How Did Robert Oppenheimer Change The World
Robert Oppenheimer forever changed the world with his work on the Manhattan project during WWII, contributing to the Cold War, creating a nuclear warfare, and showed the potential for nuclear energy. He was the lead scientist of this world-shattering project. The Manhattan Project developed the atomic bombs that were nicknamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” that put an end to WWII and forever changed the way the world fights wars. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 250,000 people directly from the explosion, and indirectly from the radiation, however, it additionally saved millions of lives by ending WWII. J. Robert Oppenheimer was key to the creation of these bombs by leading a team of 200 of the top nuclear physicists in
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a Los Alamos, New Mexico, lab.
He was born as Julius Robert Oppenheimer on April 22, 1904, in New York City.
His parents were Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman. His father was a German textile importer. His mom painted. He had one brother, Frank, who likewise became a physicist. His family was very rich and even had several Van Gogh paintings in their house. As a young child, he loved math and science, and was also very shy. He picked up languages quickly and studied Greek, Latin, Dutch, German, and French. His early schooling was at the Ethical Culture School of New York. He studied chemistry, math, physics, languages, and mineralogy. He graduated in 1921 at the top of his class. He married Katherine Harrison in November of 1940. He died in 1967 from throat cancer.
He contracted colitis in 1921, which delayed his entry into Harvard after graduating. He began college at Harvard in 1922, majoring in chemistry, however, further studied a broad range of topics, from mathematics to philosophy. Percy Bridgman, one of his physics professors, caused his interest to shift from chemistry to physics. He continued his study in chemistry and graduated from Harvard in 1925 with a chemistry degree summa cum laude. His education helped him reach his momentous achievement by interesting him in physics and giving him the background information to create the …show more content…
bombs.
His new interest in physics made him want to study theoretical physics in Europe with Ernest Rutherford at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Rutherford didn’t accept him, on the contrary, Joseph Thompson, working at the same laboratory, did as a research student. Oppenheimer considered his job of preparing beryllium sheets boring, therefore, he decided to study at the University of Gőttigen with Max Born (often known as the inventor of quantum mechanics). In 1927 he received his doctorate in physics which was very important to his contributions in the Manhattan Project later in life. He accepted jobs to teach at both the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech in 1929. These events gave him the experience to develop the weapons that ended World War II.
He published his first scientific paper in 1926 on quantum theory, and more specifically, molecular band spectra.
At the University of Gottingen he worked with Max Born to create a paper called the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation, which discussed electronic motion as negligible in mathematical calculations. He worked on theoretical astronomy, including cosmic rays, the stability of neutron stars, and quantum tunneling, which expanded his thinking to new topics and gave him more understanding of nuclear physics. He developed a theory with Melba Phillips which is still used today, called the Oppenheimer-Phillips process, that explains artificial radioactivity in heavy nucleuses. He got most of his experience with radioactive materials and their characteristics by writing many of these
papers.
Even before the US entered WWII, American physicists had started designing an atom bomb. Oppenheimer joined this select group of scientists, including Ernest Lawrence, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller. It became known that on December 21, 1938, the Germans had succeeded in splitting the atom. This worried many physicists because they knew the possibility of a chain reaction of nucleus-splitting, causing a large release of energy. Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin, telling him of the possible destruction a chain reaction of uranium 235 going through fission could cause. The US realized that they needed to produce a weapon like this before Germany, so as to prevent being demolished by the Axis.
Scientists had been working in the US on designing and atomic bomb since 1939, long before the official creation of the Manhattan Project. The project was officially authorized on January 19, 1942, by the president of the United States of America. It was called the Manhattan project because its first headquarters were in Manhattan, New York. The US army took full control of the project in August of the same year, and General Leslie R. Groves became the director. The original choice for the lead scientist was Ernest O. Lawrence, however, he had a very important role in the extremely difficult process of separating uranium-238 (useless) and uranium-235 (ideal for a chain reaction). The next option was Oppenheimer, who was open for the job because he had had extensive experience in physics, and more importantly, nuclear science. He took the job in September of 1942 and immediately began with with the director, General Leslie R Groves, to decide on a laboratory location, and organize a team of scientists.
Groves and Oppenheimer were an efficient and effective team. They agreed that there should be a central, remote facility where the scientists would develop the actual bomb, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, was chosen for the location. The Manhattan Project withal consisted of several more facilities. There were laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for enriching uranium. There was also further research done at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley.
