Atomic Bomb Cody Deklerk Jake Russell 1

What's in an Atomic Bomb An atomic bomb is consisted of uranium 235 or plutonium 239 The reason why it blows up is because of fission. One of the neutrons of the uranium or plutonium strikes the nucleus thus causing it to split into two fragments. After splitting the nucleus, it has half the protons and neutrons. But during the process of the nucleus splitting a lot of thermal energy builds up and neutrons are released. This process keeps going and more fission is happening thus causing a chain reaction in which all fission is consumed and it triggers the explosion. Plutonium 2

Facts And History The manhattan project: it was a project to build the atomic bomb. It wasn't just the Untied States that wanted to build the atomic bomb, it was also foreign countries. From all these countries including America, they did research on how to construct a atomic bomb and how to use it and how to design it. Albert Einstein was associated with designing the bomb but never participated fully with the whole project. The first atomic bomb was built after WWII and was first used at the trinity bomb site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. After the bomb was built it was used in the war between Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It demonstrated how destructive it could be. But shortly after this the arms race started between the U.S. And the Soviet Union. The atomic bomb was mainly used for war. It was used to kill many people and show how powerful the bomb was and the damage it caused and it could do to other countries. 3

Facts and History Cont. Operation Crossroads was performed at the bikini atoll by the united states government in mid 1946. The operation consisted of two explosions. One on the actual island of bikini and the other planted off the coast, under about 90 feet of water. Both explosion proved catastrophic. The bikini islands can’t be inhabited for at least 20,000 years. The atomic bomb has a detonation power of over 1.2 million tons of TNT. Arms race’s for the atomic bomb and other nuclear weapons go back as far as World War Two. Two of the biggest proliferators of nuclear weapons are the U.S and Russia. The U.S. and Russia have almost had nuclear catastrophe twice. One in the cold war. And the second time in the cuban missile crisis. 4

Uses For The Atomic Bomb The Atomic bomb is now days used purely as a deterrence method. Deterrence means stopping foreigners from attacking. Because of the sheer power of the atomic bomb, people don’t usually want to have a war with someone who has a vast base of Nukes. This is all because of the MAD theory, or mutually assured destruction. If the united states were to attack the soviet union, or vis versa, they would both be destroyed because of their arsenal of nuclear tech. The Atomic Bomb, as aforementioned is used for experiments. Such as the experiments on bikini atoll. It was also used on Hiroshima as an act of war. Killing over 200,000 people, mostly citizens. 5

Atomic Bomb Exploding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11e8XyUBqRQ 6

Fun FACTS Another term for the atomic bomb is the A-Bomb At the peak of nuclear weapons research, 160,000 people researched and produced the bomb. Nobody can be credited as the single inventor of the bomb. 2/3 of Hiroshima was destroyed after the U.S. dropped the A-Bomb on it. The united states alone has spend nearly 35 billion dollars on research and nuclear stockpiles. 7

References http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/41620/atomic-bomb http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima- and-nagasaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon http://vector.me/search/atomic-bomb-cartoon http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Nitroglycerin- 2D-skeletal.png http://img1.guidechem.com/structure/image/139408-97-2.gif www.google.com 8