...Jimmy Neutron Professor Rob Allison Philosophy 172 3 November 2011 Nuclear Bomb in Japan The atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan during World War II is still one of the most catastrophic events in history. This bomb obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is a major controversy of World War II. It remains a controversy because it questions the moral issue of killing innocent civilians to get the Japanese military to surrender the war. One British philosopher, AC Grayling, argues that the nuclear bombing of Japan was a moral crime because there is never a justifiable reason to attack civilians. The atomic bombing of Japan was unethical because it killed civilians, was a disproportionate attack for just conduct of war, and was a violation of human rights. It is immoral that United States targeted Japanese civilians with the atomic bomb to cripple the morale of the military. United States knew the bombs would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they still annihilated the cities to attain Japan’s unconditional surrender in World War II. It was disregard for the moral right and AC Grayling states, Deliberately bombing cities and towns to kill and terrorize civilians, not all of whom are engaged in manufacturing arms or aiding their country’s military, and many of whom were children and elderly folk - and at the same time destroying the culture and necessities of the people contravenes every moral and humanitarian...
Words: 804 - Pages: 4
...and August 9th, 1945, two bombs (one named ‘Little Boy’ and the latter called ‘Fat Man’) were dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan by the United States of America during World War II. These two are what are known as atomic or nuclear bombs. The ‘Little Boy’ caused an estimated 140,000 casualties and the ‘Fat Man’ resulted in about 75,000 fatalities. If, at the time, Japan had such bombs of their own and decided to retaliate, World War II would have become a nuclear war, which would have devastated both countries and their civilians. However, that event is 7 decades old. Many countries have, unfortunately, produced hundreds more of the life-destroying bombs (since then). These bombs are the nuclear weapons that have...
Words: 1749 - Pages: 7
...In both preceding and more modern times, the concept of Nuclear Weaponry has often been depicted as a solely destructive force. While nuclear weapons have been used to win wars, establish power, and threaten civilizations, recently there has been a more positive viewpoint rather than just destruction. Since the original fabrication of the nuclear bomb in 1945, multiple organizations have collectively worked to innovate nuclear technology. In 1938, the German Physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sucessfully split a uranium atom in half, creating a new concept defined as nuclear fission. By splitting the atom, they were able to harness mass-energy, ultimately aiding in the development of a nuclear bomb. In recent times, nuclear power is...
Words: 1304 - Pages: 6
...importance of the discovery of the atomic bomb. Immediately after the droppings of the atomic bombs on Japan until the present day, there were many debates on whether the Manhattan Project was justified or if nuclear weapons are even ethical. Seeing the destruction of the “Little Man” and “Fat Boy” bombs in the moment arose great fear and discontent. However, looking at the Manhattan Project in retrospect shows that the advantages gained through the years greatly outweigh the consequences of the nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project was a pivotal endeavor in America’s history...
Words: 1705 - Pages: 7
...Nuclear Warfare Jessica Mendez History 1000c Professor Herbin December 3, 2012 Today I write to you, Mr. President, with understanding that we, as a nation, sit in a tough predicament. The war has been going on for quite sometime now and although we’ve made some advances on the front lines, it still doesn’t seem like enough to defeat those threatening us. Innocent lives have been taken on both our part as well as our enemies’ and our nation is looking to you in hopes that you may have some sort of a strategy to end this war once and for all. It has been brought to my attention that the use of nuclear weapons has been proposed to you as a strategy to bring this long war to an end. Nuclear weapons have proved somewhat successful in the past (WWII) and are still available for use in an even larger quantity. The reason why my saying that it was “somewhat successful” is because although it brought an ending to World War II, it caused a tremendous amount of hurt to many innocent people and to nature. The use of the nuclear weapon also tickled the curiosity of many nations to begin building their own nuclear bombs. When it was first used, we were the only ones that had successfully harnessed the nuclear energy to use it as weapons of mass destruction. Now in time, that is no longer the case. Many nations now also have a line up of nuclear weapons of mass destruction hidden away and ready to be used at a moments notice. Personally, I don’t believe that the use of such...
