"(2) After this process was.
completed, "Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the Cyclotron) at the.
University of California in Berkeley implemented a process involving.
magnetic separation of the two isotopes."(2) Finally, a gas centrifuge.
was used to further separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. The.
Uranium-238 is forced to the bottom because it had more mass than the.
Uranium-235. "In this manner uranium-235 was enriched from its normal.
0.7% to weapons grade of more than 90%."(Grolier 5) This Uranium was.
then transported to "the Los Alamos, N. Mex., laboratory headed by J.
Robert Oppenheimer."(Grolier 5) "Oppenheimer was the major force.
behind the Manhattan Project. He literally ran the show and saw to it.
that all of the great minds working on this project made their.
brainstorms work. He oversaw the entire project from its conception to.
its completion."(Outlaw 3) Once the purified Uranium reached New.
Mexico, it was made into the components of a gun-type atomic weapon.
"Two pieces of U-235, individually not large enough to sustain a chain.
reaction, were brought together rapidly in a gun barrel to form a.
supercritical mass that exploded instantaneously."(Grolier 5) "It was.
originally nicknamed 'Thin Man'(after Roosevelt, but later renamed.
'Little Boy' (for nobody) when technical changes shortened the.
proposed gun barrel."(Szasz 25) The scientists were so confident that.
the gun-type atomic bomb would work "no test was conducted, and it was.
first employed in military action over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6,.
1945."(Grolier 5) Before the Uranium-235 "Little Boy" bomb had been.
developed to the "point of seeming assured of success,"(Grolier 5).
another bomb was proposed. The Uranium-238 that had been earlier ruled.
out as an option was being looked at. It could capture a free neutron.
without fissioning and become Uranium-239. "But the Uranium-239 thus.
produced is unstable (radioactive) and decays first to neptunium-239.