Soon after Oppenheimer was appointed as the lead scientist for the project, he was given the task of recruiting scientists. Working on their patriotism, interest in physics, and fear of the Nazis, he was able to convince many talented physicists to join the Manhattan Project. He succeeded admirably in his task, and ended up supervising over 1,500 people. Some of the scientists were Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and Richard Feynman, along with many more Nobel Prize winners. All of these brilliant minds could do amazing things, and J. Robert Oppenheimer was able to work with and understand these men. Additionally, these men not always had the same opinions and ideas, so Oppenheimer had to ensure no quarrels occurred. His important job of working with all of these intellectual scientists made him vital to the success of the project. He was considered so important, the government went to great lengths to keep him safe. This is shown in a note from General Groves to Robert Oppenheimer, where Oppenheimer is told to not fly in plane, drive far without any protection, and to always be accompanied with a guard.
The first plan for the atomic bomb was to shoot two pieces of enriched uranium at each other, and when they would hit each other, they would attain critical mass (the minimum amount of material to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction) and cause a chain reaction. The problem with this plan was that the process for enriching uranium was very extensive, difficult, and resulted in a small amount of enriched uranium. The large plants that did this wouldn’t produces sufficient uranium until 1945. The other radioactive material they could use was plutonium, but they couldn’t fire two pieces of this element together because they would react before reaching critical mass. The high reactivity of the plutonium meant that the subcritical masses of plutonium had to all hit each other within a tiny fraction of a second.
Seth Neddermeyer had the idea of coating a sphere of plutonium with explosives, and detonating them instantaneously. The design they settled on was a shock wave focused by an explosive lens, compacting the plutonium into a tiny sphere. This device was shown to work on July 16, 1945, during the Trinity Test, the first-ever nuclear explosion. After witnessing the immense explosion, Oppenheimer quoted Hindu sacred text, saying, ”I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.” It took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and released a blast equal to 108 tons of TNT. The original plan of making a bomb with uranium was constructed, along with a plutonium bomb for use on Japan.
Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, dropped the first atomic bomb, Little Boy, on August 6, 1945. It was made of approximately 140 lbs of uranium, and exploded with the force of 16,000 tons of TNT. The city that it was dropped on, Hiroshima, was instantly destroyed and roughly 70,000 people were killed right after the bomb was dropped. The second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped three days later on Nagasaki. It was composed of 13.6 lb of plutonium and produced a blast equal to 21,000 tons of TNT, and 22,000 to 75,000 people were killed instantly. Many more people died later on , from their injuries and/or the radiation. Overall, it is estimated that roughly 200,000 people died.
Several things started the cold war, but some of the biggest factors had to do with Oppenheimer’s work. The USSR was afraid of America’s nuclear capabilities and became very hostile towards the U.S.. They were additionally very angry that the U.S. wouldn’t share their nuclear secrets. J. Robert Oppenheimer gave the U.S. their nuclear capabilities, and he created the nuclear secrets. This started an arms race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Both countries set out to make a weapon even more powerful than the uranium and plutonium bombs used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima: a hydrogen bomb (relies on hydrogen to explode and is much more powerful than a uranium-based bomb). The first of these hydrogen bombs had enough force to destroy half of Manhattan. The possibility of being “nuked” scared many Americans, and many people built bomb shelters and took precautions against the threat of bombings in their area. Oppenheimer’s work directly influenced Americans’ lives. The U.S. spent billions on creating weapons during this period of time. The “Red Scare” sent millions of Americans into a frantic paranoia over the supposed communist spies roaming the U.S. This unfortunate game of pointing fingers led many people to lose their jobs. The Cold War was exacerbated by the nuclear secrets created by Robert Oppenheimer.
Robert Oppenheimer's work on the atomic bombs showed the world the possibilities of nuclear energy. He and his team of scientists were able to turn 13.6 pounds of plutonium into the same amount of energy as 21,000 tons of TNT. This huge leap in nuclear energy meant new opportunities in renewable energy. For the first time in the history of the world, the energy of the nucleus could be released. The only obstacle was controlling the fission so that there was no violent explosion. The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity did so in December 1951. After that point the technology to turn nuclear reactions into usable energy kept on getting more and more advanced. Now, nuclear reactors can be found all over the world and are a vital part of many countries’ energy supply. Nuclear weapons have as well become more advanced. Russia and the U.S. created several more atomic bombs after WWII, but Russia made the most powerful, called Tsar Bomba. It weighed 60,000 pounds and exploded with the force of 50,000 kilotons of TNT. Before these atomic bombs, scientist had no idea how much energy nuclear fission could create, but thanks to the leadership of Oppenheimer, scientists all over the world know how worthwhile it was to pursue this alternate form of energy.
