The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb

Since we've been learning about nuclear physics, I thought about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. When I went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial over spring break last year, I could see the massive amount of destruction that was caused by the atomic bomb. The first picture is a part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the second is a replica of a slight shadow of a person who was sitting on the steps when the bomb exploded, and the third is a picture of a watch that stopped at the exact time the bomb exploded. It is hard to believe that just one atomic bomb and some microscopic fission reactions can decimate an entire city. Fission occurs when an atom, such as Uranium-235, is bombarded with a neutron to separate the nucleus of the atom into two smaller atoms. Because the strong force attracting protons to each other is broken with the introduction of the neutron, a large amount of energy and more neutrons are released. The released neutrons start more fission reactions and the chain reactions continues, resulting in the massive amount of energy released by an atomic bomb or nuclear power plant. The dropping of the atomic bombs was a negative use of physics in history and hopefully will never be used again.