The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project.

The Manhattan project was a United States secret project that was meant to gather a group of scientist to manufacture nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project didn't officially begin until September 17, 1942. When Colonel Leslie Richard Groves took control of the project.

In 1942 Enrico Fermi successfully created and controlled a nuclear reaction in his reactor which he named Chicago Pile 1(CP1) in The University of Chicago. On July 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped in los Alamos, New Mexico. The bomb was lifted to the top of a 100 foot steel tower and dropped at 5:29:45 a.m. Once dropped the bomb completely vaporized the steel tower. The lead scientist behind the Manhattan project J. Robert Oppenheimer saw the destructive power of the atomic bomb and quoted Hindu scripture. " We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all felt that one way or another."

When he said this one could think he was both proud of his scientific achievement and terrified of its destructive power. Other scientists that participated in the Manhattan project say that the Atomic bomb was necessary to end the war and save thousands of American soldiers but others say that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary because they thought Japan was going to soon surrender anyways, without the use of an atomic weapon.

Many scientists in the Manhattan Project try to justify themselves by saying what they did was necessary or just as bad as other tactics taken by the military like the fire raids that were going on every day to try and get Japan to surrender.

" At Los Alamos during World War II there was no moral issue with respect to working on the atomic bomb. Everyone was agreed on the necessity of stopping Hitler and the Japanese from destroying the free world. It was not an academic question ‚ our friends and relatives were being killed and we, ourselves, were desperately afraid."

This quote is from Joseph O. Hirschfelder a chemist in the Manhattan project justifying his participation in the Manhattan project saying he did it to stop Hitler and the Japanese from destroying his way of life.

In my opinion the Manhattan Project and the nuclear bomb though crude and destructive it did save thousands more lives