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African American Scientists And Technicians On The Manhattan Project
African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project held a small number of positions among the several hundred scientists and technicians involved. Nonetheless, African-American men and women made important contributions to the Manhattan Project during World War II. At the time, their work was shrouded in secrecy, intentionally compartmentalized and decontextualized so that almost no one knew the purpose or intended use of what they were doing. As government documents have been declassified and historians have examined archives and collected oral histories, the work of people like physical chemist William Jacob Knox Jr., chemist Lloyd Quarterman, physicist Carolyn Parker, physicist and mass spectrometrist Robert Johnson Omohundro, and physicist and mathematician Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. is being recognized. They contributed to the theoretical understanding of nuclear physics (Wilkins), the extraction and processing of the fissionable uranium isotope, Uranium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ). Over 90 percent of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallurgical Laboratory
The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and metallurgy, designed the world's first nuclear reactors to produce it, and developed chemical processes to separate it from other elements. In August 1942 the lab's chemical section was the first to chemically separate a weighable sample of plutonium, and on 2 December 1942, the Met Lab produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, in the reactor Chicago Pile-1, which was constructed under the stands of the university's old football stadium, Stagg Field. The Metallurgical Laboratory was established as part of the Metallurgical Project, also known as the "Pile" or "X-10" Project, headed by Chicago professor Arthur H. Compton, a Nobel Prize laureate. In turn, this was part of the Manhattan Project – the Allied effort to develop the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions. Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II.The site was variously called Los Alamos Laboratory and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research, bringing together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. The town of Los Alamos, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb. An increasing number of critics during the 1960s charged that the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous in several important areas, including radiation protection standards, nuclear reactor safety, plant siting, and environmental protection. By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that the U.S. Congress decided to abolish the AEC. The AEC was abolished by the Ener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Atomic Energy Act Of 1946
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. Most significantly, the Act ruled that nuclear weapon development and nuclear power management would be under civilian, rather than military control, and established the United States Atomic Energy Commission for this purpose. It was sponsored by Senator Brien McMahon, a Democrat from Connecticut, who chaired the United States Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, and whose hearings in late 1945 and early 1946 led to the fine tuning and passing of the Act. The Senate passed the Act unanimously through voice vote, and it passed the House of Representatives 265–79. Signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on August 1, 1946, it went into effect on January 1, 1947, and the Atomic Energy Commission assumed responsibility for nuclear energy from the wartime Manhattan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life (magazine)
''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest magazine known for the quality of its photography, and was one of the most popular magazines in the nation, regularly reaching one-quarter of the population. ''Life'' was independently published for its first 53 years until 1936 as a general-interest and light entertainment magazine, heavy on illustrations, jokes, and social commentary. It featured some of the most notable writers, editors, illustrators and cartoonists of its time: Charles Dana Gibson, Norman Rockwell and Jacob Hartman Jr. Gibson became the editor and owner of the magazine after John Ames Mitchell died in 1918. During its later years, the magazine offered brief capsule reviews (similar to those in ''The New Yorker'') of plays and movies currently running in New York City, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fissile Material
In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction. By definition, fissile material can sustain a chain reaction with neutrons of thermal energy. The predominant neutron energy may be typified by either slow neutrons (i.e., a thermal system) or fast neutrons. Fissile material can be used to fuel thermal-neutron reactors, fast-neutron reactors and nuclear explosives. Fissile vs fissionable According to the Ronen fissile rule, for a heavy element with 90 ≤ ''Z'' ≤ 100, its isotopes with , with few exceptions, are fissile (where ''N'' = number of neutrons and ''Z'' = number of protons).The fissile rule thus formulated indicates 33 isotopes as likely fissile: Th-225, 227, 229; Pa-228, 230, 232; U-231, 233, 235; Np-234, 236, 238; Pu-237, 239, 241; Am-240, 242, 244; Cm-243, 245, 247; Bk-246, 248, 250; Cf-249, 251, 253; Es-252, 254, 256; Fm-255, 257, 259. Only fourteen (including a long-lived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army Corps Of Engineers
, colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = LTG Scott A. Spellmon , commander1_label = Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , commander2 = MGbr>Richard J. Heitkamp, commander2_label = Deputy Chief of Engineers and Deputy Commanding General , commander3 = MGKimberly M. Colloton, commander3_label = Deputy Commanding General for Military and International Operations , commander4 = MGbr>William H. Graham, commander4_label = Deputy Commanding General for Civil and Emergency Operations , commander5 = COLbr>James J. Handura, commander5_label = Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army Corps of Engi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Groves
Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. The son of a U.S. Army chaplain, Groves lived at various Army posts during his childhood. In 1918, he graduated fourth in his class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1929, he went to Nicaragua as part of an expedition to conduct a survey for the Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal. Following the 1931 earthquake, Groves took over Managua's water supply system, for which he was awarded the Nicaraguan Presidential Medal of Merit. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935 and 1936; and the Army War College in 1938 and 1939, after which he was posted to the War Department General Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major General (United States)
In the United States Armed Forces, a major general is a two-star general officer in the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. A major general ranks above a brigadier general and below a lieutenant general. The pay grade of major general is O-8. It is equivalent to the rank of rear admiral in the other United States uniformed services which use naval ranks. It is abbreviated as MG in the Army, MajGen in the Marine Corps, and in the Air Force and Space Force. Major general is the highest permanent peacetime rank in the uniformed services as higher ranks are technically temporary and linked to specific positions, although virtually all officers promoted to those ranks are approved to retire at their highest earned rank. A major general typically commands division-sized units of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers. The Civil Air Patrol also uses the rank of major general, which is its highest rank and is held only by its national commander. Statutory limits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnic Identity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. The term ethnicity is often times used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from the related concept of races. Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or as a societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry. Ethni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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