J. Robert Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project and caused the first atomic bombs to be created. These bombs forced the Japanese into submission, ending WWII. The nuclear capabilities the U.S. gained with the creation of these bombs factored into the start of the Cold War, and the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The atomic bombs Oppenheimer helped create moreover showed the world the huge possibilities in renewable nuclear energy, starting a revolution in energy. These repercussions caused by his leadership in the Manhattan Project created this memorable legacy of discovery, peace, war, and clean energy.
a Los Alamos, New Mexico, lab.
He was born as Julius Robert Oppenheimer on April 22, 1904, in New York City.
His parents were Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman. His father was a German textile importer. His mom painted. He had one brother, Frank, who likewise became a physicist. His family was very rich and even had several Van Gogh paintings in their house. As a young child, he loved math and science, and was also very shy. He picked up languages quickly and studied Greek, Latin, Dutch, German, and French. His early schooling was at the Ethical Culture School of New York. He studied chemistry, math, physics, languages, and mineralogy. He graduated in 1921 at the top of his class. He married Katherine Harrison in November of 1940. He died in 1967 from throat cancer.
He contracted colitis in 1921, which delayed his entry into Harvard after graduating. He began college at Harvard in 1922, majoring in chemistry, however, further studied a broad range of topics, from mathematics to philosophy. Percy Bridgman, one of his physics professors, caused his interest to shift from chemistry to physics. He continued his study in chemistry and graduated from Harvard in 1925 with a chemistry degree summa cum laude. His education helped him reach his momentous achievement by interesting him in physics and giving him the background information to create the …show more content…
bombs.
His new interest in physics made him want to study theoretical physics in Europe with Ernest Rutherford at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Rutherford didn’t accept him, on the contrary, Joseph Thompson, working at the same laboratory, did as a research student. Oppenheimer considered his job of preparing beryllium sheets boring, therefore, he decided to study at the University of Gőttigen with Max Born (often known as the inventor of quantum mechanics). In 1927 he received his doctorate in physics which was very important to his contributions in the Manhattan Project later in life. He accepted jobs to teach at both the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech in 1929. These events gave him the experience to develop the weapons that ended World War II.
He published his first scientific paper in 1926 on quantum theory, and more specifically, molecular band spectra.
At the University of Gottingen he worked with Max Born to create a paper called the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation, which discussed electronic motion as negligible in mathematical calculations. He worked on theoretical astronomy, including cosmic rays, the stability of neutron stars, and quantum tunneling, which expanded his thinking to new topics and gave him more understanding of nuclear physics. He developed a theory with Melba Phillips which is still used today, called the Oppenheimer-Phillips process, that explains artificial radioactivity in heavy nucleuses. He got most of his experience with radioactive materials and their characteristics by writing many of these
papers.
Even before the US entered WWII, American physicists had started designing an atom bomb. Oppenheimer joined this select group of scientists, including Ernest Lawrence, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller. It became known that on December 21, 1938, the Germans had succeeded in splitting the atom. This worried many physicists because they knew the possibility of a chain reaction of nucleus-splitting, causing a large release of energy. Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin, telling him of the possible destruction a chain reaction of uranium 235 going through fission could cause. The US realized that they needed to produce a weapon like this before Germany, so as to prevent being demolished by the Axis.
Scientists had been working in the US on designing and atomic bomb since 1939, long before the official creation of the Manhattan Project. The project was officially authorized on January 19, 1942, by the president of the United States of America. It was called the Manhattan project because its first headquarters were in Manhattan, New York. The US army took full control of the project in August of the same year, and General Leslie R. Groves became the director. The original choice for the lead scientist was Ernest O. Lawrence, however, he had a very important role in the extremely difficult process of separating uranium-238 (useless) and uranium-235 (ideal for a chain reaction). The next option was Oppenheimer, who was open for the job because he had had extensive experience in physics, and more importantly, nuclear science. He took the job in September of 1942 and immediately began with with the director, General Leslie R Groves, to decide on a laboratory location, and organize a team of scientists.
Groves and Oppenheimer were an efficient and effective team. They agreed that there should be a central, remote facility where the scientists would develop the actual bomb, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, was chosen for the location. The Manhattan Project withal consisted of several more facilities. There were laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for enriching uranium. There was also further research done at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley.
Soon after Oppenheimer was appointed as the lead scientist for the project, he was given the task of recruiting scientists. Working on their patriotism, interest in physics, and fear of the Nazis, he was able to convince many talented physicists to join the Manhattan Project. He succeeded admirably in his task, and ended up supervising over 1,500 people. Some of the scientists were Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and Richard Feynman, along with many more Nobel Prize winners. All of these brilliant minds could do amazing things, and J. Robert Oppenheimer was able to work with and understand these men. Additionally, these men not always had the same opinions and ideas, so Oppenheimer had to ensure no quarrels occurred. His important job of working with all of these intellectual scientists made him vital to the success of the project. He was considered so important, the government went to great lengths to keep him safe. This is shown in a note from General Groves to Robert Oppenheimer, where Oppenheimer is told to not fly in plane, drive far without any protection, and to always be accompanied with a guard.
