A discovery that changed our world…

Splitting the Atom led to…..

The journey into the centre of the atom was a long one, and the successful splitting of the atom by a team of scientists in the 1930’s, was the result of years of trial, error and sheer luck by many of history's greatest scientific minds.

Their investigations led to the turning-point in nuclear science - the realisation that splitting the nucleus of an atom created energy that could be harnessed, for good and for ill.`

In the 1930s, key discoveries are made about the fissioning of atoms by: -Enrico Fermi-Otto Hahn- Lise Meitner - and Fritz Strassmann These discoveries lay the groundwork for the development of nuclear weapons in the next decade.

From Leucippus in 500 BC postulating the theory of atoms and void, to Einstein's theory of relativity.

Leucippus (first half of 5th century BC) was one of the earliest Greeks to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus. A possible earlier candidate for atomism is Mochus of Sidon, from the Trojan War era (13th or 12th century BC).

Leucippus

Enrico Fermi (29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian-American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor. He was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity.Fermi is widely regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 20th century. Along with J. Robert Oppenheimer, he is frequently referred to as "the father of the atomic bomb“.

Otto Hahn (8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon. Considered by many to be a model for scholarly excellence and personal integrity, he became one of the most influential citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Lise Meitner (7 or 17 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize. Element 109, Meitnerium, is named in her honour.

Hahn went in search of a collaborator with whom to pursue studies in experimental radioactivity and teamed up with Lise Meitner. She had come to Berlin to attend Max Planck’s lectures on theoretical physics after receiving her doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905—the second doctorate in science from that university granted to a woman. In the first year of the Hahn–Meitner partnership they had to work in a remodeled carpenter’s shop because the university did not yet accept women on an official basis. In 1912 their research group was relocated to the new Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft, where Fritz Haber was head of the physical chemistry institute, Hahn was head of the radioactivity institute, and from 1918 Meitner was head of the radioactivity institute’s physics department. During World War I, Hahn served in the German gas warfare service headed by Haber, and Meitner volunteered as an X-ray nurse for the Austrian army.

In 1938 ,Otto Hahn (1879–1968), Lise Meitner (1878–1968), and Fritz Strassmann (1902–1980) became the first to recognize that the uranium atom, when bombarded by neutrons, actually split.News of the splitting of the atom and its awesome possibilities was brought to scientists in the United States and ultimately resulted in the Manhattan Project.Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann were not engaged in nuclear weapons research during World War II. At the end of the war Hahn was astonished to hear that he had won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1944 and that nuclear bombs had been developed from his basic discovery.

The Nuclear Age and the Cold War pg64

1. An age dominated by nuclear warfare2. These weapons were invented + developed before + during WW II3. The nuclear weapons can be referred to as Weapons of Mass Destruction, as they have the ability to destroy the world in minutes.

1. Introduction:

Release of energy

Hydrogen atomsIn capsule

Uranium is released into Hydrogen capsule

Splits the hydrogen atoms which releases the energy

Type of explosive substance

Fatboy – the 1st nuclear bomb

First atomic bomb dropped 6th August 1945:

Watching atomic cloud off coast of Japan

Hiroshima

Nagasaki

Bombing of Hiroshima

Albert Einstein

For every ACTION there is an EQUAL but opposite REACTION

America’s Action = to release the bomb.The opposite reaction was the devastation it created egDestruction of human life in that region.

Even 50 years later we still bear the consequen-ces of this action.eg. Mankind has not returned to normality – babies with defects.

Watching atomic explosion in the Nevada Desert

Atomic explosion in the Nevada Desert

Mushroom = ENERGY RELEASED

Japanese Kamikaze airplane

Kamikaze aircraft: Suicide Japanese pilots who flew their planes directly into the target, killing themselves in the process.

President Truman Emperor Hirohito

Surrender unconditionally: to give up, stop fighting, accept defeat + not have a say in the peace treaty. Pg.65

Mushroom effect

Effects of nuclear radiation:

Radiation disrupts cells in the skin, causing different types of cancers throughout the body. Damage sometimes not seen until much later.

Damage is done right down to the DNA level in cells.

Is this our planet’s future……?

WHO is LAUGHING NOW!!!???

The Future lies in our hands…..

LAMININ:

A cell adhesion protein molecule found in the “extracellular matrix”, the sheets of protein that forms t he substance of all internal organs also called the “basement membrane”.Laminin is vital to making sure overall body structures HOLD TOGETHER.

The molecular shape of LAMININ: