Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
2 - Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Following the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, scientists in Germany, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States began to investigate the possibility of exploiting this energy source for military purposes. The United States alone was able to draw its governmental, industrial, and scientific capabilities into an efficient bombbuilding collaboration. It had not only the manpower, materials, and industrial support needed for the expensive project – eventually to cost $2.2 billion – but also a sizable and competent physics community well versed in technology, strengthened by talented emigrés, with ties to government and industry, and close international contacts. Some American scientists, like Ernest Lawrence, were experienced in managing large research efforts. This community also included older scientific statesmen, like Vannevar Bush, with political experience and proven abilities in coordinating government-sponsored applied research projects. On 9 October 1941 Bush persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to authorize American research on the feasibility of a fission bomb.
The Discovery of Nuclear Fission
The events leading to Los Alamos began in 1933, when Frédéric Joliot and Irène Curie produced artificial radioactivity by bombarding aluminum with alpha particles. The next year Enrico Fermi and his co-workers in Rome bombarded a variety of elements with neutrons, the neutral fundamental particles that James Chadwick had discovered in 1932. Upon bombarding uranium, Fermi's group found an unexplained radioactive substance and speculated that they had created a new transuranic element.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Critical AssemblyA Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945, pp. 12 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993