Nuclear Science
The Manhattan Project was the code name for America's atomic bomb development efforts during World War II. Its name originated from the fact that it was part of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and organized under the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) in New York City. The MED encompassed all of the far-reaching labs and installations scattered throughout the country.
The immense destructive power of atomic weapons derives from a sudden release of energy produced by splitting the nuclei of the fissile elements making up the bombs' core. The U.S. developed two types of atomic bombs during the Second World War. The first, Little Boy, was a gun-type weapon with a uranium core. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. The second weapon, dropped on Nagasaki, was called Fat Man and was an implosion-type device with a plutonium core.
Nuclear Science Definitions
Nuclides - a type of atom that is characterized by a particular number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus (its atomic mass).
Half Life- The amount of time it takes for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
Critical mass - the minimum amount of volatile material needed to maintain a nuclear chain reaction.
Plutonium- A radioactive metallic element with the atomic number 94. It was discovered in 1940 as part of the Manhattan project at the University of California, Berkeley.
Plutonium nuclide-Plutonium-238 (238 referring to its atomic mass) is very rare and almost always man made, destabilized from the naturally abundant isotope 239. It is the most volatile isotope, and was used in the creation of the early bombs.
Sub-critical mass- an amount of volatile material below the critical mass
A collection of educational videos describing the fundamentals of atomic science, nuclear physics, and chemistry.
Lenses
One of the greatest challenges for the Los Alamos scientists and engineers was developing and refining the explosive lenses for the implosion bomb. As George Kistiakowsky describes in his interview, the explosive lenses would “convert a diversion beam of an explosion wave into a convergent beam. Very much like an optical lens converts divergent light into a convergent light if you put it right.” In order to achieve the spherical implosion shock wave, all the explosive lenses needed to ignite at the same time, which is why the detonators needed to fire simultaneously.
Uranium decaying and emitting radiation in a cloud chamber