Plutonium

The day the bomb was tested will be remembered in many different ways by different people, some for the best, some for the better, and some for the worse. Cohen states that the plutonium core was delivered to the bombsite on July 12th, 1942. The countdown started at 5 a.m. the countdown was 20 minutes long (75). Sam Wilson, a physicist yelled,” zero.” The countdown ended and the bomb was to explode shortly (78). Cohen tells the tale of the bomb testing: Nothing happened. Then suddenly the sky ignited. The flash was seen in three states. It lit up the sky like the sun, throwing out a multicolored clout that surged 38,000 feet into the atmosphere in about seven minutes. The heat at the center of the blast approximated that of the center…

Kerr-McGee Corporation in the state of Oklahoma in the field of metallurgy. She worked with plutonium (a radioactive metal) at her job and noticed after a time of employment, that things were not being correctly, in terms of protecting the workers. She tried to change and implement safety procedures to ensure worker protection, but instead was seen as a ‘whistle blower’. Because of her actions, although nothing has been distinctly proven, she was purposely contaminated and run off the road while…

Introduction World War II is heating up. The United States is now involved. The President needs to find a way to end the war as fast as possible. During this time, suspicions are high that Germany is developing some sort of “super weapon” – possibly using nuclear/atomic energy. Already, German scientists had discovered the technique of splitting uranium atoms – called nuclear fission – by the bombardment of these atoms using neutrons, splitting them apart into rare isotopes, the most…

its Breeder Reactor was developed to use uranium. this is how it works. the reactor is built with a core of fissionable plutonium,The plutonium core is gathered by a layer of uranium. As the plutonium undergoes spontaneous fission, it releases neutrons. These neutrons convert uranium to plutonium. In other words, this reactor breeds fuel as it operates. After all the uranium has been changed to plutonium the reactor is refueled. However, there are some major problems with the breeder reactor.…

Hanford sits on a site in Southwestern Washington that is approximately 586- square miles of desert. Hanford began in 1943 building nuclear reactor plants to produce plutonium for the bomb that would end World War II. In the mid 1800’s according to the Hanford’s history site, the War Department decided to locate the Manhattan Project to this part of Washington and kept the work of developing the atomic weapons secret. So, all residents of Hanford and White Bluff were told to leave, given a…

research. Isabella Karle is a scientist who worked in the field of crystallography, and during the Manhattan Project she worked on plutonium chemistry. With her advances in molecular structures, she has allowed scientists…

ridge the 4th largest city in Tennessee. Producing enriched uranium to the quality required for the bomb was a very slow process that had to be completed one atom at a time, getting enough for a bomb would take years. Glenn Seaborg, an American chemist proposed the use of plutonium. Plutonium was another fissile material. A fissile material was one that could sustain the nuclear chain reaction of fission. Plutonium was easier and cheaper to produce than enriched uranium. Groves had the Hanford…

uranium-239 then decays into neptunium-239 and finally into the more stable plutonium-239 (this element does not exist naturally on earth) which is fissile like uranium-235. After Enrico Fermi (an Italian physicist) went on to create the worlds first controlled chain reaction with his reactor, many massive reactors were created at Hanford Site to transform uranium-238 into plutonium for an atomic bomb. The simplest form of a nuclear weapon would be the gun-type fission weapon where a…

Nuclear Weapons Such a dangerous weapon of mass destruction not any weapon but a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons can only be two things a nuclear bomb, or a nuclear missile that uses energy to cause an explosion. Since August 6, 1945 to today April 6, 2015 the nuclear weapons has killed over 129,000 people.(Hersam Acorn, 2015, hiroshima survivors address harvey students, staff).This is a major weapon that we are talking about. The first atomic bomb was tested at the trinity site at…

team of other scientists who discovered a new element, neptunium, which is 93 on the periodic table. After the discovery of this new element, Seaborg opted to take a leave of absence in 1941 to work on the Manhattan Project. During his time working on the Manhattan Project, Seaborg and a team of other scientists discovered element 94, plutonium. This element was created when the neptunium underwent beta-decay and was also discovered to be fissile, which was important when it came to directing…