Making of the Atomic Bomb

Making of the Atomic Bomb

Democritus

ddddddGreeks got curious about astro laws and tried to figure out what things were made out of. Democritus decided everything is made out of small particals called atoms. He said, " Everything in the world contains atoms." People Excepted his conclusion,but he didn't know there were Neutrons, Protons, and Electrons in an atom.

Atom means: A=un Tom=cuttable. So Atom means uncuttable.

Chadwick 1935

ddddddChadwick found another partical in an Atom. He found a Partial Called "Neutron."

Enrico Fermi 1935

ddddddFermi was a very curious fellow. It occured to him that the newly discovered nuetron, since it possessed no electrical charge, might be able to penetrate the atomic nucleus and take up residence there, thus adding one mass number to an element and creating a new isotope. He couldn't figure it out so he put it in a magizine for people to read and figure it out.

Lise Mietner

ddddddThe first person to answer his question was a German girl genuis named Lise Meitner. She took the experiment home with her that night and worked on it that night. She found out that to confirm this theory, it was necessary to find the missing piecies of nucleus.

O. Hahn and F. Strassman

ddddddO. Hahn and F. Strassman were the other two people who looked at the magazine and answered it. They looked for and found barium and krypton, produced by nuetrons in collision with uranium atoms. In addition to these larger fragments, a number of nuetrons were found to be released as well. Later it was found that slow-moving nuetrons could cause the uranium nucleus to be split up in a great number of different ways. In fact, more than 250 different isotopes of different elements have been identified in the fission process is the vast amount of energy released when the nucleus splits up. All the pro-tons in the nucleus are positivly charged and packed closely together. When the nucleus is split in two, the like charges repel each other strongly, and the fragments are hurled apart at great speed. Fission of quite small amounts of uranium releases fantastic amounts of energy which have been put to work in the atomic bomb and in nuclear power stations. s

ddddddWhere does all this energy come from? Obviously not from the nuetron which initiated the fission process, because this was travelling quite slowly, and did not have much energy. The answer lies in the nucleus itself, where there is a large amount of energy locked away until the arrival of the neutrons triggers off its release.

ddddddIn the uranium nucleus 92 positivly charged protons are mixed up with 143 neutrons. In some way which is not clearly understood this mixture produces a stable nucleusthat hangs together. But the nucleus is in a state of stress, wanting to fly apart because of the repulsive forces between the protons in it. It is prevented from doing this by the binding energy which keeps the nucleus together. When a nuetron comes along and enters the nucleas, its stability is upset. Just as alarge water droplet may be split into two small ones if it disturbed, so is the nucleas split up by arrival of the neutron. Addition of a single nuetron converts a stable nucleas into a highly unstable nucleas, and nuclear fragmentation is then triggered off. If all the fragments of the atom were put back together you would find that all the mass of the a is not all there. The mass that is missing is the is the mass that makes the explosion.