30.08 The Making of the Atomic Bomb
3 hours; 3 credits
The history of the development of the atomic bomb. The scientific breakthroughs of the
first half of the 20th century that led to it. The political context in which the bomb
developed. The personal stories of the leading scientists involved. The moral issues
arising from the development and use of the bomb.
Prerequisite: Junior standing and satisfaction of all lower-tier requirements in Scientific
Inquiry
Common Goals Addressed by this Core Course:
To acquire the tools required to understand and respect the natural sciences.
To be capable of integrating knowledge from diverse sources.
To understand what knowledge is and how it is acquired in different disciplines.
To understand the development and workings of modern society.
To produce informed and responsible citizens.
To develop the ability to make sound moral judgements.
Objectives of this Core Course:
Students will be able to understand the progression of scientific discoveries
that clarified our picture of the atom and the atomic nucleus during the years from 1895
to1945.
Students will see how laboratory experiments interplay with the development of
theoretical knowledge; how some experiments proceed by design to clarify specific
issues, while others stumble on new and totally unexpected phenomena.
Students will be able to appreciate how numbers, even of such abstract and esoteric
quantities as nuclear cross sections, can change the course of history.
Students will be able to balance atomic numbers and weights in nuclear reactions.
Students will appreciate how the incredibly small amount of matter inside the atomic
nucleus can, through the multiplying effect of a chain reaction, produce the prodigious
release of energy in a nuc lear reactor or atomic bomb.
Students will understand the massive scale of the Manhattan Project and the enormous
challenges involved in the creation of weapons- grade fissionable material.
Students will be able to understand the story of the development of the atomic bomb in
the historical context of the political history of the first half of the twentieth century.
Students will develop an understanding of the personalities and motivations of the
scientists who pressed for US Government involvement leading up to the Manhatten
Project.
Students will see the need for an integrated perspective in order to understand how
science, political history, ethical values and personal motivations are interconnected in
this story..
Students will understand the ine vitability of scientific and technical advances, and how
such advances challenge human society to evolve in order to survive.
Outcomes for this Core Course:
Students will identify leading scientists, their most significant discoveries, and the
timeline along which these discoveries advanced our knowledge of nuclear processes.
Students will explain the relationship between laboratory observations and conceptual
breakthroughs in the history of nuclear physics.
Students will demonstrate a knowledge of the relevant cross section data and its
significance for the feasibility of a nuclear chain reaction.
Students will demonstrate that they can balance equations involving nuclear reactions.
Students will explain how exponential processes such as repeated doublings can bridge
the gap from submicroscopic to macroscopic phenomena such as the release of energy in
nuclear reactions.
Students will demonstrate a knowledge of the facts connected with the scope and size of
the Manhattan Project.
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the connection between the scientific
timeline and the political timeline in the development of the atomic bomb.
Students will show an understanding of the ethnic, personal, and cultural dimensions of
the scientists struggling to create the bomb.
Students will demonstrate that they understand how personal elements interact with
political upheavals in guiding the decisions and actions of scientists.
Students will speculate on ways in which the development of the bomb has changed the
political landscape of the twentieth century, and the on the types of political policy
challenges it presents in the twenty- first century.
Course Syllabus:
Week
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Topic
Atomic Theory in the 1800’s; Dalton’s law of multiple proportions; development of the
molecular theory of gases; Clausius, Loschmidt, and the first estimates of molecular sizes
and masses.
2 1895-1900: Experiments with gas discharge tubes and photographic emulsions; the
discoveries of cathode rays, x rays, and radioactivity; the nature and effects of ionizing
radiation.
3
Radioactivity 1900-1910: Marie and Pierre Curie and the search for radioactive
elements; Earnest Rutherford and the classification of types of ionizing radiation; the
discoveries of radioactive transmutation, half- lives and isotopes. Soddy and the first
estimates of energy from radioactive decay vs. energy from chemical reactions.
4
The nuclear atom 1911-1920: Alpha scattering and the discovery of the nucleus;
nuclear sizes vs atomic sizes; Neils Bohr and the structure of the nuclear atom; Moseley’s
work with x-rays and the significance of atomic number; World War I and its effect on
scientific progress. The battle field death of Moseley.
5
Review, exercises, exam.
6 1920-1930:The invention of the mass spectrometer; atomic masses, the
reinterpretation of isotopes; mass defects; E=mc2 and nuclear binding energies
7. 1920-1931 continued: The discovery of nuclear reactions; the study of gamma rays;
the Coulomb barrier and limitations on nuclear studies with alpha particles.
