Jakarta –
On August 2, 1939, German physicist Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was one month before Germany invaded Poland, and two years before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The letter, mentioned in the recently released Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan film, set off a chain reaction that produced the Manhattan Project, which began in August 1942 and ended three years later with the dropping of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Einstein wrote to Roosevelt that “it is possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, which produces a large amount of energy and as many elements as new radium.” This achievement, which is almost certain to happen “in the near future”, could lead to the creation of an “overpowering bomb”.
Einstein then urged the president to keep government departments abreast of further developments, especially regarding securing supplies of uranium ore for the US, and speeding up experimental work. Although the letter was written in August, it would not reach Roosevelt until October of that year.
“Immediately after receiving the letter, (Roosevelt) put a scientific committee to work on possible uses of atomic power in war,” said Jeffrey Urbin, an education specialist at the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, quoted from Inverse. The weapons were later codenamed “tube alloy”.
Surat Einstein Foto: FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Content of letter
Einstein mentioned three other famous physicists: Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and Jean Frédéric Joliot. Each independently contributed to the science behind the atomic bomb, building on nuclear research decades earlier.
Szilard understood the nuclear chain reaction in 1933. Recalling James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron in 1932, Szilard pondered that when the atomic nucleus split open, enormous stores of energy were released, including neutrons that could trigger other splits that produced more neutrons, and so on, but he was unable to obtain research funding.
It wasn’t until December 1938, after Szilard had emigrated to America, that Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered fission in uranium, prompting him to conduct experiments on the emission of neutrons in the fission process. In March 1939, during a three-month research period at Columbia University, he proved that for every neutron absorbed about two neutrons are released during fission.
“That night,” Szilard wrote, “there was little doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief.”
Meanwhile, Fermi was also investigating nuclear fission and chain reactions, also at Columbia. He had received the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the artificial radioactivity of neutrons and the nuclear reactions of slow neutrons. After the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938, Fermi and his team investigated the chain reaction in uranium.
French Joliot carried out complex research on atomic structure with his wife, Iréne Joliot-Curie (daughter of Marie Curie). Joliot and Curie jointly received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of radioactivity, which occurs when neutrons swarm around stable isotopes.
As Einstein had said, the methodology for making the atomic bomb was ready, and the Nazis had already taken possession of the uranium ore mines in Czechoslovakia. Urbin also wrote that Hitler and his regime would build superweapons without a second thought.
“It’s very important for the Allies to prevent them from being the first to do it,” he said.
Watch the video “Einstein’s prediction about gravitational waves in the universe is proven”
(afr/afr)
2023-07-22 01:09:23
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