1.6.7. How Tsai Lun invented paper For several thousand years, the Chinese considered all other countries barbaric. China is home to many great inventions. Paper was invented right here. Before its appearance, in China they used scrolls for notes.

On August 12, 1953, at 7.30 am, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site, which had the service name “Product RDS-6c”. This was the fourth Soviet nuclear weapons test.

The beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program in the USSR dates back to 1945. Then information was received about research being carried out in the United States on the thermonuclear problem. They were started on the initiative of the American physicist Edward Teller in 1942. The basis was taken by Teller’s concept of thermonuclear weapons, which in the circles of Soviet nuclear scientists was called a “pipe” - a cylindrical container with liquid deuterium, which was supposed to be heated by the explosion of an initiating device such as a conventional atomic bomb. Only in 1950 did the Americans establish that the “pipe” was futile, and they continued to develop other designs. But by this time, Soviet physicists had already independently developed another concept of thermonuclear weapons, which soon - in 1953 - led to success.

An alternative design for a hydrogen bomb was invented by Andrei Sakharov. The bomb was based on the idea of ​​a “puff” and the use of lithium-6 deuteride. Developed at KB-11 (today the city of Sarov, former Arzamas-16, Nizhny Novgorod region), the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge was a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel, surrounded by a chemical explosive.

To increase the energy release of the charge, tritium was used in its design. The main task when creating similar weapons was to use the energy released during the explosion of an atomic bomb to heat and ignite heavy hydrogen - deuterium, to carry out thermonuclear reactions with the release of energy that can support themselves. To increase the proportion of “burnt” deuterium, Sakharov proposed surrounding the deuterium with a shell of ordinary natural uranium, which was supposed to slow down the expansion and, most importantly, significantly increase the density of deuterium. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called “saccharization.”

Based on the results of work on the first hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize.

“Product RDS-6s” was made in the form of a transportable bomb weighing 7 tons, which was placed in the bomb hatch of a Tu-16 bomber. For comparison, the bomb created by the Americans weighed 54 tons and was the size of a three-story house.

To assess the destructive effects of the new bomb, a city of industrial and administrative buildings was built at the Semipalatinsk test site. In total, there were 190 different structures on the field. In this test, vacuum intakes of radiochemical samples were used for the first time, which automatically opened under the influence of a shock wave. In total, 500 different measuring, recording and filming devices installed in underground casemates and durable ground structures were prepared for testing the RDS-6s. Aviation technical support for the tests - measuring the pressure of the shock wave on the aircraft in the air at the time of the explosion of the product, taking air samples from the radioactive cloud, and aerial photography of the area was carried out by a special flight unit. The bomb was detonated remotely by sending a signal from a remote control located in the bunker.

It was decided to carry out an explosion on a steel tower 40 meters high, the charge was located at a height of 30 meters. The radioactive soil from previous tests was removed to a safe distance, special structures were built in their own places on old foundations, and a bunker was built 5 meters from the tower to install equipment developed at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences that recorded thermonuclear processes.

Military equipment from all branches of the military was installed on the field. During the tests, all experimental structures within a radius of up to four kilometers were destroyed. A hydrogen bomb explosion could completely destroy a city 8 kilometers across. The environmental consequences of the explosion were terrifying: the first explosion accounted for 82% strontium-90 and 75% cesium-137.

The power of the bomb reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and USSR.

The work to create the hydrogen bomb became the world's first intellectual "battle of wits" on a truly global scale. The creation of the hydrogen bomb initiated the emergence of completely new scientific directions— physics of high-temperature plasma, physics of ultra-high energy densities, physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time in human history, mathematical modeling was used on a large scale.

Work on the “RDS-6s product” created a scientific and technical basis, which was then used in the development of an incomparably more advanced hydrogen bomb of a fundamentally new type - a two-stage hydrogen bomb.

The hydrogen bomb of Sakharov’s design not only became a serious counter-argument in the political confrontation between the USA and the USSR, but also served as the reason for the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics in those years. It was after successful nuclear tests OKB Korolev received an important government task to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the created charge to the target. Subsequently, the rocket, called the “seven”, launched the first artificial Earth satellite into space, and it was on it that the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Hundreds of thousands of famous and forgotten gunsmiths of antiquity fought in search of the ideal weapon, capable of evaporating an enemy army with one click. From time to time, traces of these searches can be found in fairy tales that more or less plausibly describe a miracle sword or a bow that hits without missing.

