Essay On Gilded Age Technology

When the United States caught word that Germany was close to creating the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists wanted to create it first, for the U.S. After three years of research, the first small atomic device was exploded on July 16, 1945 in the lab at Los Alamos. Having proved their concept worked, a larger scale bomb was built. Less than a month later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (Rosenberg).

In 1945, such a mechanism was created. The atomic bomb was created after many years of the study of atoms. Finally, a way to split the atoms was born. Germany was the first to try making a bomb. Efforts failed, but were picked up by the United States. Albert Einstein, although credited as the father of the atomic bomb, only lent support to begin American development. As it was to be, Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the atomic bomb. He directed the laboratory at Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was designed and built. The whole development in the making of an atomic bomb was called the Manhattan Project. The first bomb was tested on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico. The end result was the dropping of two atomic bombs by the United States on Hiroshima. People had different opinions on the bomb, but they may have come to one conclusion had they known about the history of the atomic bomb, how it was created, and the effects the bomb had in the economy.

Poliomyelitis, also known as polio, was the most feared childhood disease of the first half of the 20th century. It was an acute viral disease which was caused by the inflammation of the motor neurons of the brainstem and spinal cord. In addition, being affected by the poliovirus caused paralysis of the body and sometimes even death. It was a disease that scientists could not find a cure for it. But at the peak of its devastation in the United States, a vaccine has been introduced to prevent it. As a matter of fact, there has been two versions of the polio vaccine developed during the 20th century. The first vaccine was known as the Salk vaccine, created by scientist Jonas E. Salk, that contained three types of inactivated poliomyelitis viruses and induced immunity against the disease. The second vaccine was known as the Sabin vaccine, created by scientist Albert B.Sabin, that orally administered live viruses for immunization against poliomyelitis. In results “ the Salk and Sabin vaccines quickly reduced the number of polio cases in the countries where they were used extensively” during the 20th century(Wilson np). But the most effective polio vaccine that impacted the world the most till this day was the Sabin vaccine.

The atomic bomb was first created in the early twentieth century. Physicists in the United States and Europe had discovered that the fission of uranium could be used to create a deadly explosive weapon. A letter was sent to U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt by Albert Einstein that described this discovery and warned him of its potential dangers if developed by other nations. The Manhattan Project was established by the U.S. government in 1942 so the country could develop an atomic device. A team under the command of United States Army Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves designed and built the first atomic bombs, directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. This type of bomb was first tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The amount of energy that was released by this explosion alone was equivalent to twenty thousand tons of TNT.

In 1939, the German born scientist Albert Einstein had informed President Roosevelt about the possibility of creating a powerful bomb. It would produce an extremely powerful explosion by splitting the atom. Einstein and other scientist feared that Germany might develop such a bomb first. In 1942, the United States set up a secret project called the Manhattan Project, to develop the first atomic bomb. The first test explosion of an atomic bomb occurred in the New Mexico Desert in July 1945.

During the Gilded Age, technological innovations were very abundant and very impressive. Technological innovations changed the lives of the American people during the Gilded Age, most changes being positive, and few negative. The Gilded Age also brought forth many skilled businessmen that ran company's that distributed these technological innovations. These innovations changed the lives of the wealthy businessmen, as well as the lives of the poor factory workers.

During the 1890s and 1900s America was seen as a thriving country when in actuality it was rotten. Mark Twain gave this period a title, “the gilded age”. Other countries saw America as an industrialized nation and a world power. America was thought to be a country that had advanced into a desirable place that was booming with work opportunities and offered a better life. America was a booming country with work opportunities, but those opportunities were not ideal. Although other countries saw America as an excellent country, the people in other countries did not know the truth of America at its core.

Salk’s research led him to create a vaccine different from any other by using 3 different kind of killed polio virus. In an article it says,”Using formaldehyde, Salk killed the poliovirus, but kept it intact enough to trigger the necessary immune response”(Salk’s institute 1). Salk 's decision to create a vaccine out of inactivated virus was not the strongest protector, but was made strong enough to cure and lower the risk of infection within patients. It was one of the first times someone attempted to take a completely opposite approach than what scientist thought was best. As he said in an interview, “ ‘The principle I was trying to establish was that it was not necessary to run the risk of infection, which would have been the case if one were to try to develop an attenuated or weekend polio virus vaccine’ ”( Salk 2). By taking the risk of creating a vaccine that contradicted what a normal vaccine, was it helped give the United States another weapon to fight back polio without exposing americans to the risk of contracting the disease. His different approach to find a remedy may have been looked down on, but it provided the first protection ever for polio which created hope and has contributed to less fatalities today. Scientists in the medical world began to criticize Salk’s vaccine and gave preference to a polio vaccine that was later created by Sabin out of a live polio virus. Medical professionals saw Salk’s vaccine as useless and thought Sabin’ s vaccine was the best alternative. "the oral polio vaccine also came under attack in the united states for causing eight in ten cases of polio every year”( poliomyelitis 4). Sabin’s vaccine may have been stronger but at least Salk’s never provided a risk of the patients being injected run a risk of being infected again. Salk’s vaccine has provided less risk of a patient to relapse into polio again.

This was the time directly after World War I, when soldiers were eager to a better life. People were also getting rich and they began to spend their money, therefore companies started to build more appliances for the people. They built the first car that made transportation easier and faster. Henry Ford made the Assembly Line, which made construct go faster and more jobs for people. The blueprint for the modern automobile was perfected in Germany and France in the late 1800s, but the Americans dominated the industry in the first half of the twentieth century. Henry Ford innovated mass-production techniques that became standard with Ford. The industry had become a shared global enterprise with the

J. Robert Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb with a group of scientists (World of Scientific Discovery, 2006), the atomic bomb uses nuclear fission (Dictionary of American Biography, 1988) and built 2 different bombs (J. Robert Oppenheimer built both a little boy bomb and a fat man,

Polio is an unknown disease to most people under the age of 20, possibly even under 30, especially if they live in the United States. Polio used to cause fear in the hearts of most people in the mid 1950s. Fast-forward to today and this disease is essentially eradicated in the world. Dr. Jonas Salk is credited with developing the vaccine to prevent this disease. THESIS: The Salk injection vaccine was used for several years until it was replaced by the Sabin oral vaccine, however, as times change it is

The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.

The history of nuclear weapons began with the discovery of radioactivity elements, radium, polonium and uranium. These in turn led two German scientists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, to the discovery of nuclear fission and fusion. During the World War II the German’s active research on atomic bomb had prompted the US to secretly build the atomic bomb. The first atomic device was exploded at a site near Alamogordo New Mexico on July 16, 1945. This successful test had lead both US and Britain to believe and agree that the atomic bomb could bring a about Japanese’ surrender without an invasion and without Soviet’s help. The first atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 followed by another in Nagasaki, Japan in August 9, 1945. The atomic bombs killed 140,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Blaise Pascal is usually credited for building the first digital computer in 1642. It added numbers entered with dials and was made to help his father, a tax collector. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a computer that was built in 1694. It could add, and multiply, after changing some of the parts around. Leibniz invented a special stepped gear mechanism for introducing the addend digits, and this is still being used.