Atomic Bombs In H. G. Wells's Novel, The World Set Free

Within the first few decades of the 20th century, the science of physics was completely reformed with new understandings of the nature of atoms. In 1898 France, Paris, Pierre and his wife Marie Curie discovered a new substance within an ore of Uranium that they named radium that emitted large amounts of (as we now call) radioactivity. Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy Identified that atoms can break down and turn into different elements. For example if a block of uranium were left alone for 4.5 billion years, around 45% of it would turn into lead. Hopes for scientists around the world were raised that elements could have tremendous amounts of untouched energy waiting to be harnessed. This cause loads of inspiration for writers as H. G. Wells wrote about “atomic bombs” in his 1914 novel, The World Set Free. At this point, atomic bombs were only just a theory; an idea. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler became the new Chancellor of Germany and it quickly became unsafe for Jewish scientists to remain in the country, causing them to flee. One Jewish scientist, Leo Szilard fled to London and proposed in 1934 the next big step to the creation of an atomic bomb, a nuclear chain reaction by …show more content…
In September 1942, General Leslie Groves was appointed to lead the project within the US. which better became known as the Manhattan Project. Two of Groves ' first acts were to purchase all 1250 tons of Shinkolobwe Ore (from the Shinkolobwe mine, home to the highest quality uranium ore in the world) and to obtain authority to assign the Highest priority AAA rating on necessary requirements. The Tube Alloys project was quickly overtaken by the US. effort and was relocated and fused into the Manhattan project after Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Quebec Agreement in