Fortunately, technological progress moved so slowly for a long time that the real embodiment of the devastating weapon remained in dreams and oral stories, and later on the pages of books. The scientific and technological leap of the 19th century provided the conditions for the creation of the main phobia of the 20th century. The nuclear bomb, created and tested under real conditions, revolutionized both military affairs and politics.

History of the creation of weapons

For a long time it was believed that the most powerful weapons could only be created using explosives. The discoveries of scientists working with the smallest particles provided scientific evidence that enormous energy can be generated with the help of elementary particles. The first in a series of researchers can be called Becquerel, who in 1896 discovered the radioactivity of uranium salts.

Uranium itself has been known since 1786, but at that time no one suspected its radioactivity. The work of scientists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries revealed not only special physical properties, but also the possibility of obtaining energy from radioactive substances.

The option of making weapons based on uranium was first described in detail, published and patented by French physicists, the Joliot-Curies in 1939.

Despite its value for weapons, the scientists themselves were resolutely against the creation of such a devastating weapon.

Having gone through the Second World War in the Resistance, in the 1950s the couple (Frederick and Irene), realizing the destructive power of war, advocated for general disarmament. They are supported by Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein and other prominent physicists of the time.

Meanwhile, while the Joliot-Curies were busy with the problem of the Nazis in Paris, on the other side of the planet, in America, the world's first nuclear charge was being developed. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the work, was given the broadest powers and enormous resources. The end of 1941 marked the beginning of the Manhattan Project, which ultimately led to the creation of the first combat nuclear warhead.

In the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the first production facilities for weapons-grade uranium were erected. Subsequently, similar nuclear centers appeared throughout the country, for example in Chicago, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and research was carried out in California. The best forces of the professors of American universities, as well as physicists who fled from Germany, were thrown into creating the bomb.

In the “Third Reich” itself, work on creating a new type of weapon was launched in a manner characteristic of the Fuhrer.

Since “Besnovaty” was more interested in tanks and planes, and the more the better, he did not see much need for a new miracle bomb.

Accordingly, projects not supported by Hitler moved at a snail's pace at best.

When things started to get hot, and it turned out that the tanks and planes were swallowed up by the Eastern Front, the new miracle weapon received support. But it was too late; in conditions of bombing and constant fear of Soviet tank wedges, it was not possible to create a device with a nuclear component.

The Soviet Union was more attentive to the possibility of creating a new type destructive weapons. In the pre-war period, physicists gathered and brought together general knowledge about nuclear energy and the possibility of creating nuclear weapons. Intelligence worked intensively throughout the entire period of the creation of the nuclear bomb both in the USSR and in the USA. The war played a significant role in slowing down the pace of development, as huge resources went to the front.

True, Academician Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, with his characteristic tenacity, promoted the work of all subordinate departments in this direction. Looking ahead a little, he will be tasked with accelerating the development of weapons in the face of a threat American strike by cities of the USSR. It was he, standing in the gravel of a huge machine of hundreds and thousands of scientists and workers, who would be awarded the honorary title of the father of the Soviet nuclear bomb.

World's first tests

But let's return to the American nuclear program. By the summer of 1945, American scientists managed to create the world's first nuclear bomb. Any boy who has made himself or bought a powerful firecracker in a store experiences extraordinary torment, wanting to blow it up as quickly as possible. In 1945, hundreds of American soldiers and scientists experienced the same thing.

On June 16, 1945, the first ever nuclear weapons test and one of the most powerful explosions to date took place in the Alamogordo Desert, New Mexico.

Eyewitnesses watching the explosion from the bunker were amazed by the force with which the charge exploded at the top of the 30-meter steel tower. At first, everything was flooded with light, several times stronger than the sun. Then he rose into the sky fire ball, which turned into a column of smoke, shaped into the famous mushroom.

As soon as the dust settled, researchers and bomb creators rushed to the site of the explosion. They watched the aftermath from lead-encrusted Sherman tanks. What they saw amazed them; no weapon could cause such damage. The sand melted to glass in some places.

