Atomic Bombs

An atomic bomb is a bomb in which the splitting of atomic nuclei results in an explosion of tremendous force and heat, accompanied by a blinding light. The destructive force of an atomic bomb is due to nearly instantaneous and uncontrolled successive fissions of uranium or plutonium atoms in a chain reaction, each fission releasing tremendous energy and also neutrons which produce the succeeding fission (The World Book Dictionary 129). In other words, these bombs are very powerful. This was demonstrated in 1940, when we dropped an Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima during World War II. This bomb left a crater, in the ground, that was over a half of a mile long.

One of the first instances that these bombs were used was called the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was created by the United States government in 1942 to produce the first nuclear bomb. The official agency that produced the bomb was the Corps of Engineers’ Manhattan Engineer District, commanded by Major General Leslie R.Groves. He directed industrial and research activities at such sites as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico (The World Book Encyclopedia 141). Here they designed to bombs that were later called “The Fat Man” and “The Little Boy”. There was later a movie named after the two bombs that showed how they were made and the experiences that came with making them. A worker was killed during the final stages of the Manhattan Project when a critical assembly of fissile material was accidentally brought together by hand. This incident, which was dramatized in “Fat Man and Little Boy”, pre-dated remote-control assembly of such components, but the hazards of manual assembly were known at the time (U.S. Nuclear Accidents, Internet). Only 9 months after that, a similar problem occurred which there were 8 people that got radiation exposure and 7 of them died because of it.

In the past, there were very many nuclear accidents. One of these was in 1982. International Nutronics in Dover, New Jersey, which used radiation baths to purify gems, chemicals, food, and medical supplies, experienced an accident that completely contaminated the plant, forcing its closure. A pump malfunctioned, siphoning water from the baths onto the floor; the water eventually was drained into the sewer system of the heavily populated town of Dover. The NRC wasn’t informed of the accident until ten months later. In 1986, the company and one of its top executives were convicted by a federal jury of conspiracy and fraud.