My final presentation on the Atomic Bomb.

1. THE ATOMIC BOMB Presented by
Steve Sosa

2. 1. A Brief History OUTLINE
2. Key People
3. The Atomic Bomb
4. Ground Zero
5. Aesthetics and Ethics

3. A BRIEF HISTORY

4. SEPTEMBER 1939
¡ China and Japan 3 r d year of conflict
¡ Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany
¡ United Kingdom enacted full draf t
¡ Britain, Australia, India, New Zealand,
France declare war
¡ Within hours British cruise ship torpedoed
by German sub and “Battle of the Atlantic”
begins
¡ Japan and United States declare neutrality
¡ Newfoundland, South Africa, Canada declare
war on Germany
¡ Soviet Union and Germany join forces

5. DECEMBER 7, 1941
¡ Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack
on U.S. naval base Pearl Harbor
¡ President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “a date
which will live in infamy”
¡ 2,402 killed, 188 U.S. aircraf t, 12 U.S.
Navy ships destroyed
¡ Profound shock to American people
¡ December 8, 1941 U.S. declares war on
Japan

6. CONVENTIONAL WARFARE
¡ Used conventional militar y
weapons, battlefield tactics, well-
defined forces, weapons target
opposing army
¡ Did not include chemical,
biological, or nuclear weapons

7. GERMAN WARFARE
¡ Tactics
§ Chemical weapons since WWI
§ Human tests with mustard and nerve
gas
§ Produced about 78,000 tons of chemical
weapons
§ Perfected the use of gas chambers
§ Created extermination and
concentration camps
§ Estimated over 6 million Jews killed
§ Feared development of atomic weapons

8. JAPANESE WARFARE
¡ Their weapons modern but thinking 2000
years out of date
¡ Japanese belief of fighting for a God
§ U.S. saw Hirohito as criminal of war
§ To Japanese Hirohito was Japan
§ General MacArthur, “hanging of the Emperor to
them would be comparable to the crucifixion of
Christ to us”
¡ Japan had never been defeated in war
¡ Death before dishonor mentality
¡ Kamikaze pilots
¡ Mass suicide

9. FEAR LEADS TO ATOMIC RESEARCH
¡ Einstein-Szilard letter to Roosevelt
§ “…that it may become possible to set up a
nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of
uranium, by which vast amounts of power and
large quantities of new radium-like elements
would be generated. Now it appears almost
certain that this could be achieved in the
immediate future. ”
¡ Advisor y Committee on Uranium formed
¡ National Defense Research Committee and
Of fice of Scientific Research and
Development vigorously pursued
development as a weapon

10. RESEARCH & DESIGN
¡ Manhattan Project
¡ Joint ef for t by U.S., U.K., and Canada
¡ Employed more than 130,000 people
¡ Cost nearly $2 billion (equivalent of $22
billion today)
¡ Research occurred at more than 30 sites
§ Hanford site in WA developed plutonium
§ Oak Ridge site in TN enriched uranium
§ Los Alamos site in NM led weapons
research and design

11. KEY PEOPLE

12. KEY PEOPLE
¡ Leo Szilard
§ Jewish Hungarian physicist
§ 1933 conceived nuclear chain reaction and
patented idea of nuclear reactor
§ 1938 given offer to conduct research at
Columbia University in Manhattan
§ Recognized impurities in manufactured
graphite stopped German attempts to control
chain-reactions
§ 1939 wrote letter for Einstein to sign
§ 1942 manufactured impurity-free graphite and
first human-controlled chain reaction
§ Hoped that mere threat of using such a
weapon would force Germany and Japan to
surrender

13. KEY PEOPLE
¡ Alber t Einstein
§ German theoretical physicist
§ “Father of modern physics”
§ 1933 escaped Nazi Germany
§ Signed joint letter with Szilard
§ Pivotal role in lending validity to atomic
bomb research

14. KEY PEOPLE
¡ Julius Rober t Oppenheimer
§ Brilliant American theoretical physicist
§ Taught at Berkley
§ Member of Communist parties
§ Selected to oversee Manhattan Project
§ Suggested Los Alamos site
§ “Father of the Atomic Bomb”