Tiny remains of the tower were also found; in a crater of huge diameter, mutilated and crushed structures clearly illustrated the destructive power.

Damaging factors

This explosion provided the first information about the power of the new weapon, about what it could use to destroy the enemy. These are several factors:

• light radiation, flash, capable of blinding even protected organs of vision;
• shock wave, a dense stream of air moving from the center, destroying most buildings;
• electromagnetic pulse that disables most equipment and not allowing the use of communications for the first time after the explosion;
• penetrating radiation, the most dangerous factor for those who have taken refuge from others damaging factors, divided into alpha-beta-gamma irradiation;
• radioactive contamination that can negatively affect health and life for tens or even hundreds of years.

The further use of nuclear weapons, including in combat, showed all the peculiarities of their impact on living organisms and nature. August 6, 1945 was the last day for tens of thousands of residents of the small city of Hiroshima, then known for several important military installations.

The outcome of the war Pacific Ocean was a foregone conclusion, but the Pentagon believed that the operation on the Japanese archipelago would cost more than a million lives of US Marines. It was decided to kill several birds with one stone, to take Japan out of the war, saving on landing operation, test a new weapon and announce it to the whole world, and, above all, to the USSR.

At one o'clock in the morning, the plane carrying the "Baby" nuclear bomb took off on a mission.

The bomb, dropped over the city, exploded at an altitude of approximately 600 meters at 8.15 am. All buildings located at a distance of 800 meters from the epicenter were destroyed. The walls of only a few buildings, designed to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake, survived.

Of every ten people who were within a radius of 600 meters at the time of the bomb explosion, only one could survive. The light radiation turned people into coal, leaving shadow marks on the stone, a dark imprint of the place where the person was. The ensuing blast wave was so strong that it could break glass at a distance of 19 kilometers from the explosion site.

One teenager was knocked out of the house through a window by a dense stream of air; upon landing, the guy saw the walls of the house folding like cards. The blast wave was followed by a fire tornado, destroying those few residents who survived the explosion and did not have time to leave the fire zone. Those at a distance from the explosion began to experience severe malaise, the cause of which was initially unclear to doctors.

Much later, a few weeks later, the term “radiation poisoning” was announced, now known as radiation sickness.

More than 280 thousand people became victims of just one bomb, both directly from the explosion and from subsequent illnesses.

The bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons did not end there. According to the plan, only four to six cities were to be hit, but weather Only Nagasaki was allowed to hit. In this city, more than 150 thousand people became victims of the Fat Man bomb.

Promises by the American government to carry out such attacks until Japan surrendered led to an armistice and then to the signing of an agreement that ended World War II. But for nuclear weapons this was just the beginning.

The most powerful bomb in the world

The post-war period was marked by the confrontation between the USSR bloc and its allies with the USA and NATO. In the 1940s, the Americans seriously considered the possibility of striking the Soviet Union. To contain the former ally, work on creating a bomb had to be accelerated, and already in 1949, on August 29, the US monopoly in nuclear weapons was ended. During the arms race, two nuclear tests deserve the most attention.

Bikini Atoll, known primarily for frivolous swimsuits, literally made a splash throughout the world in 1954 due to the testing of a specially powerful nuclear charge.

The Americans, having decided to test a new design of atomic weapons, did not calculate the charge. As a result, the explosion was 2.5 times more powerful than planned. Residents of nearby islands, as well as the ubiquitous Japanese fishermen, were under attack.

But it wasn't the most powerful American bomb. In 1960, the B41 nuclear bomb was put into service, but it never underwent full testing due to its power. The force of the charge was calculated theoretically, for fear of exploding such a dangerous weapon at the test site.

The Soviet Union, which loved to be the first in everything, experienced in 1961, otherwise nicknamed “Kuzka’s mother.”

Responding to America's nuclear blackmail, Soviet scientists created the most powerful bomb in the world. Tested on Novaya Zemlya, it left its mark in almost all corners globe. According to recollections, a slight earthquake was felt in the most remote corners at the time of the explosion.