8
1932-1934: The discovery of the neutron; reinterpretation of nuclear structure;
the rise of Hitler in Germany and the exodus of German-Jewish scientists; Leo Szilard
and the concept of a nuclear chain reaction; discoveries of the positron and artificial
radioactivity.
9
1935-1938: Enrico Fermi’s discoveries in neutron activation and neutron
moderation; Bohr’s development of the liq uid drop model of the nucleus; the Spanish
civil war; Mussolini and Hitler, and Fermi’s decision to leave Italy; the puzzle of the
neutron bombardment of uranium; the annexation of Austria and Lise Meitner’s exodus
from Germany.
10 Review, exercises, exam.
11 1938-1939: Otto Hahn’s discovery of nuclear fission; interpretation of fission by Lise
Meitner and Otto Frish; spread of the news to U.S. and initial reactions and experimental
verifications. Bohr’s interpretation of the significance of U235.
1939-1942: The discovery of neutrons from fission; the awakening of the Germans to the
potential consequences of fission; Einstein’s letter to FDR; the discoveries of neptunium
and plutonium; Pearl Harbor; the entrance of the US into the war and its effect on fission
research; the Chicago pile. First draft of term paper.
1942-1945: General Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, and the Manhattan Project;
Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los Alamos; the separation of U235 and the production of
plutonium; the development of the implosion lens.
14. 1945: The “Dragon” experiments on critical mass; the death of FDR; the Trinity
test; Harry Truman and Potsdam; the decision to use the bomb; Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
final perspectives on war in the twentieth century, nuclear proliferation, and the challenge
of nuclear terrorism.
Method of Evaluation
Assignments (15%), research paper (15%), two lecture exams (40%), final exam
(30%).
Methods of Assessment:
Assessment will be based on
Instant feedback on understanding of conceptual material using the Classroom Response
System—hand- held remote electronic feedback units distributed to the students, which
allow multiple-choice three- minute quizzes during the lecture with instant computer
display of the results for the class as a whole.
Two one- hour lecture tests and one cumulative final examination.
A term paper, the first draft of which will be done as an in-class essay which will be
chosen from a list of topics, all of which will involve the relationship of the scientific
subject matter to the political, personal, or ethical issues touched on in the course. The
final draft will be developed at home and presented near the end of the semester.
In tests and exercises, outcomes will be assessed as follows:
Students will be asked to match scientists with important discoveries in nuclear physics.
Students will be asked to identify experiments leading to breakthroughs , e.g., the
discovery of the nucleus, the discovery of fission, etc.
Students will be asked to identify specific data involved in the development of a working
chain reaction and to explain the role of such data in that development.
Students will be asked to balance equations involving nuclear reactions.
Students will perform doubling calculations illustrating the growth of neutron flux in a
chain reaction.
Students will be asked to identify quantitative facts connected with the scope and size of
the Manhattan Project.
Students will be asked to make connections between the scientific timeline and the
political timeline in the development of the atomic bomb.
In the term paper, outcomes will be assessed as follows:
Students will be asked to comment on the motivation of selected scientists working on
the bomb.
Students will be asked to connect these motivations with the personal biographical
histories of the selected scientists..
Students will make arguments regarding the effects of the bomb on the political history of
the 20th Century, speculating on how the second half of the century might have been
different without it; students will also explore how the existence of nuclear weapons
could affect the political landscape of the 21st Century.
Bibliography:
Required Textbook:
Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Touchstone (1987)
Additional Suggested Reading:
Anrade, E. N., Rutherford and the Nature of the Atom, Doubleday (1964)
Boorse, Henry, et al, The Atomic Scientists: A Biographical History, Wiley (1989)
Frisch, Otto, What Little I Remember, Cambridge (1979)
Gilpin, Robert, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy, Princeton (1962)
Goodchild, Peter, J.Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds, BBC (1980)
Graetzer, H. and Anderson, D., The Discovery of Nuclear Fission, Reinhold (1971)
Herken, Gregg, The Brotherhood of the Bomb, Henry Holt (2002)
Nichols, K. D., The Road to Trinity: A Personal Account of How America’s Nuclear
Policies Were Made, Morrow (1987
Peierls, Rudolf, Bird of Passage: Recollections of a Physicist, Princeton (1985)
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, Knopf
(1993)
Schweber, S. S., In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe, and the Moral
Responsibility of the Scientist, Princeton (2000)
Sime, Ruth Lewis, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, U. of California Press (1996)