The U.S. of A-Bomb: How American Nuclear Weapons Changed the Course of Human History

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  • Source: Ammo.com
  • 01/18/2021

The United States of America can take pride in a number of things, among them arguably the two greatest cultural and scientific achievements of human history: The moon landing and atomic power. It is the latter that we will focus on in the article, the unleashing of the power of the atom, for good and for ill.

America was the first nation to split the atom and applied it immediately to the war effort. It was not for a lack of trying on the part of America’s rivals: Germany famously had their own nuclear program. Less well known is that the Empire of Japan was also looking for a way to weaponize the primal forces of nature.

But America got there first. And their ability to do so not only changed the course of the Second World War, it also changed the course of human history. For the first time ever, mankind has the ability to wipe away human life as we know it at the push of a button. On the other hand, we also have a clean, reliable fuel source that could outstrip all existing sources, if the political will were there.

This is the story of how America unleashed and harnessed the power of nuclear fission, for better or for worse.

Pre-History of the Atomic Bomb: Physics and Fascism

To understand how the United States acquired the bomb, it is first necessary to briefly explain how man’s physical view of the cosmos was revolutionized by the new physics. In the early 20th Century, Pierre and Marie Curie observed radium for the first time and noticed that certain substances were highly radioactive.

Scientists and laymen alike began to believe that atoms contained massive amounts of energy just waiting to be harnessed. H.G. Wells published his novel, The World Set Free, about atomic warfare, in 1914. In 1924, Winston Churchill speculated about the destructive power of nuclear fission.

A little later, the top physicists of Germany were leaving in droves because of the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis. By the time the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, many of the top scientists had left the continent entirely, most for the United States, but some also for Canada. What this meant was that the best nuclear physicists in the world were concentrated in North America by the end of the 1930s, leaving Germany with a serious drought.

Still, it was the Germans who first discovered nuclear fission in 1938, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Chemistry. Otto Hahn was the first person to discover the process, which made a nuclear weapon theoretically possible. Once nuclear fission was discovered and the applications of such a discovery extrapolated by the major powers of the time, the race was on to see who would be the first to unlock the power of the atom for military purposes.

The Also-Rans: Germany and Japan

By all accounts, Germany should have had the first nuclear weapon. They, after all, were the first to discover nuclear fission, though the atom was first split by Englishman Ernest Rutherford at Manchester University in 1911. However, as stated above, most of the top scientists of the country were leaving because of the Nazi regime and its hostility toward Jews.

The Nazis were also tripped up because they disbanded their original team pursuing the secrets of the atom, the Uranverein (Uranium Society). The group was formed in April of 1939, but disbanded in August of the same year. Some of the most brilliant scientists left in Germany were removed from the project and sent off to regular military duty. There were a couple other German projects in 1939, but nothing centralized like later projects, which were much closer to the Manhattan Project.
 

The U.S. of A-Bomb: How American Nuclear Weapons Changed the Course of Human History originally appeared in The Resistance Library at Ammo.com.

Source: Ammo.com
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