The blast wave, of course, having lost all its destructive power, was able to circle the Earth. To date, this is the most powerful nuclear bomb in the world created and tested by mankind. Of course, if his hands were free, Kim Jong-un's nuclear bomb would be more powerful, but he does not have New Earth to test it.

Atomic bomb device

Let's consider a very primitive, purely for understanding, device of an atomic bomb. There are many classes of atomic bombs, but let’s consider three main ones:

• uranium, based on uranium 235, first exploded over Hiroshima;
• plutonium, based on plutonium 239, first exploded over Nagasaki;
• thermonuclear, sometimes called hydrogen, based on heavy water with deuterium and tritium, fortunately not used against the population.

The first two bombs are based on the effect of heavy nuclei fissioning into smaller ones through an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, releasing huge amounts of energy. The third is based on the fusion of hydrogen nuclei (or rather its isotopes of deuterium and tritium) with the formation of helium, which is heavier in relation to hydrogen. For the same bomb weight, the destructive potential of a hydrogen bomb is 20 times greater.

If for uranium and plutonium it is enough to bring together a mass greater than the critical one (at which a chain reaction begins), then for hydrogen this is not enough.

To reliably connect several pieces of uranium into one, a cannon effect is used in which smaller pieces of uranium are shot into larger ones. Gunpowder can also be used, but for reliability, low-power explosives are used.

In a plutonium bomb, to create the necessary conditions for a chain reaction, explosives are placed around ingots containing plutonium. Due to the cumulative effect, as well as the neutron initiator located at the very center (beryllium with several milligrams of polonium), the necessary conditions are achieved.

It has a main charge, which cannot explode on its own, and a fuse. To create conditions for the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei, we need unimaginable pressures and temperatures at at least one point. Next, a chain reaction will occur.

To create such parameters, the bomb includes a conventional, but low-power, nuclear charge, which is the fuse. Its detonation creates the conditions for the start of a thermonuclear reaction.

To estimate the power of an atomic bomb, the so-called “TNT equivalent” is used. An explosion is a release of energy, the most famous explosive in the world is TNT (TNT - trinitrotoluene), and all new types of explosives are equated to it. Bomb "Baby" - 13 kilotons of TNT. That is equivalent to 13000.

Bomb "Fat Man" - 21 kilotons, "Tsar Bomba" - 58 megatons of TNT. It’s scary to think of 58 million tons of explosives concentrated in a mass of 26.5 tons, that’s how much weight this bomb has.

The danger of nuclear war and nuclear disasters

Appearing in the midst of terrible war XX century, nuclear weapon has become the greatest danger to humanity. Immediately after World War II, the Cold War began, which several times almost escalated into a full-fledged nuclear conflict. The threat of the use of nuclear bombs and missiles by at least one side began to be discussed back in the 1950s.

Everyone understood and understands that there can be no winners in this war.

To contain it, efforts have been and are being made by many scientists and politicians. The University of Chicago, using the opinions of visiting nuclear scientists, including Nobel laureates, sets the clock Doomsday a few minutes before midnight. Midnight signifies a nuclear cataclysm, the beginning of a new World War and the destruction of the old world. IN different years The clock hands fluctuated from 17 to 2 minutes to midnight.

There are also several known major accidents that occurred at nuclear power plants. These disasters have an indirect relation to weapons; nuclear power plants are still different from nuclear bombs, but they perfectly demonstrate the results of using the atom for military purposes. The largest of them:

• 1957, Kyshtym accident, due to a failure in the storage system, an explosion occurred near Kyshtym;
• 1957, Britain, in the north-west of England, security checks were not carried out;
• 1979, USA, due to an untimely detected leak, an explosion and release from a nuclear power plant occurred;
• 1986, tragedy in Chernobyl, explosion of the 4th power unit;
• 2011, accident at the Fukushima station, Japan.

Each of these tragedies left a heavy mark on the fate of hundreds of thousands of people and turned entire areas into non-residential zones with special control.

There were incidents that almost cost the start of a nuclear disaster. Soviet nuclear submarines have repeatedly had reactor-related accidents on board. The Americans dropped a Superfortress bomber with two Mark 39 nuclear bombs on board, with a yield of 3.8 megatons. But the activated “safety system” did not allow the charges to detonate and a disaster was avoided.

