The Manhattan Project
by Barry Wright
Essay: The Manhattan Project
Pages: 10
Rating: 3 stars
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The world was shocked when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. The bombs were a
result of years of research and testing completed by the nation’s top physicists in a top-secret project called the
Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was a crucial development by the United States because it quickly
ended the war with Japan.
In August 1939, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard drafted the Einstein-Szilard letter to send to President Roosevelt.
The letter outlined the need for the United States to stockpile uranium ore and start the development of an
atomic bomb. The letter also warned Roosevelt that Nazi scientists were developing a similar program. President
Roosevelt created a project to study uranium and nuclear chain reactions, with a budget of $167,000. After the
physicists completed a controlled nuclear chain reaction, they presented their findings to the president and other
top officials. President Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project on October 9, 1941.
The fully-funded project’s initial research started out at Columbia University, University of Chicago, and the
University of California Berkeley (Manhattan Project ushistory.org). In 1942, dedicated facilities were built in Los
Alamos, New Mexico. At any given time, there were about 120,000 people working on the project. A majority of
the workers had do idea what the purpose of their job was. Even skilled physicists and scientists knew what they
had to accomplish, but did not understand the scope of the project. Very few people knew what the final product
was going to be. Even Vice President Truman did not know that the Manhattan Project existed.
Despite all of the secrecy, word of the project still reached the Soviet Union. After t...