The first plan for the atomic bomb was to shoot two pieces of enriched uranium at each other, and when they would hit each other, they would attain critical mass (the minimum amount of material to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction) and cause a chain reaction. The problem with this plan was that the process for enriching uranium was very extensive, difficult, and resulted in a small amount of enriched uranium. The large plants that did this wouldn’t produces sufficient uranium until 1945. The other radioactive material they could use was plutonium, but they couldn’t fire two pieces of this element together because they would react before reaching critical mass. The high reactivity of the plutonium meant that the subcritical masses of plutonium had to all hit each other within a tiny fraction of a second.
Seth Neddermeyer had the idea of coating a sphere of plutonium with explosives, and detonating them instantaneously. The design they settled on was a shock wave focused by an explosive lens, compacting the plutonium into a tiny sphere. This device was shown to work on July 16, 1945, during the Trinity Test, the first-ever nuclear explosion. After witnessing the immense explosion, Oppenheimer quoted Hindu sacred text, saying, ”I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.” It took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and released a blast equal to 108 tons of TNT. The original plan of making a bomb with uranium was constructed, along with a plutonium bomb for use on Japan.
Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, dropped the first atomic bomb, Little Boy, on August 6, 1945. It was made of approximately 140 lbs of uranium, and exploded with the force of 16,000 tons of TNT. The city that it was dropped on, Hiroshima, was instantly destroyed and roughly 70,000 people were killed right after the bomb was dropped. The second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped three days later on Nagasaki. It was composed of 13.6 lb of plutonium and produced a blast equal to 21,000 tons of TNT, and 22,000 to 75,000 people were killed instantly. Many more people died later on , from their injuries and/or the radiation. Overall, it is estimated that roughly 200,000 people died.
Several things started the cold war, but some of the biggest factors had to do with Oppenheimer’s work. The USSR was afraid of America’s nuclear capabilities and became very hostile towards the U.S.. They were additionally very angry that the U.S. wouldn’t share their nuclear secrets. J. Robert Oppenheimer gave the U.S. their nuclear capabilities, and he created the nuclear secrets. This started an arms race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Both countries set out to make a weapon even more powerful than the uranium and plutonium bombs used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima: a hydrogen bomb (relies on hydrogen to explode and is much more powerful than a uranium-based bomb). The first of these hydrogen bombs had enough force to destroy half of Manhattan. The possibility of being “nuked” scared many Americans, and many people built bomb shelters and took precautions against the threat of bombings in their area. Oppenheimer’s work directly influenced Americans’ lives. The U.S. spent billions on creating weapons during this period of time. The “Red Scare” sent millions of Americans into a frantic paranoia over the supposed communist spies roaming the U.S. This unfortunate game of pointing fingers led many people to lose their jobs. The Cold War was exacerbated by the nuclear secrets created by Robert Oppenheimer.
Robert Oppenheimer's work on the atomic bombs showed the world the possibilities of nuclear energy. He and his team of scientists were able to turn 13.6 pounds of plutonium into the same amount of energy as 21,000 tons of TNT. This huge leap in nuclear energy meant new opportunities in renewable energy. For the first time in the history of the world, the energy of the nucleus could be released. The only obstacle was controlling the fission so that there was no violent explosion. The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity did so in December 1951. After that point the technology to turn nuclear reactions into usable energy kept on getting more and more advanced. Now, nuclear reactors can be found all over the world and are a vital part of many countries’ energy supply. Nuclear weapons have as well become more advanced. Russia and the U.S. created several more atomic bombs after WWII, but Russia made the most powerful, called Tsar Bomba. It weighed 60,000 pounds and exploded with the force of 50,000 kilotons of TNT. Before these atomic bombs, scientist had no idea how much energy nuclear fission could create, but thanks to the leadership of Oppenheimer, scientists all over the world know how worthwhile it was to pursue this alternate form of energy.
J. Robert Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project and caused the first atomic bombs to be created. These bombs forced the Japanese into submission, ending WWII. The nuclear capabilities the U.S. gained with the creation of these bombs factored into the start of the Cold War, and the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The atomic bombs Oppenheimer helped create moreover showed the world the huge possibilities in renewable nuclear energy, starting a revolution in energy. These repercussions caused by his leadership in the Manhattan Project created this memorable legacy of discovery, peace, war, and clean energy.