Nuclear weapons past and present

Today it is clear to anyone that nuclear war will destroy modern humanity. Meanwhile, the desire to possess nuclear weapons and enter the nuclear club, or rather, burst into it by knocking down the door, still excites the minds of some state leaders.

India and Pakistan created nuclear weapons without permission, and the Israelis are hiding the presence of a bomb.

For some possessions nuclear bomb- a way to prove the importance of international arena. For others, it is a guarantee of non-interference by winged democracy or other external factors. But the main thing is that these reserves do not go into business, for which they were really created.

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“I am not the simplest person,” American physicist Isidore Isaac Rabi once remarked. “But compared to Oppenheimer, I am very, very simple.” Robert Oppenheimer was one of the central figures twentieth century, the very “complexity” of which absorbed the political and ethical contradictions of the country.

During World War II, the brilliant physicist Azulius Robert Oppenheimer led the development of American nuclear scientists to create the first atomic bomb in human history. The scientist led a solitary and secluded lifestyle, and this gave rise to suspicions of treason.

Atomic weapons are the result of all previous developments of science and technology. Discoveries that are directly related to its emergence were made at the end of the 19th century. The research of A. Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, E. Rutherford and others played a huge role in revealing the secrets of the atom.

At the beginning of 1939, the French physicist Joliot-Curie concluded that a chain reaction was possible that would lead to an explosion of monstrous destructive force and that uranium could become a source of energy, like an ordinary explosive. This conclusion became the impetus for developments in the creation of nuclear weapons.

Europe was on the eve of World War II, and the potential possession of such powerful weapons pushed militaristic circles to quickly create them, but the problem of having a large number of weapons was a brake. uranium ore for large-scale research. Physicists from Germany, England, the USA, and Japan worked on the creation of atomic weapons, realizing that without a sufficient amount of uranium ore it was impossible to carry out work, the USA purchased a large number of the required ore according to false documents from Belgium, which allowed them to carry out work on the creation of nuclear weapons in full swing.

From 1939 to 1945, more than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project. A huge uranium purification plant was built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. H.C. Urey and Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the cyclotron) proposed a purification method based on the principle of gas diffusion followed by magnetic separation of the two isotopes. A gas centrifuge separated the light Uranium-235 from the heavier Uranium-238.

On the territory of the United States, in Los Alamos, in the desert expanses of New Mexico, an American nuclear center was created in 1942. Many scientists worked on the project, but the main one was Robert Oppenheimer. Under his leadership, the best minds of that time were gathered not only in the USA and England, but practically throughout Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 Nobel Prize laureates. Work in Los Alamos, where the laboratory was located, did not stop for a minute. In Europe, meanwhile, the Second World War was going on, and Germany carried out massive bombings of English cities, which endangered the English atomic project “Tub Alloys”, and England voluntarily transferred its developments and leading scientists of the project to the United States, which allowed the United States to take a leading position in the development of nuclear physics (creation of nuclear weapons).

“The Father of the Atomic Bomb,” he was at the same time an ardent opponent of American nuclear policy. Bearing the title of one of the most outstanding physicists of his time, he enjoyed studying the mysticism of ancient Indian books. Communist, traveler and staunch American patriot, very spiritual person, he was nevertheless willing to betray his friends in order to protect himself from attacks by anti-communists. The scientist who developed the plan to cause the greatest damage Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he cursed himself for the “innocent blood on his hands.”

Writing about this controversial man is not an easy task, but it is an interesting one, and the twentieth century is marked by a number of books about him. However rich life The scientist continues to attract biographers.

Oppenheimer was born in New York in 1903 into a family of wealthy and educated Jews. Oppenheimer was brought up in a love of painting, music, and in an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity. In 1922, he entered Harvard University and graduated with honors in just three years, his main subject being chemistry. Over the next few years, the precocious young man traveled to several European countries, where he worked with physicists who were studying the problems of studying atomic phenomena in the light of new theories. Just a year after graduating from university, Oppenheimer published scientific work, which showed how deeply he understands new methods. Soon he, together with the famous Max Born, developed the most important part of quantum theory, known as the Born-Oppenheimer method. In 1927, his outstanding doctoral dissertation brought him worldwide fame.

