Read complete books and articles on: Atomic Bomb

Atomic Bomb - or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex., laboratory and successfully tested on July 16, 1945. This was the culmination of a large U.S. army program that was part of the Manhattan Project, led by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. It began in 1940, two years after the German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission. On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima with an estimated equivalent explosive force of 12,500 tons of TNT, followed three days later by a second, more powerful, bomb on Nagasaki. Both bombs caused widespread death, injury, and destruction, and there is still considerable debate about the need to have used them.

Atomic bombs were subsequently developed by the USSR (1949; now Russia), Great Britain (1952), France (1960), and China (1964). A number of other nations, particularly India, Pakistan, and Israel, now have or believed to have atomic bombs or the capability to produce them readily. The three smaller Soviet successor states that inherited nuclear arsenals (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus) relinquished all nuclear warheads, which have been removed to Russia.

Atomic bombs have been designed by students, but their actual construction is a complex industrial process. Practical fissionable nuclei for atomic bombs are the isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239, which are capable of undergoing chain reaction. If the mass of the fissionable material exceeds the critical mass (a few pounds), the chain reaction multiplies rapidly into an uncontrollable release of energy. An atomic bomb is detonated by bringing together very rapidly (e.g., by means of a chemical explosive) two subcritical masses of fissionable material, the combined mass exceeding the critical mass. An atomic bomb explosion produces, in addition to the shock wave accompanying any explosion, intense neutron and gamma radiation, both of which are very damaging to living tissue. The neighborhood of the explosion becomes contaminated with radioactive fission products. Some radioactive products are borne into the upper atmosphere as dust or gas and may subsequently be deposited partially decayed as radioactive fallout far from the site of the explosion.

See disarmament, nuclear; hydrogen bomb; nuclear strategy; and nuclear weapons; see also nuclear energy.

See G. Herken, The Winning Weapon (1988) and Brotherhood of the Bomb (2002); R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986); R. Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb (1992); R. Fermi et al., Picturing the Bomb: Photographs from the Secret World of the Manhattan Project (1995); P. B. Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project (1997).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Atomic Bomb

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present, 1939-1984 (1984) » Read Now
by Robert C. Williams, Philip L. Cantelon. 333 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Political Implications of Detonation of Atomic Bomb by the U.S.S.R.," Department...billion secret project to build an atomic bomb. Many documents associated with...the...
2.

Historical Encyclopedia of Atomic Energy » Read Now
by Stephen E. Atkins. 492 pgs.

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From the Manhattan Project to Chernobyl, in war and in peace, this is the only encyclopedia to cover the many aspects of atomic energy in the 20th century. More than 450 alphabetically organized entries trace the history of atomic energy from the discovery of the explosive potential of the atom to...
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From the Manhattan Project to Chernobyl, in war and in peace, this is the only encyclopedia to cover the many aspects of atomic energy in the 20th century. More than 450 alphabetically organized entries trace the history of atomic energy from the discovery of the explosive potential of the atom to the development of atomic energy as a force for war and for peace and the issues raised by its use. The encyclopedia has been designed and written to meet the information needs of high school students and the general public. Entries include scientific processes, terms and concepts, nuclear accidents, atomic testing, protest movements, treaties and national and international organizations, nuclear programs and facilities in many countries and biographical profiles of scientists and government leaders responsible for the development and decisions regarding atomic energy. The encyclopedia provides the most current information available on these topics. Each entry concludes with a suggested reading. The work includes a timeline of important events in the global development of atomic energy, more than 30 photos, and a selected general bibliography.
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3.

Controlling the Atom in the 21st Century » Read Now
by David P. O'Very, Christopher E. Paine, Dan W. Reicher. 398 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
4.

British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons » Read Now
by Andrew S. Burrows, Richard W. Fieldhouse, Robert S. Norris. 438 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
5.

Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb » Read Now
by Mark Walker. 325 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
6.

Israel and the Bomb » Read Now
by Avner Cohen. 478 pgs.

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7.

Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States, 1940-1980 (Chap. 2 "The Radiance of a Thousand Suns": Development of the Atomic Bomb during World War II) » Read Now
by Gerard H. Clarfield, William M. Wiecek. 518 pgs.

