Why Is The Manhattan Project Necessary

The Manhattan Project was one of the largest endeavors conducted by the United States. Today, it is a well known piece of history, but at the time the Manhattan Project was completed confidentially. The Manhattan Project employed thousands of civilians, and spent billions of dollars (adjusted for inflation) in secrecy. Approximately 200,000 people died as a result of the Manhattan Project and it is widely debated whether the bombing of Japanese cities with atomic bombs was necessary. Because the Manhattan Project was the cause of such significant scientific and engineering feats, as well as because it resulted in one of the most controversial decisions of all time, it is important to study the Manhattan Project thoroughly. To the average American, there was nothing special about early 1939. Many Americans considered buying a new Pontiac for $862 or perhaps even an Oldsmobile for as little as $777. Business and Politics had seemed to be returning to normal. Just the summer before employment and production had began to increase from the lows of the recession. The November 1938 election brought large gains for Republicans in both the House
The Manhattan Project may have never come to fruition if it wasn’t for that one German physicist: Otto Hahn. Hahn, working with Fritz Strassmann, discovered that when uranium was bombarded with neutrons a radioactive barium isotope was among the products. Hahn immediately realized the importance of this and told one of his colleagues (who had fled Germany due to nazi racial laws), Lise Meitner, about his findings. Lise worked with her nephew Otto Frisch to replicate Hahn’s findings and conclude that fission had taken place. The duo immediately made their way to Copenhagen to tell Bohr of their theories. Bohr was soon to be in the United States at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. (Hewlett and Anderson,