1. 01/10/20151 The Atomic Bomb Scott Parr

2. 01/10/20152 The Theory of the Bomb On August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt telling him of Nazi Germany’s effort to build an atomic bomb They had begun refining Uranium (U-235) in an effort to purify it for bomb use

3. 01/10/20153 The Challenges The idea of an atomic bomb was only theoretical in 1939 There was no way to refine uranium to extract U-235 in 1939 The process of building the bomb would require the greatest physicists, chemists and engineers in the world

4. 01/10/20154 Fission: How the Atomic Bomb Works In an atomic reaction, atoms are split and crash into each other creating a chain reaction

5. 01/10/20155 Fission: How the Atomic Bomb Works Refined U-235 is typically set to crash into more U-235 and thus set off an atomic chain reaction (Little Boy design)

6. 01/10/20156 The Manhattan Project The leading scientists from the USA, Canada and Britain (along with some former German scientists) worked in secret at a base in Los Alamos, New Mexico The bomb was called “the gadget” by those working on the project The chief scientist was Robert J. Oppenheimer

7. 01/10/20157 The Test The bomb was first tested on July 16, 1945 The blast could be seen 120 miles away. Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”

8. 01/10/20158 How to use the A-bomb? In a secret meeting in September, 1944, the Allies decided that an Atomic Bomb would be used against Japan rather than risking a costly invasion This was partly motivated by the fear that Japanese suicide “kamikaze” attacks had generated US military experts estimated 1 million casualties in an invasion of Japan

9. 01/10/20159 Hiroshima & Nagasaki The “Little Boy” bomb was dropped from a B-29, the “Enola Gay” flown by Colonel Paul Tibbitts from the US air base on the island of Tinian on August 6, 1945 The blast at Hiroshima was the equivalent of 15 000 tons of TNT Ground zero was 1980 feet in the air Instantly 66 000 people were killed and 69 000 injured. More died from the effects of radiation

10. 01/10/201510 Hiroshima

11. 01/10/201511 Hiroshima The injuries/burns were horrific. Cancer and other genetic disorders still plague the people of the area.

12. 01/10/201512 Nagasaki The “Fat Man” bomb used on Nagasaki was an implosion model that delivered the destruction of 22 000 tons of TNT It was dropped from a B-29 called “Boxscar” on August 9, 1945

13. 01/10/201513 The Results Japan surrenders unconditionally on August 10, 1945 and signs a formal document of surrender on the deck of the US battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945 The world enters the “Atomic Age”