Today in Technology History
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July 16
The first atomic bomb being raised atop a tower for the Trinity Test. The first atomic bomb exploded 56 years ago.
On the eve of the second world war, scientists first recognized that the atom could be split, unleashing tremendous energy. If that energy were harnessed, a weapon of unprecedented destructiveness could be built.
After the start of the war, work proceeded in secret as the U.S. and Britain raced to construct an atomic bomb before Germany. The principal atomic weapons program was called the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Manhattan Engineer District," or just the "Manhattan Project." (That name was chosen because it was inconspicuous, and because the supervising office was actually in Manhattan.)
By late 1942, the first man-made nuclear chain reaction was achieved in Chicago. Research and production hurried along, with much effort concentrated on preparing sufficient quantities of plutonium and uranium.
The war in Europe ended in May 1945, but the war against Japan continued, and the Manhattan Project reached its culmination. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo. This was known as the "Trinity Test." A plutonium bomb named "Gadget" was detonated 100 feet off the ground, exploding with the energy of 20,000 tons of TNT and visible from hundreds of miles away.
Watching the test, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was reminded of a line from the Hindu religious poem Bhagavad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Quoting the same poem, he said the explosion looked as "if the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky."
Within a month, Japan surrendered after two atomic bombs were dropped on its cities.
Related links:
Click here and here to read eyewitness accounts of the Trinity Test.
Click here and here for more information on the Manhattan Project.
This site has a number of pictures and documents related to nuclear weapons testing.
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