The atomic bombings: facts, myths and more

Technical Report · Mon Aug 03 04:00:00 EDT 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1645071· OSTI ID:1645071

Carr, Alan Brady ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Seventy-five years later, the Trinity test of July 16, 1945 is still rightly remembered as a monumental scientific achievement. The test has a multifaceted legacy representing incredible discovery, unparalleled hope and unprecedented peril. The weapons designed and tested at wartime Los Alamos were not intended to deter, but to destroy: On August 6, 1945, the world’s first weaponized nuclear device was used for that very purpose. Little Boy, a gun-assembled enriched uranium weapon, detonated over Hiroshima that morning destroying several square miles of the city and killing tens of thousands. Three days later, Fat Man, an imploding plutonium weapon, destroyed Nagasaki. On August 14, an armistice was declared and a few weeks later World War II came to an official end. We’ve all heard these historical facts before, but was it really that simple? Nuclear strike + nuclear strike = unconditional surrender? Bringing World War II to an end was an arduous, complex, and very tenuous undertaking with important historical nuances to consider.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001
• OSTI ID: 1645071
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--20-25869
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE