There were many factors that led up to the dropping of the atomic bomb. There were two different types of atomic bombs dropped; a uranium type bomb in Hiroshima and a plutonium type in Nagasaki. The development of non-traditional warfare with the use of the atomic bomb has had some physical effects on the people and the environment of Japan. Non-traditional warfare is defined as warfare that isn't of that time.
In 1939, German scientists had started their research on constructing the first atomic bomb. However, the Americans soon became part of the race to build the bomb. Leo Sziland, a brilliant Hungarian went to warn Einstein about the atomic progress in Germany (Knebel and Bailey 504). Albert Einstein was in Long Island at his summer home when Sziland informed Einstein of the Germans progress. Einstein sent President Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter to warn him about the news he had heard. The letter arrived at the White House in October. The news led the United States into a new defense project (Knebel and Bailey 504). This project was the building of the atomic bomb.
The Manhattan Project.
The project was first led by Vannevar Bush, head of the National Defense Research Committee. The Manhattan Project was a code name for the United States effort during World War II to produce the atomic bomb. The project becomes more organized after German scientists discovered nuclear fission in 1983 . The United States was afraid of Hitler getting his hands on a fission bomb. In Oak Ridge, Tennessee, there were facilities necessary to separate Uranium-235. Uranuim-235 is more common than the lesser-known Uranuim-238 (Iinkai 61). Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the weapons laboratory (Badash). Oppenheimer became very popular for all his scientific efforts (Lerner 109). In the laboratory, scientists figured out that one pound of Uranuim-235 would release energy equivalent to about 9,000 tons of TNT (Goldberg 18).
