The Use of Nuclear Power as a Weapon :: essays research papers

The Use of Nuclear Power As a Weapon August 6th,1945 is not a day to be forgotten.It marks the world’s first use of an atomic bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the US Military. Three days later, the USA dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, bringing WW II to an end. In total, more than 140.000 people were estimated to be killed. Although the most memorable effects of the atomic bomb were the mass amounts of death, the development of the atomic bomb has greatly influenced American society and the world. The scientific development surrounding the atomic bomb has been a pivotal point in the world’s history, launching us into the Atomic Age. The cause of building an atomic bomb in the USA was that, on the August 2nd 1939, some scientists wrote to president Roosevelt about the efforts in Nazi Germany to purify Uranium-235 with which might be turned to be used to build an atomic bomb. It was shortly thereafter that the US Government began serious undertaking known as the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was designed to research and production that would produce an atomic bomb. The first cause of using the nuclear power as an atomic power was that the Americans had believed that Japan would never surrender during the WW II. Japan had occupied the islands on the coast of Pacific and they were cruel to the people living there. As a result, some Americans thought that Japan had deserved to be taught a lesson. Another cause for using the nuclear power, that the bomb costed $2 billion, so it would have been difficult to justify not using it after such a huge financial investment. By 1945, the project had nearly 40 laboratories and factories which employed 200,000 people. That was more than the total amount of people employed in the US automobile industry in 1945.The total cost of the project was $2 billion which is about the equivalent of $26 billion today. The final cause of using the atomic bomb was to show the superiority to the USSR because during the war, the USA and the USSR were fighting for different sides, they were rivals, resulting in showing the world who the strongest of all was, so the USA dropped the bomb. These four events tell us that why the nuclear power used as a weapon and changed the world and the effects of this change felt at all levels: in the world history, on the countries, on human beings and on the scientific development, launching us into the Atomic Age.