Manhattan Project

n 1. (Historical Terms) (during World War II) the code name for the secret US project set up in 1942 to develop an atomic bomb. Also called: Manhattan District 2. (Nuclear Physics) (during World War II) the code name for the secret US project set up in 1942 to develop an atomic bomb. Also called: Manhattan District

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	Manhattan Project - a former United States executive agency that was responsible for developing atomic bombs during World War IIexecutive branch, Executive Office of the President - the branch of the United States government that is responsible for carrying out the laws
	2.	Manhattan Project - code name for the secret United States project set up in 1942 to develop atomic bombs for use in World War II

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project,

the wartime effort to design and build the first nuclear weapons (atomic bombsatomic bomb
or A-bomb,
weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of nuclear energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy atomic nuclei. The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex., laboratory and successfully tested on July 16, 1945.
..... Click the link for more information. ). With the discovery of fission in 1939, it became clear to scientists that certain radioactive materials could be used to make a bomb of unprecented power. U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded by creating the Uranium Committee to investigate this possibility. Progress was slow until Aug., 1942, when the project was placed under U.S. Army control and reorganized. The Manhattan Engineer District (MED) was the official name of the project. The MED's commanding officer, Gen. Leslie R. GrovesGroves, Leslie Richard,
1896–1970, American army officer and engineer who headed the program that developed America's atomic bomb, b. Albany, N.Y., grad. West Point (1918).
..... Click the link for more information. , was given almost unlimited powers to call upon the military, industrial, and scientific resources of the nation.

A $2-billion effort was required to obtain sufficient amounts of the two necessary isotopes, uranium-235 and plutonium-239. At Oak Ridge, Tenn., the desired uranium-235 was separated from the much more abundant uranium-238 by a laborious process called gaseous diffusion. At the Hanford installation (Wash.), huge nuclear reactors were built to transmute nonfissionable uranium-238 into plutonium-239. This method was based on the principle of the self-sustaining nuclear reaction (nuclear pile) that had first been achieved under the leadership of Enrico FermiFermi, Enrico
, 1901–54, American physicist, b. Italy. He studied at Pisa, Göttingen, and Leiden, and taught physics at the universities of Florence and Rome. He contributed to the early theory of beta decay and the neutrino and to quantum statistics.
..... Click the link for more information. at the metallurgical laboratory of the Univ. of Chicago. At the radiation laboratory of the Univ. of California at Berkeley costly efforts were made to separate the two uranium isotopes using cyclotrons, but only about a gram of pure uranium-235 was obtained. The actual design and building of the plutonium and uranium bombs took place at Los Alamos, N.Mex., under the leadership of J. Robert OppenheimerOppenheimer, J. Robert
, 1904–67, American physicist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1925), Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1927. He taught at the Univ. of California and the California Institute of Technology from 1929 (as professor from 1936) until his appointment
..... Click the link for more information. . Gathered at this desert laboratory was an extraordinary group of American and European-refugee scientists.

The only nuclear test explosion, code-named Trinity, was of a plutonium device; it took place on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, N.Mex. The first uranium bomb ("Little Boy") was delivered untested to the army and was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing at least 70,000 inhabitants. On Aug. 9, 1945, a plutonium bomb virtually identical to the Trinity device was dropped on Nagasaki, killing at least 35,000 inhabitants.

Bibliography

See L. R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told (1962); L. Lamont, Day of Trinity (1965); H. Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (rev. ed. 1966); R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987); R. S. Norris, Racing for the Bomb (2002).

Manhattan Project

[man′hat·ən ‚prä‚jekt] (engineering) A United States project lasting from August 1942 to August 1946, which developed the atomic energy program, with special reference to the atomic bomb.

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project,

Bibliography

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

Words related to Manhattan Project

noun a former United States executive agency that was responsible for developing atomic bombs during World War II

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