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...Thousand Suns" DEVELOPMENT OF THE ATOMIC BOMB DURING WORLD WAR II page...FDR to support research on an atomic bomb. December 1941 FDR approves...reaction. July 1945 First...
8.

Atomic Weapons and Armies » Read Now
by F. O. Miksche. 222 pgs.

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...the fire-effect of atomic weapons on the battlefields...advent of the Hydrogen bomb. Of course, so long as Russia has the H-bomb, we are bound to...aggression, upon...
9.

The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb » Read Now
by Dennis D. Wainstock. 184 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book is a balanced account of the political, diplomatic, and military currents that influenced Japan's attempts to surrender and the United States's decision to drop the atomic bombs. Based on extensive research in both the United States and Japan, this book allows the reader to follow the...
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This book is a balanced account of the political, diplomatic, and military currents that influenced Japan's attempts to surrender and the United States's decision to drop the atomic bombs. Based on extensive research in both the United States and Japan, this book allows the reader to follow the parallel decision-making in Tokyo and Washington that contributed to lost opportunities that might have allowed a less brutal conclusion to the war. Topics discussed and analyzed include Japan's desperate military situation; its decision to look to the Soviet Union to mediate the conflict; the Manhattan Project; the debates within Truman's Administration and the armed forces as to whether to modify unconditional surrender terms to include retention of Emperor Hirohito and whether to plan for the invasion of Japan's home islands or to rely instead on blockade and bombing to force the surrender.
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10.

Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan » Read Now
by J. Samuel Walker. 144 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...War, 1939- 1945 -- Japan. 3. Atomic bomb. 4. United States -- Foreign...5 Test explosion of atomic bomb, July 16, 1945 57...8 Nagasaki before and after the atomic bomb 81 9...
11.

The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki » Read Now
by Kyoko Selden, Mark Selden. 257 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
12.

The Atomic Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Occupied Japan » Read Now
by Monica Braw. 200 pgs.

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13.

The United States, Japan and the Atomic Bomb, in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars » Read Now
by Mark Selden. 10 pgs.

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14.

Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age » Read Now
by Laura Hein, Mark Selden. 302 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The development and use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki number among the formative national experiences for both Japanese and Americans, as well as for U.S.-Japan relations throughout the last half of the twentieth century. It is now clear, however, that memories and lessons learned...
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The development and use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki number among the formative national experiences for both Japanese and Americans, as well as for U.S.-Japan relations throughout the last half of the twentieth century. It is now clear, however, that memories and lessons learned from the bombings are still being reworked and contested, perhaps even more heatedly than they were in 1945. Tracking the development of that fifty-year trajectory, this volume explores the ways in which the bomb has shaped the self-image of both peoples: for Americans, the dominant story is that the bombs provided an appropriate and necessary conclusion to a just war; for Japanese, it is a symbol of their victimization. The distinguished contributors analyze the ways in which memories of the bombs, constantly reworked in the media, in the arts, and in the political arena, continue to define important, albeit often unacknowledged, undercurrents in the U.S.-Japan relationship.
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15.

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 » Read Now
by John Lewis Gaddis. 398 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most important and widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War? Many scholars and...
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Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most important and widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War? Many scholars and much conventional wisdom assumes that nuclear deterrence has prevented major power war since the end of the Second World War; this remains a principal tenet of US strategic policy today. Others challenge this assumption, and argue that major war would have been `obsolete' even without the bomb. This book tests these propositions by examining the careers of ten leading Cold War statesmen--Harry S Truman; John Foster Dulles; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Josef Stalin; Nikita Krushchev; Mao Zedong; Winston Churchill; Charles De Gaulle; and Konrad Adenauer--and asking whether they viewed war, and its acceptability, differently after the advent of the bomb. The book's authors argue almost unanimously that nuclear weapons did have a significant effect on the thinking of these leading statesmen of the nuclear age, but a dissenting epilogue from John Mueller challenges this thesis.
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16.

The Day the Sun Rose Twice: The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945 » Read Now
by Ferenc Morton Szasz. 236 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...p. Includes index. 1. 1. Atomic bomb -- New Mexico -- Los Alamos...Project the code name for Americas atomic bomb program . Numerous participants...America in the...