Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

· Uranium Fission 1938 Otto Hahan and Fritz Strassmann's discovery of fission steered Germany toward developing an atomic weapon. This motivated the U.S. to launch the Manhattan Project. · The Race for the Atomic Bomb Begins 1939-1941 World War II started September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. By 1941, the Germans were leading the race for the atomic bomb. They had a heavy-water plant, high-grade uranium compounds, a nearly complete cyclotron, capable scientists and engineers, and the greatest chemical engineering industry in the world. · The Research Effort Struggles 1941-1945 Factors including internal struggles, a major scientific error, and the devastation of total war compromised any successful research toward a German atom bomb. Unlike the American program, the Germans never had a clear mission under continuously unified leadership. · The First Controlled Nuclear Reaction 1942 At the University of Chicago reactor, Enrico Fermi oversaw the first controlled energy release from the nucleus of the atom. · U-235 Output Begins 1945 After intense effort, the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., began to produce bomb-grade U-235, which was shipped to Los Alamos, N.M. U-235 was used in the Little Boy bomb