Exposure To The Atomic Bomb example essay topic

The Atomic Bomb Kaboom! In an instant two kilometers of a thriving downtown city are leveled. At the hypocenter the pressure exceeds thirty-five tons per square meter and the air is swirling at four hundred forty meters per second. The above is an accurate description of the destruction that that took place inside the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The twentieth century was a period in which great advances were made in terms of technology. Perhaps the greatest advancements of technology lay in the gigantic field of destructive weaponry. Advancements in such a field go on and off in spurts of creativity, each challenging the very imaginative capabilities that make humans beings so unique. These advancements not so coincidently take place most often when the world is engulfed in strife and chaos. The reason for these advancements taking place most often during world wars lies in the fact that factions are always looking for the fatal edge on the battlefield that will decide who the victor is when the day is done and the battle lost or won. The winning side can often be dictated by simply who is better equipped.

An example that is especially relevant is the competition that took place between the U.S. and Germany over who would develop nuclear arms first. President Truman himself knew that whoever invented a working nuclear bomb first would dominate the Second World War. This very logic led the American wartime leader into forming the Manhattan Project and in doing so shaping the outcome of the war and societies of the future. Nuclear weaponry, specifically the atomic bomb was a new frontier because it incorporated scientific principles that never before had been used, the effects when these principles were applied and the profound change in life this new frontier of technology caused were astounding. The scientific principles that allowed the United States to design and build a working Atomic bomb are part of what was then an amazing new scientific frontier. The Atomic Bomb gets its energy from fission, the splitting of the nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms.

Albert Einstein first explained this extraordinary phenomenon with his well-known theory E = MC squared. This theory states that the given mass (M) is associated with an amount of energy (E), equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light (C). Einstein published his theory in 1905 and set the stage for the scientists of the Manhattan Project decades later. A very small amount of matter, Einstein's theory proves, is equal to a huge amount of energy. For example, one kilogram of matter converted completely into energy would be equivalent to the energy released by exploding twenty-two megatons of TNT.

The Atomic bomb gets its energy through the following process. The neutron of the atom is the most effective particle to cause uranium fission. Only one neutron is needed to split an atom apart. When the atom splits, it splits into two smaller atoms that are almost always radioactive, and in doing so releases an enormous amount of energy and two or three spare neutrons. These spare neutrons that are released then wander around until they contact other nuclei, which causes more splitting (fission) and results in a huge chain reaction. A baseball made out of plutonium produces an explosion equal to twenty thousand tons of TNT.

The problem the first scientists found when experimenting with fission was that they could not just assemble the bomb out of a supercritical mass of fissile material like uranium-235 because it would explode immediately. The principal that explains this problem is known as critical mass. If you were to take a small amount of pure fissile material, say about the size of a golf ball it would not be enough to sustain a chain reaction and thus would not explode. The reason it would not explode is because too many neutrons would escape through the surface area and would not be present in the material to continue the chain reaction. This is known as a sub-critical mass. The absolute minimum amount of fissile material needed to maintain a chain reaction is known as critical mass.

Increasing the amount of fissile material produces a supercritical assembly which means that a bunch of chain reaction fissions take place very rapidly which is very likely to lead to an explosion, releasing an enormous amount of energy. The scientists solved their problem in two ways. The first step they took was to incase the fissile material in a tamper, which is essentially just a layer of very heavy matter that prevent premature disruption and keeps the uranium or plutonium in a stable state. The tamper also keeps neutrons from escaping. The scientist got around the actual problem of premature explosion by creating two sub-critical amounts of fissile material and placing them inside the bomb separate from each other. When the bomb is ready to be detonated the two sub-critical masses are shoved together making a critical mass which then explodes.

It takes about one millionth of a second for a nuclear explosion to occur. The scientists that experimented with these principles in hopes of constructing a nuclear bomb belonged to the Manhattan Project, a secret government agency whose sole purpose was to develop a nuclear weapon of mass destruction. The Manhattan Project employed many prominent American scientists including the physicists Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the much noted chemist Harold Urey. The project was lead by the U.S. Army engineer Major General Leslie Groves. When the principles were applied, and the technology developed the awe inspiring and at the same time horribleness of what had occurred truly became apparent and marked nuclear weaponry as a dangerous new frontier to be tread upon with the utmost caution and to be guarded with the greatest of care. The damage of an atomic blast is devastating to everything it reaches.

A nuclear explosion harms a human body in four distinct ways: burns resulting from the intense heat rays and fires, broken bones and lacerations resulting from the atomic blast, damage to the external and internal body from acute radiation poisoning and damage to the external and internal body due to the after effects of radiation. Burns resulting from the atomic blasts in the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are classified as primary burns which are the result of direct exposure to the heat rays an atomic explosion produces and secondary burns which are caused by fires ignited by the heat rays. Anyone within one and two tenths kilometers of the hypocenter, the location where the explosion occurred, was exposed to direct heat rays which burned through the skin and into the tissue lying beneath it, even internal organs are damaged. Anyone within two kilometers of the hypocenter received severe incapacitating burns, which have an extremely high mortality rate. Anyone beyond three kilometers received burns that only affected the surface of the skin. There were cases of construction workers who had taken off their shirts receiving minor skin type burns at a distance of three and one half kilometers.

In the cities thousands of people were caught under debris and burned to death by the fires that the intense heat waves had ignited. Injuries from an atomic blast are classified under two groups: Primary injuries which are the result of the blast itself and secondary injuries which occur when buildings collapse crushing the people residing in or around them. When the blast occurred thousands of people were hurled into the air as the blast wave hit, their fragile bodies broken by the extreme pressure the atomic wave exerted on all that it touched. The skin of the victims was, in many cases completely burned away leaving only bone showing. The many glass windows of the city shattered bombarding the people with sharp fragments of glass that later had to be surgically removed. Even now many survivors carry these fragments inside of them as eternal reminders of the atrocity that they survived.

Injuries resulting from acute radiation poisoning appeared immediately after the bombing and usually subsided about five months later. Acute radiation effects often included the following symptoms: digestive track disorders including nausea, loss of appetite and diarrhea, nervous disorders including headaches, delirium and insomnia, fatigue with an extreme loss of energy and weakness, bleeding with blood in vomit, purpura and urine, loss of red and white blood cells and reproductive disorders like zoosperm ia and menstrual disorders. The order in which these symptoms occurred was usually first nausea, vomiting, extreme fatigue, fever and diarrhea. After approximately two weeks the victims hair began to fall out. This continued for one or two more weeks. After the symptoms of acute radiation had subsided a wide range of problems started to show.

These problems generally began 2 to 10 years after the exposure. Exposure to the radiation in 1945 still plagues many victims. The after affects of radiation can show themselves in many forms. Keloid's are painful swelling that are caused by direct exposure to the heat rays within two kilometers of the hypocenter. These raised and twisted portions of skin are found on sixty percent of the victims burned by the heat rays. Leukemia is a malignancy of the blood in which young white blood cells reproduce uncontrollably resulting in a weakened resistance to disease.

Many forms of cancer were caused by the exposure to radiation. Thyroid, breast, lung and salivary gland cancer were found to be the most common. The more radiation a human was exposed to the greater the chance he or she would contract a malignant cancer. Exposure to the Atomic bomb also had many horrible effects on fetuses. Many babies died in the womb and those who survived infancy often died at an early age at a much greater rate than normal babies.

The most common defect caused by the radiation was microcephaly where the child is born with a smaller than normal skull. In severe cases this problem was also accompanied by retardation. From the moment the first Atomic Bomb was dropped on the city Hiroshima the course of history was forever changed. For better or worse the world now had to deal with weapons of such mass destruction that even the most severe of counter measures were useless. In developing a weapon that has the potential to destroy the world the United States opened itself up to a competition that would span decades. The Soviet Union would soon develop its own nuclear arsenal and the following years would be dubbed the cold war.

During this time the two super powers would battle not over territory or commerce but over the greatest power of all, information. The two nations, struggling for the smallest of advantages nearly destroyed the world. The Cuban Missile Scare of 1962 nearly brought the United States and the Soviet Union to all out war, a war that would have had devastating repercussions for both sides and would have left the world altered forever. The two powers tried to agree on limits, like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treat of 1972 but the crisis was never truly concluded until the Soviet Union fell apart, leaving the United States the sold survivor and winner on the biggest competition the world had ever seen. The atomic bomb was the beginning of a new frontier because of its incorporations of new scientific principles, the devastating effects these principles caused when they were applied and the profound change in life this technology incited.

For all of human kinds existence it has with great determination pushed the envelope of knowledge further and further. One step at a time it has learned, thrived and survived. In order to survive there often comes times when an offense is the best defense, when a sacrifice is required and when fire must be fought with fire. Remember those who once were enemies as friends who died so we may now live, so that we may now continue to learn, so that others have the opportunities that we hold so dear. Remember those of Hiroshima and Nagas kai for in extinguishing their flame America protected its forests of individuality, its entrusted lives, it's future..