting between Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard. The second film explains the Manhattan project from a different perspective then the films above.
Follow the link below to a movie that explains the Manhattan Project from a different point of view
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1646021388976590913#docid=8628153120833224911
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1646021388976590913#docid=8628153120833224911