The Shocking History of Oppenheimer's Bombs - The Manhattan Project
He became Death, Destroyer of Worlds. For this video, we're looking at the true story behind the nuclear bombs created by J. Robert Oppenheimer as part of the Manhattan Project. It's a history that demonstrates the capacity of science for both human betterman and destruction - nuclear energy on one hand and nuclear weapons on the other. What side of Barbenheimer do you fall on? Do you plan to see "Oppenheimer"? Have you already seen it? What did you think? Tell us in the comments.
Transcript
00:00 - It's happening, isn't it?
00:03 - Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:04 And today we're looking at the true story behind the bombs from Oppenheimer.
00:07 - I needed to be engaged with it.
00:09 I wanted it to have bigger possibilities.
00:11 I wanted to do it in a way that I was excited about.
00:16 - Just before dawn on July 16th, 1945, generals and scientists watched nervously from trenches
00:22 and bunkers for a flash in the New Mexico desert.
00:25 When it came, the blast melted sand into glass, lit up the nearby mountains, and punched a
00:30 hole through the clouds.
00:31 - Army camera six miles away recorded the historic moment in the black of night.
00:41 - Recordings capture the roar of the shockwave and towering mushroom cloud, but not the otherworldly
00:46 purple light that faded into green and then white.
00:49 The bomb's architect, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, would recall feeling a sense
00:53 of awe and somberness.
00:55 - Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
00:59 I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
01:05 - Witnesses, however, remember him as relieved and triumphant.
01:09 The idea for the atomic bomb came from rapid developments in atomic theory in the 1930s.
01:14 The theory that matter consisted of discrete particles had been around for some time, but
01:18 it was only proven in 1911 when French physicist Jean Perrin verified an earlier theory of
01:23 Albert Einstein's.
01:25 Within decades, physicists had sketched out the atomic structure we're familiar with today,
01:29 a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of electrons.
01:34 Then came a crucial breakthrough.
01:36 In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann bombarded uranium atoms with neutrons
01:41 and split them in half, releasing considerable energy.
01:44 They had stumbled on nuclear fission, a power that was about to change the world.
01:49 Once they understood what they'd achieved, Hahn and Strassmann predicted that the reaction's
01:53 release of additional neutrons could lead to a chain reaction.
01:57 The double-edged sword of this realization, which could deliver us both a new source of
02:01 energy and unprecedented destruction, was already apparent in May 1939 when French physicists
02:07 filed three patents, two for nuclear power production and the third for an atomic bomb.
02:12 It was a time of growing global tensions.
02:15 In Germany, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler had ridden a populist wave of national grievance
02:20 to power, encouraging Germans to see themselves as the victims of World War I and its aftermath.
02:25 He stoked resentment at the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which had required
02:29 Germany to demilitarize and pay substantial reparations, and at Jews and socialists who,
02:35 he said, had lost them the war.
02:37 Nazi anger was a dam ready to burst and wash over Europe and, potentially, the world.
02:43 In August 1939, as war loomed on the horizon, physicists Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein
02:48 wrote a letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning that Germany might already
02:53 be developing atomic weapons.
02:55 The following month, Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II.
02:59 And that was the context in which Roosevelt finally read the letter in October.
03:04 Alarmed, Roosevelt established an atomic committee.
03:07 But it was thought at first that a vast amount of uranium would be needed, rendering such
03:11 a bomb impractical.
03:12 In March 1940, however, physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls figured out that a small
03:17 amount of a specific isotope, uranium-235, would be sufficient to start a nuclear chain
03:23 reaction.
03:24 In December 1941, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor drew the US into the war.
03:29 And the following year, the US initiated the Manhattan Project, a secret program to build
03:34 a bomb that could win the war.
03:36 The project was headed by Major General Leslie Groves, with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer
03:41 directing the actual design of the bombs at Los Alamos Laboratory.
03:45 The introspective intellectual had never led such a large project, but Groves sensed in
03:49 him a quote "overweening ambition" and that quote "he would let nothing interfere with
03:54 the successful accomplishment of his task and thus his place in scientific history."
03:59 Spurring the project on was a terrible fear that Germany would beat the Allies to the
04:03 bomb.
04:04 Ironically, that same year, Germany had actually abandoned their nuclear program, lacking resources.
04:10 But the Allies didn't know that.
04:11 "Of a 12-month head start, 18.
04:14 How could you possibly know that?"
04:17 Oppenheimer proved to be a capable leader.
04:19 Under his direction, the project pursued two distinct designs, based on different methods
04:23 of initiating a nuclear chain reaction.
04:26 The simple gun-type design would shoot one piece of fissile material into another.
04:30 An earlier version, Thin Man, which used plutonium, was abandoned as risking predetonation.
04:35 Its successor, Little Boy, used uranium-235 instead.
04:39 Oppenheimer used plutonium in the second design, a more complex implosion type that involved
04:44 detonating explosives around a plutonium core.
04:47 This produced the bomb, named the "Gadget," used in the Trinity Test in July 1945, and
04:52 a bomb called Fat Man.
04:54 By the time of the Trinity Test, Germany had already surrendered.
04:58 But Japan fought on.
05:00 On July 26th, the Allies called for Japan's unconditional surrender, warning of quote
05:05 "prompt and utter destruction."
05:07 Japan refused, and President Harry S. Truman authorized the use of the bombs.
05:12 "A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness
05:20 to the enemy."
05:21 It was 8.15 on August 6th when the U.S. bomber Enola Gay released Little Boy over the Japanese
05:27 city Hiroshima.
05:29 Parents and children were having breakfast at home, or on their way to work and school.
05:33 The bomb detonated 1,900 feet over the city.
05:36 The blast wave tore through buildings and people, and created a firestorm in its wake.
05:41 At least 70,000 were killed.
05:44 Some survived with horrible burns, barely recognizable.
05:47 Three days later, when Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally, the U.S. dropped
05:52 the even more powerful Fat Man on Nagasaki.
05:55 The total death toll of the bombs is estimated to be between 129,000 and 226,000 people,
06:03 mostly civilians.
06:04 As Japan admitted defeat, Americans celebrated in the street.
06:08 The war was over.
06:10 In the months afterwards, journalists would discover scenes of horror at Hiroshima and
06:14 Nagasaki, where people were vomiting blood and dying from a mysterious affliction, radiation
06:19 sickness.
06:20 The military sought to suppress reports from the ground, and the U.S. government to frame
06:24 the bombings of civilian targets as "unnecessary evil."
06:28 A guilt-wracked Oppenheimer would confront Truman, saying he felt he had blood on his
06:32 hands.
06:33 Truman angrily threw him out.
06:35 He would go on to oppose the development of the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.
06:40 Accused of disloyalty, in part due to his association with communists, he was stripped
06:44 of his security clearance, ending his role in government policy.
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07:04 Today, there remain an estimated 13,080 nuclear warheads in the world.
07:10 Ninety percent of them are owned by the U.S. and Russia, thanks to disarmament and non-proliferation
07:15 treaties.
07:16 That is considerably less than the 70,000 warheads that existed at the peak of the Cold
07:21 War, but still enough to cause massive global destruction.
07:25 Other nations with nukes include the UK, France, China, and unofficially, India, Pakistan,
07:32 North Korea, and Israel.
07:33 Since 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock has tracked how close we seem
07:39 to be to human-made global catastrophe.
07:42 On January 24th, 2023, the clock was moved forward to 90 seconds to midnight, marking,
07:48 quote, "a time of unprecedented danger."
07:51 The images of the destruction that the bombs wrought continue to haunt us, reminding us
07:56 of the horrific power we now hold in our hands.
07:59 "Eight, seven, six."
08:08 "Five, four, three, two, one."
08:23 "Go."
08:27 (upbeat music)