Atomic Bombing: America's Only Choice It was discovered at the University of Chicago that neutrons striking the element uranium caused the atoms to split apart. The discovery, based on Einstein's E=mc2 theory that mass has the potential to unleash great amounts of raw energy, showed tha...

Born on April 22, 1904 into a wealthy, New York, Jewish family with German decent, Oppenheimer quickly began to show signs of his ingeniousness. He attended Harvard as a 17 year old, graduating in 1925 after "intellectually looting the place". Oppenheimer then studied abroad at Englan...

The atomic bombs used in World War II were a huge scientific advance, but also will be long remembered because of their radiation effects. Although the weapon was the most destructive of any in World War II, it was one of the advantages the U. S. was able to use in order to defeat Japan. Leo Szilard...

In the 1930s, some scientists theorized that bombarding an atom's nucleus with a neutron from another atom would cause the first atom to split in two. The splitting atom would release another neutron, which would then strike a neighboring atom, causing it to split, and so on. It was thought that ea...