It was initially the fear that Nazi Germany was building and was prepared to use a nuclear weapon during World War II that triggered the start of the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project began as a government secret project in the production and development of a functional atomic nuclear weapon during World War II. In 1939 An American intelligence informant reported to president Roosevelt that German scientist working under Hitler were in the making of creating an atomic bomb. When Roosevelt heard the news his first instinct was to set up an Advisory Committee to research using Uranium. Roosevelt even hand selected a team of scientists and military officials and tasked them with researching uranium’s potential role as a weapon. After Roosevelt's
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In response Roosevelt created a government committee to coordinate and provide modest funding for early uranium research. It wasn't until March 1940, John R. Dunning and his colleagues at Columbia University had demonstrated conclusively that uranium-235 was the isotope that fissioned with slow neutrons, not the more abundant uranium-238 as Fermi had guessed. This finding was important, because it meant that a chain reaction using uranium-235 was possible, but only if the isotope could be separated from the uranium-238 and concentrated into a critical mass. Considering that uranium-235 and uranium-238 are chemically identical, they could not be separated by chemical means since their masses differ by less than one percent, separation by physical means would be extremely difficult and expensive. Many scientists thought the best idea for isotope separation was to use the high-speed
In response Roosevelt created a government committee to coordinate and provide modest funding for early uranium research. It wasn't until March 1940, John R. Dunning and his colleagues at Columbia University had demonstrated conclusively that uranium-235 was the isotope that fissioned with slow neutrons, not the more abundant uranium-238 as Fermi had guessed. This finding was important, because it meant that a chain reaction using uranium-235 was possible, but only if the isotope could be separated from the uranium-238 and concentrated into a critical mass. Considering that uranium-235 and uranium-238 are chemically identical, they could not be separated by chemical means since their masses differ by less than one percent, separation by physical means would be extremely difficult and expensive. Many scientists thought the best idea for isotope separation was to use the high-speed