Manhattan Project: The Story of the CenturyThough thousands of articles and books have been published on various aspects of the Manhattan Project, this book is the first comprehensive single-volume history prepared by a specialist for curious readers without a scientific background. This project, the United States Army’s program to develop and deploy atomic weapons in World War II, was a pivotal event in human history. The author presents a wide-ranging survey that not only tells the story of how the project was organized and carried out, but also introduces the leading personalities involved and features simplified but accurate descriptions of the underlying science and the engineering challenges. The technical points are illustrated by reader-friendly graphics. .
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Contents
| 1 | |
| 15 | |
3 Fission | 53 |
Coordinating Government and Army Support 19391943 | 91 |
5 Piles and Secret Cities | 148 |
Securing Fissile Material | 171 |
7 Los Alamos Trinity and Tinian | 227 |
9 Hiroshima and Nagasaki | 361 |
Epilogue | 426 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alamos Alpha April Army Arthur Compton atomic bomb August began Bockscar Bohr bombardment Briggs British Bush calutrons chain reaction chemical Churchill Committee Compton Conant construction Coster-Mullen 2010 critical mass cross-section Curie cyclotron decay December detonation diameter diffusion discovery DuPont element Emilio Segre energy Engineer enrichment Enrico Fermi estimated experiments explosion Farmelo feet Fermi fissile material fission Frisch German graphite Groves Hahn Hanford Hawkins heavy-water Heisenberg HHMW Hiroshima implosion Irving isotope January Japan Japanese Jones July June Laboratory Lawrence Los Alamos Manhattan Project Marshall meeting Meitner miles military Nagasaki neutrons Nichols Norris nuclear weapons nuclei Oak Ridge operation Oppenheimer Otto Frisch particles Peierls physicist physics pile plant plutonium production protons radioactive reactor Roosevelt Rutherford Sachs scientists Segrč September Serber slow-neutron slugs Source Stimson Szilard tanks target thermal Tinian tons Trinity test Truman tubes United uranium Uranium Committee Vannevar Bush Vemork Washington