26/07/2023
𝗝. 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗢𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿: 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗼𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘀
The beginning of the 'Atomic Age' is commonly accepted to be July 16th 1945, the day that the first atomic weapon was detonated in the Jornada del Mu**to in the New Mexico desert. It was a test. Among the witnesses to the test include names that high school physics students will know: Neils Bohr, Enrico Fermi, James Chadwick, Richard Feynman. At the head of that list is the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer. There is some debate about what the 'J' stands for but that is not the reason why the summer 2023 billboards and adverts carry his name.
Developing an atomic bomb had its beginnings in the 1930s. As investigations into splitting the atom became fruitful they led to the successful demonstration and correct explanation of nuclear fission: allowing unstable chemical elements to be 'pushed over the edge' of instability resulting in a massive release of energy from the atoms making up the element. 'Splitting the atom' for the sake of energy release pointed the way to manufacturing heat engines - what we would now call nuclear reactors.
The world, however, was lurching inexorably toward global conflict and the threat of N**i Germany would finally be realised in invasions and declarations of war. Sides were taken, not least in the scientific community where discoveries of research were co-opted for military means. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last.
The first technical exposition of a nuclear weapon by Otto Frisch and Rudolph Pieerls occurred at the University of Birmingham in 1940 and was used by British Intelligence services to begin the work on developing such a weapon. This work was codenamed "Tube Alloys" which seems a suitably Brummie moniker. It also informed the beginning of the effort by the U.S. toward the same aim. Contrast this with the Americans' name for their work: the far more imposing "Manhattan Project". United by a shared foe, divided, perhaps, by national identities?
This led to the largest national industrial effort the world had ever seen (although unseen because of its intense secrecy). Headed up by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Manhattan Project commenced in October 1941, just 2 months before the attack on Pearl Harbour and the entry of the United States into World War II. Groves selected nuclear physicist Oppenheimer to head up the production of an atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer's physics family tree connected him to many of the big hitters of his day. He had worked at the Cavendish laboratory, Cambridge under JJ Thomson who discovered electrons. (Neils Bohr, whose model of the atom is still the most commonly accepted and used to this day, did not impress Thomson who refused to work with Bohr). From there Oppenheimer moved to the University of Göttingen to work under Max Born (chemistry students will have suffered many Born-Haber calculations) and became friends with some of the most illustrious names in physics: Werner Heisenberg, Pascual Jordan, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller.
Inevitably his name will be forever tied to the generation of the atomic bomb and its use against the Japanese in July 1945 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because we can only look back, it seems inevitable now that the bombs were made, tested and then deployed, the Japanese surrendering and the war coming to an end. But the view from the Los Alamos laboratory as the project developed was one of a battle against the clock, against the N**is' parallel nuclear program (headed up by his friend Heisenberg) and against unknown consequences of the most dire degree.
This is a real life promethean tale with consequences that must have been staggering for the man and woman in the street learning about it for the first time. Imagine reading the paper, listening to the wireless report. How many ways are there to discuss this in hindsight? What did this event do to the political landscape? How did the American psyche cope, how may have it changed as a result?
Those who worked on the atom bomb included many Jewish Germans who left Germany in the 1930s; they designed a weapon intended to be used against the powers that drove them from their homes. Knowing what they were doing, did they have pause for thought to wonder about the morality of their work?
What happens when the weapon designed to defeat the N**is becomes redundant with the end of the war in Europe in May 1945? The impetus to use the weapon remained. What was the main source of that drive that made its use a reality?
Was the success of the weapon worth it? What occurs when humanity crosses a line irrevocably? Genies do not go back into bottles. We have many stories, movies and works of art designed to ponder what happens after these catastrophes. The Fall in the Garden of Eden, the myth of Prometheus, Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', Kubrick's vision of '2001: A Space Odyssey', even Star Wars and the superweapon development represented in 'Rogue One' to name but a few.
Jornada del Mu**to, site of the Trinity test, translates from Spanish as "Dead Man's Journey" or "Route of the Dead Man". It gives Oppenheimer's famous quote "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" an extra degree of chill.
Want to know more? Take some deeper dives (including the rather splendid 'In Our Time' episode on the BBC about the Manhattan Project:
https://twitter.com/physinhistory/status/1682401813281099778?s=46
https://www.atomicarchive.com/history/index.html
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/j-robert-oppenheimer
https://www.irishstar.com/culture/nostalgia/ernest-walton-irishman-who-splitting-30531637?fbclid=IwAR2ElHLlJhaqlhw4zVlvafPqH1SVTlnoj0Px4kO4TXhn530Y78Krm3UqtVA
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00108h1
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb before anyone else in WW2