15. THE ATOMIC BOMB

16. TRINIT Y TEST
¡ Code for first nuclear weapon test
¡ Conducted in 1945
¡ First fission test produces explosion
equal to 20 kilotons tons of TNT
¡ Largest deliberate chemical explosion
set off, fear of setting fire to
atmosphere
¡ Heard over 200 miles away
¡ Flash seen over 450 miles away
¡ America had won the race

17. TRINIT Y TEST
¡ Oppenheimer famously recalls
Bhagavad Gita (Hindu God):
“If the radiance of a thousand suns
were to burst at once into the sky,
that would be like the splendor of
the mighty one…Now, I am become
Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

18. LITTLE BOY DESIGN
¡ Codename for atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
¡ Design not tested in advance
¡ Explosive power derived from nuclear fission of uranium
¡ 600 milligrams of mass were conver ted to energy
¡ Equal to 13-18 kilotons of TNT
¡ Estimated 130-150,000 people killed

19. FAT MAN DESIGN
¡ Codename for bomb dropped on Nagasaki
¡ Complex implosion-type, plutonium-based design
¡ Equal to 21 kilotons of TNT (75 million sticks of dynamite)
¡ Estimated 60–80,000 people killed

20. GROUND ZERO

21. GROUND ZERO
¡ Hiroshima
§ Spared conventional
bombing to serve as a
pristine target
§ Desire to measure impact
an effect on city and
people, factories and
residential areas
§ City and civilians were
primary targets…ran
contrary to rules of war
which U.S. did more than
any other nation to uphold

22. GROUND ZERO
¡ Above Ground Detonation
§ Bombs detonated 1800+ feet above
ground so radioactive parts would
dissipate into the stratosphere

23. GROUND ZERO
¡ Initial Blast Damage
§ Fireball shock wave in all directions
faster than speed of sound
§ Temperatures at center reached 100
million degrees
§ 2 mile diameter damage, turned
everything into shrapnel
§ Any building not concrete reinforced
imploded
§ Human shadows burned into buildings

24. GROUND ZERO
¡ Fire Damage
§ Firestorm produced blinding
light, radiant heat
§ Buildings burst, humans
vaporized, metal and glass
instantly melted
§ Waterlines shattered in 70,000
places

25. GROUND ZERO
¡ Radiation Damage
§ Local fallout is dust,
carbon, ash, contamination
§ Exposure in form of rain,
water, any contact

26. GROUND ZERO
¡ Radiation Damage
§ Ate through clothing
§ Skin fell off bodies
§ Increased rates of cancer, leukemia,
non-cancer diseases from survivors and
children who were exposed
§ Cause of future atomic causalities

27. THE AESTHETICS
AND ETHICS

28. ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE
¡ Aesthetics / Ethics
§ Aesthetics focus on philosophical, not physical
§ Potential use on civilian populations
§ Balance between destroying or saving great numbers of human lives
¡ Necessity of Bombings
§ Japan was in the process of surrender
§ Talks with Soviet Union
§ Could not hold off invasion of mainland much longer
¡ Need for Retribution
§ U.S. had spent billions
§ American sentiment from Pearl Harbor
§ Need to demonstrate overwhelming power to Soviet Union
§ First bomb successfully accomplished mission

29. ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE
¡ Forced mankind to ask tough questions
§ Are the use of nuclear weapons humane?
§ Should all countries be able to develop nuclear weapons?
§ Should man have ever created such a weapon?
¡ Our values
§ What is the value of human life?
§ Which values did we choose to uphold? Fight for? Protect? Defend? Enforce?

30. MEANING OF ATOMIC BOMB
¡ C o nve nt io nal war f are is now ove r
¡ Up to 2 0 count rie s now posse ss nucle ar we apons
“ T h e s plit t ing of t h e atom h as c h ang e d eve r yt h ing , s ave m an’s m ode of t h ink ing .”
¡ H is to r y h as yet to re nde r t h e final ve rdic t
¡ B alance of m oralit y of m as s de s t ruct ion ag ains t 5 0 ye ar e ra of com parat ive
g lo bal pe ac e

31. THANK YOU