Words: 1717 - Pages: 7
...Nuclear Weapons In 1939, scientist Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the United States president of the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, concerning the research of splitting a uranium atom that could lead to the development of an atomic bomb in Germany. In the letter, Einstein wrote,”It may be possible to set off a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which large amounts of power and new radium like elements would be generated.” He continued,” This new development could lead to the creation of bombs, and as it seems, but less likely, the construction of an even bigger, new type of bomb.” President Roosevelt, although skeptical at first, decided to go through with the research and in 1941 the Manhattan Project was born. Four years later on August 6, the United States Dropped the first nuclear atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima wiping out 90 percent of the city, killing more than 80,000 people, and later tens of thousands more. Then again on August 9, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki and killing more than 40,000. 6 days later, the Emperor of Japan announced Japan’s official surrender to the United States in World War II. The effects and after effects of the the two bombs dropped shocked the entire world, even those a part of the Manhattan Project. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito described the bombs as the ”new and most cruel bomb.” This research paper will discuss the pros and cons of the use of nuclear weapons among different countries...
Words: 918 - Pages: 4
... The destructive power of explosives has been felt and documented in history as very powerful, but the impact, development and change that it took during the 20th Century will echo in eternity. Many important events like the civil war, the movement of peoples from Europe, and the development of nuclear power led to the intense development of explosives by countries. Most were for the purpose of defense, others for industry, mining and development of technology. These explosive devices were mostly created by acts of war in pursuit of better defense weapons. The Civil war in the United States led to the development of many explosive devices. George and Gabriel Rains two Confederate soldiers had the ability to create explosive devices in the civil war. One such device was a black iron cast which resembled a lump of coal. Since it resembled a lump of coal Confederate soldiers would drop this object in a ships coal load. Once it was shoveled into the boiler the explosive device would react with the heat from the boiler causing an explosion. George and Gabriel Rains became known as the “Bomb Brothers” for their expertise in developing explosive devices and gun powder. Gabriel Rains developed what was to be the South’s first torpedo which could be used in land or water. The torpedo was made from sheet iron and a fuse which was protected by brass cap covered with beeswax solution. This became known as “Rains Paten.” Another...
Words: 2292 - Pages: 10
...inventions were used for the advancement of the human species. A weapon with immense power was developed called the atomic bomb. In October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter from physicist Albert Einstein and his partner Leo Szilard. This letter spoke of an unheard of power by using the forces of nuclear fission or splitting the atom. Thankfully the two scientists fled Nazi German to escape Hitler’s rule. If Adolf Hitler had have gain the power of a nuclear weapon, he most likely would have destroyed his enemies and rule the world and achieved his twisted dream. To avoid this nightmare, Einstein and Szilard urged the government of the United States to join the race for the atomic bomb. The president took them up on this offer and the next four years was devoted to secretly develop a super weapon. Code-named "The Manhattan Project," the effort eventually employed more than 200,000 workers and several thousands scientists and engineers, ironically most of European background. By the time the first bomb was tested the Nazis had already surrendered meaning that a threat of a German counter nuke was gone. The war in Japan was still at hand, so President Truman authorized the use of the bombs in order to force Japanese leadership into submission. On August 6 an atomic bomb with an explosive yield equivalent to 12.5 kilotons of the explosives TNT was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima...
Words: 1506 - Pages: 7
...Atomic Bomb By: Jordan Long Atom bombs were always just a thought to scientists before they were created and dropped on two different Japanese cities in order to end war. The question people were and still to this day are asking is, “Was it the right thing to do?’ Yes it was the best thing to do in that certain situation. The atomic bombs explosion is massive.“A nuclear weapon’s explosive power is measured in yield, which is expressed in tons of TNT. Fission, or atomic bombs, can be as small as one kiloton (KT) of explosive power or as large as several hundred kilotons.”(PBS Newshour) This is important because it's showing the measures of the power of an atomic bomb. Since the end of the Cold War, both Pakistan and India have developed nuclear...
Words: 1520 - Pages: 7
...PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION | |Nuclear has been the biggest fear in the world when it is used as |Nuclear Threat Nuclear weapon and its physical damage | |weapon and it has insurmountable negative effects on societies in |Nuclear weapon deterioration of health – what kinds of radiation are | |terms of its physical destruction and deterioration on human health. |emitted in a nuclear explosion and what effect do they have on human | |Not a thesis statement but a statement of fact. |beings? | |Try: Why is it best for nuclear attack victims to be right at Ground |http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/ocr_gateway_pre_2011| |Zero? |/living_future/4_nuclear_radiation1.shtml | |Working Thesis Statement: Countries may use the nuclear weapons in |Oral Presentation Thesis Statement (must be based on PART of the | |future because of the possibility of religious war and the other |research project): The time between 1946 and 2012, no atomic bomb had| |reasons. |been used even as an overt thread threat in any warpolitical crisis, | |I will argue that there is a strong possibility that nuclear weapons |the reasons … (I will find by researching.) ...
