t r e b o r e R m i J enhe ted the p a e r c p physicist who BOMB O The ATOMIC
This brilliant American scientist made many important contributions, but he is known for developing the devastating nuclear bombs that ended World War II.
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Race for atomic weapons Born in 1904, Oppenheimer went to Harvard University, USA, where he became immersed in the world of atoms and how they interact with each other. During World War II, the Allies feared that Nazi Germany would build an ATOMIC BOMB, so in 1942, Oppenheimer was appointed the director of the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic weapons first.
The Trinity test Oppenheimer established the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and recruited a team of leading scientists. In July 1945, a plutonium bomb was successfully detonated at a remote test site in nearby Alamogordo. Code-named Trinity, this test created a crater over 300 m (980 ft) wide and ushered in now? k u o Did yenheimer was bel the ATOMIC AGE.
Replicas of the two atomic bombs, Little Boy (left) and Fat Man
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Opp for the No ree ted nomina in Physics th and , Prize 1945, 1951 . n in times, but never wo 1967,
Who came before...
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In the 1930s, Austrian physicist Lise Meitner and German chemist OttO HaHn discovered nuclear fission – nuclear technology relies on this process – when they split a uranium nucleus by bombarding it with neutrons.
Italian physicist enricO FerMi developed the first nuclear chain reaction in 1942. This is the process in which a neutron splits a uranium atom, producing more neutrons that split further uranium atoms.
