an amazing new scientific frontier. The Atomic Bomb gets its energy from fission, the splitting of the nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms. Albert Einstein first explained this extraordinary phenomenon with his well-known theory E = MC squared. This theory states that the given mass (M) is associated with an amount of energy (E), equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light (C). Einstein published his theory in 1905 and set the stage for the scientists of the Manhattan Project decades later. A very small amount of matter, Einstein's theory proves, is equal to a huge amount of energy. For example, one kilogram of matter converted completely into energy would be equivalent to the energy released by exploding twenty-two megatons of TNT. The Atomic bomb gets its energy through the following process. The neutron of the atom is the most effective particle to cause uranium fission. Only one neutron is needed to split an atom apart. When the atom splits, it splits into two smaller atoms that are almost always radioactive, and in doing so releases an enormous amount of energy and two or three spare neutrons. These spare neutrons that are released then wander around until they contact other nuclei, which causes more splitting (fission) and results in a huge chain reaction. A baseball made out of plutonium produces an explosion equal to twenty thousand tons of TNT. The problem the first scientists found when experimenting with fission was that they could not just assemble the bomb out of a supercritical mass of fissile material like urnanium-235 because it would explode immediately. The principal that explains this problem is known as critical mass. If you were
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