Words: 4481 - Pages: 18
...HOW THE FIRST NUCLEAR AGE STARTED AND HOW IT ENDED Introduction Nuclear, the most powerful energy fuel on earth has been discover on 8th November 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen when he accidently discover X-ray. According to Njolstand Olav in the Nobel prize website “The real Nuclear age started in 1939 when the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter from physicist Albert Einstein and his Hungarian colleague Leo Szilard, calling to his attention the prospect that a bomb of unprecedented power could be made by tapping the forces of nuclear fission, just after the outbreak of World War II in Europe.” (Njølstad, 2003) This was a turning point in the beginning of the development of nuclear weapons in the world. After the first atomic bomb exploded in 1945, many countries in the world have been competing with each other to develop these weapons systems. The earliest countries to blow up nuclear weapons after the U.S. was the Soviet Union and followed by Britain, France and others. The existence of the nuclear weapon become the most powerful deterrence tool in the cold war between two ideologies. The collapse of the communist ideology in many communist country in the world, it is the signed of the end of cold war and the end of the first nuclear age. The First Nuclear Age Concerned with the ability of the Nazi Germany to produce the super weapon at that time, the President of the US in collaboration with Britain has ordered an ongoing research project...
Words: 1511 - Pages: 7
...during peacetime. The nuclear arms race during the cold war was due to the belief that the more weapons a country had, the more powerful they became. Russia and America took part in this arms race, massively expanding their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Both countries attempted to gain more nuclear weapons than the other, creating tension and fear that their opposition could possibly use the weapons if a hot war broke out. Soon after World War II ended, new aggression and animosity emerged between the two super powers, USSR and the USA, known as the cold war. This conflict...
Words: 743 - Pages: 3
...1 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE ESCALATION OF THE COLD WAR, 1945-1962 David Holloway, Stanford University Nuclear weapons are so central to the history of the Cold War that it can be difficult to disentangle the two. Did nuclear weapons cause the Cold War? Did they contribute to its escalation? Did they help to keep the Cold War “cold?” We should ask also how the Cold War shaped the development of atomic energy. Was the nuclear arms race a product of Cold War tension rather than its cause? The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War The nuclear age began before the Cold War. During World War II, three countries decided to build the atomic bomb: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Britain put its own work aside and joined the Manhattan Project as a junior partner in 1943. The Soviet effort was small before August 1945. The British and American projects were driven by the fear of a German atomic bomb, but Germany decided in 1942 not to make a serious effort to build the bomb. In an extraordinary display of scientific and industrial might, the United States made two bombs ready for use by August 1945. Germany was defeated by then, but President Truman decided to use the bomb against Japan. The decision to use the atomic bomb has been a matter of intense controversy. Did Truman decide to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order, as he claimed, to end the war with Japan without further loss of American lives? Or did he drop the bombs in order to intimidate the Soviet...
Words: 8814 - Pages: 36
...RACE FOR NUCLEAR ARMAMENT: THREAT TO WORLD PEACE Introduction Nuclear weapons are, simply, the most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented, and the only ones capable of destroying life on this planet as we know it. There is only one other global policy issue remotely comparable in terms of its impact on planetary survivability and that is climate change: but nuclear bombs can kill us a lot faster than CO2. Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the most influential person in the race for the super bomb. As President Roosevelt’s Vice President, he knew nothing about the development of the atomic bomb. But within months of assuming the office of President of the United States on April 12, 1945, he became the first and only American leader to authorize the use of atomic weapons against an enemy target. Truman’s era only marked the beginning of the race for nuclear weapons. The development of nuclear weapons is still an issue today, decades after Truman left office. Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) succeeded in splitting the uranium atom and the Nobel Committee later awarded him the 1938 prize for physics. At Columbia University in New York, Fermi realized that if neutrons are emitted in the fissioning of uranium then the emitted neutrons might proceed to split other uranium atoms, setting in motion a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy.(1) Fermi had succeeded in taking one of the first steps to making an atomic bomb. A decade later on July 16, 1945, the U.S....
Words: 917 - Pages: 4
...benefitted from its pre-war nuclear research when the nuclear program was re-started in 1943. Despite this, Soviet research still lagged behind American and British research at the time. Therefore, espionage was used to fill in knowledge gaps about the atomic bomb. Over 10,000 pages of intelligence was given to the USSR. Some of these pages included specific information about the atomic bomb, such as blueprints and formulas. After receiving intelligence, Kurchatov often sent back detailed follow-up questions to sources. This suggests that intelligence was somewhat tailored to fill the specific knowledge gaps that the USSR lacked at the time. It also saved the Soviets time and money on experiments since they could rely...
Words: 826 - Pages: 4
