The Manhattan Project

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uranium (U-
235) or the common isotope (U-238) could be used. They learned that each
fission releases a few neutrons. A chain reaction, therefore, was
theoretically possible, if not too many neutrons escaped from the mass or
were captured by impurities.

In 1942 General Leslie Groves was chosen to lead the project, and he
immediately purchased a site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee for facilities to
separate the necessary uranium-235 from the much more common uranium-238.
He also appointed theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as director
of the weapons laboratory, who ordered the construction of the headquarters
on an isolated mesa at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

After much difficulty an absorbent barrier suitable for separating isotopes
of uranium was developed and installed in the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion
plant. Finally, in 1945, a uranium-235 of bomb purity was shipped to Los
Alamos, where it was fashioned into a gun-type weapon. In a barrel, one
piece of uranium was fired at ...

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