Radiation Effects Of The Atomic Bomb example essay topic

In this paper, it will be discussed why the Atomic Bomb is the biggest method of destruction known to man. The paper will be discussing the results of the Atomic Bombs, along with the effects years after the initial explosion. People always wonder how many people actually died in the two Atomic Bombs which were dropped in Japan. This question will be answered, along with the method that citizens were actually killed by the bomb.

Besides the initial blast winds that an Atomic Bomb gives off, people may be killed by several other things including heat rays, radiation and the implosion of their home. Robert S. Oppenheimer, was the father of the Atomic Bomb. After Albert Einstein stated that if the Nazi's made a nuclear weapon first, the results would be devastating. Due to this, Oppenheimer decided to race to develop such a weapon, before the Nazi's. On August 6, 1945, the first Atomic Bomb used in warfare, was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. U.S. President, Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, on what he reported would only destroy military bases. The devastation turned out to be nothing like anybody had ever seen before.

On August 2, 1945 '20th Air Force attacks targets in Japan on 6th August. Primary Target... Hiroshima... '. At this point, only the direct order of President Truman could stop the dropping of the bomb. As it turned out, Truman thought nothing of the sort.

His intention was to bomb Hiroshima, and nothing was going to stop him. The bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima was nicknamed 'Little Boy' Three days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The bombing of Nagasaki completely wiped out the northern part of the city. The nickname for this bomb was called 'FatMan'. There are a few reasons why these two cities each have different nicknames. The Nagasaki bomb did not destroy as much as the Hiroshima bomb, nor did it kill as many people.

So then why is the Nagasaki bomb called the 'Fat Man' and the Hiroshima bomb called 'Little Boy'. The 'Fat Man' was made of plutonium and consisted of twenty-two kilotons of TNT. As for the 'Little Boy', it was made of uranium, and was made up of only thirteen kilotons of TNT. Even though the Hiroshima bomb was not made up to do even near the amount of damage as the Nagasaki bomb, it turned out that did more damage. The reason for this is because, the geographic location of Nagasaki, with its mountainous terrain prevented it from doing the same amount of destruction as in Hiroshima. In the two bombings there was a large gap in the number of people that died.

In Hiroshima the city population at the time of the bombing was 310,000, The estimated deaths was 90,000-140,000 people. As for the Nagasaki bombing, the city population before the bombing was 250,000. The estimated number of deaths was 60,000-80,000 people. Notice that the word, 'estimated', was used for both amounts of deaths. The reason for this is because, the number of deaths cannot be precisely known because records of military personnel in each city were destroyed. There have been several comparisons between the damage capabilities of the two bombs.

First of all, it was said that to achieve maximum blast effect, the bomb had been set to detonate 1800 feet over Hiroshima. This is approximately 548 meters. The bomb in Hiroshima reached a height of 580+/-15 meters. As for the bomb in Nagasaki, it reached a height of 500+/-10 meters. The radius in which ceramic roof tiles melted was 600 m in the Hiroshima bombing and 1000 min the Nagasaki bombing. The radius in which granite stone melted was 1,000 m for the Hiroshima bomb and 1,600 m for the Nagasaki bomb.

What can be determined from these statistics is that the Nagasaki bomb has much stronger heat rays in it, and in turn would destroy more territory and kill more people. As said earlier in this essay, the location of Nagasaki prevented that. It was said that when the bomb hit the ground, 'A bright, blinding flash was seen. A minute later, a black cloud of boiling dust and churning debris was 1,000 feet off the ground and above it white smoke climbed like a mushroom to 20,000 feet'.

This is one of the reasons that so many people died from the bomb. When burning debris is flying through the air, chances are that people are going to get hit. We " re not talking little pebbles here. Houses were blown to bits, and pieces of the houses were being thrown across the city. Another person said 'First came the pika-the flash-and a hundred thousand people perished. Then came the blast-and the city was gone.

Then came the mushroom cloud, and the living dead were crying for water, and the rubbery faces sloughing off like masks, and the corpses awash in the seven-fingered delta of the Ota River. Afterward, came peace'. This is how people were being killed by the bomb. Besides the fact that an Atomic Bomb gives off immense pressure from its blast winds, it also releases heat rays and radiation. An Atomic Bomb gives off 50% blast winds, 35% heat, and 15% radiation. This 15% includes two types of radiation, 5% initial radiation and 10% residual radiation.

The blast wind created an extremely high pressure at the point of denotation. It is said that the leading edge of the bomb blast advanced as a shock wave, which had traveled a distance of about 3.7 km after about 10 seconds and covered a distance of about 11 km in 30 seconds. In other words you didn't have to even be near the explosion of the bomb, and you were bound to die anyway The bomb disintegrated everything within a two mile radius. As for the heat from anatomic bomb, it is said that a fireball is created in mid-air at the same time as the explosion. At the instant that the explosion occurs, the temperature reached a maximum of one million degrees centigrade. Within three seconds of the explosion, 99% of the thermal radiation which was released by the fireball had affected the surface of the ground.

As for the human flesh, it was burned from up to a distance of 3.5 km. Radiation is another topic in itself. Still today, people are suffering from the radiation effects of the Atomic Bomb. People may suffer from long term effects of radiation such as leukemia, which was the first disease to be proven to because by the Atomic Bomb radiation. As said in the above paragraph, there were two types of radiation, initial and residual.

Initial radiation is the radiation that is given off from the bomb within one minute of the detonation. The residual radiation is released later at ground level, over a long period of time. People might wonder if Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still radioactive, even after all these years. The answer to this question is no. There are two ways in which radioactivity is produced from the atomic blast. The first one is due to the fallout of the fission products or the nuclear material itself.

For example, when the uranium or plutonium are to fall out of the bomb. Nowadays the radioactivity is so small that it is too hard to trace any amount of radioactivity that was caused by atmospheric Atomic Bomb tests. The second method that radioactivity is produced is by neutron irradiation of soils or buildings. The neutrons from the bomb make up less than 10% of the atomic bomb radiation. The gamma rays make up most of the radiation, but they do not cause ground materials to become radioactive. As proven, the radiation is so small that it cannot have any detectable effects on human health.

As shown in this paper, the Atomic Bomb made its mark in history. It was not planned to make an effect on the world, but I don't think that they planned to kill so many innocent bystanders. As said in the paper Truman thought that the bomb was only going to destroy the military bases. Little did he know that it was going to kill 150,000 people. That was the amount of people that died from the detonation, but there are still thousands of people today that are still suffering from the bomb. It is very hard to imagine what it was actually like to have a bomb hit the ground, and instantly terminate your life.

Imagine sitting in your house while watching television and then suddenly you hear a loud boom, and your house starts to burn up from the heat rays and then caves in on you from the blast. There isn't much that the world can do about the atomic bomb right now. All that we have to hope for is that we all learned from history of the Atomic Bomb and we won't make the same mistake again.

Bibliography

1. Blow, Michael. The History of the Atomic Bomb. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1968.
1. Daniel, Clifton. Chronicle of the 20th Century. New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987.
3. Shigematsu, I. ed. Effects of the A-Bomb Radiation on the Human Body. Tokyo: BunkodoCo., Ltd., 1995.
4. Steinberg, Ralph. Postscript From Hiroshima. New York: Random House, Inc., 1965.