In 1928 he worked at the Universities of Zurich and Leiden. The same year he returned to the USA. From 1929 to 1947, Oppenheimer taught at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. From 1939 to 1945, he actively participated in the work on creating an atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project; heading the Los Alamos laboratory specially created for this purpose.

In 1929, Oppenheimer rising star science, accepted offers from two of several universities competing for the right to invite him. He taught the spring semester at the vibrant, young California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and the fall and winter semesters at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became the first professor of quantum mechanics. In fact, the polymath had to adjust for some time, gradually reducing the level of discussion to the capabilities of his students. In 1936, he fell in love with Jean Tatlock, a restless and moody young woman whose passionate idealism found outlet in communist activism. Like many thoughtful people of that time, Oppenheimer studied the ideas of the left movement as one of the possible alternatives, although he did not join the Communist Party that made him younger brother, sister-in-law and many of his friends. His interest in politics, like his ability to read Sanskrit, was a natural result of his constant pursuit of knowledge. By his own account, he was also deeply alarmed by the explosion of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and Spain and invested $1,000 a year from his $15,000 annual salary in projects related to the activities of communist groups. After meeting Kitty Harrison, who became his wife in 1940, Oppenheimer broke up with Jean Tatlock and moved away from her circle of left-wing friends.

In 1939, the United States learned that in preparation for global war Hitler's Germany discovered the fission of the atomic nucleus. Oppenheimer and other scientists immediately realized that the German physicists would try to create a controlled chain reaction that could be the key to creating a weapon far more destructive than any that existed at that time. Enlisting the help of the great scientific genius, Albert Einstein, concerned scientists warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the danger in a famous letter. In authorizing funding for projects aimed at creating untested weapons, the president acted in strict secrecy. Ironically, many leading scientists worked together with American scientists in laboratories scattered throughout the country. world scientists forced to flee their homeland. One part of the university groups explored the possibility of creating a nuclear reactor, others took up the problem of separating uranium isotopes necessary to release energy in a chain reaction. Oppenheimer, who was previously busy theoretical problems, proposed to organize a wide range of work only at the beginning of 1942.

The US Army's atomic bomb program was codenamed Project Manhattan and was led by 46-year-old Colonel Leslie R. Groves, a career military officer. Groves, who characterized the scientists working on the atomic bomb as "an expensive bunch of nuts," however, acknowledged that Oppenheimer had a hitherto untapped ability to control his fellow debaters when the atmosphere became tense. The physicist proposed that all the scientists be brought together in one laboratory in the quiet provincial town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, in an area he knew well. By March 1943, the boarding school for boys had been turned into a strictly guarded secret center, with Oppenheimer becoming its scientific director. By insisting on the free exchange of information between scientists, who were strictly forbidden to leave the center, Oppenheimer created an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, which contributed to the amazing success of his work. Without sparing himself, he remained the head of all areas of this complex project, although his personal life suffered greatly from this. But for a mixed group of scientists - among whom there were more than a dozen then or future Nobel laureates and of whom it was a rare person who did not have a pronounced individuality - Oppenheimer was an unusually dedicated leader and a subtle diplomat. Most of them would agree that the lion's share of the credit for the project's ultimate success belongs to him. By December 30, 1944, Groves, who had by then become a general, could say with confidence that the two billion dollars spent would produce a bomb ready for action by August 1 of the following year. But when Germany admitted defeat in May 1945, many of the researchers working at Los Alamos began to think about using new weapons. After all, Japan would probably have soon capitulated even without the atomic bombing. Should the United States become the first country in the world to use such a terrible device? Harry S. Truman, who became president after Roosevelt's death, appointed a committee to study the possible consequences of the use of the atomic bomb, which included Oppenheimer. Experts decided to recommend dropping an atomic bomb without warning on a large Japanese military installation. Oppenheimer's consent was also obtained.

All these worries would, of course, be moot if the bomb had not gone off. The world's first atomic bomb was tested on July 16, 1945, approximately 80 kilometers from the air force base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The device being tested, named "Fat Man" for its convex shape, was attached to a steel tower installed in a desert area. At exactly 5:30 a.m., a remote-controlled detonator detonated the bomb. With an echoing roar, a giant purple-green-orange fireball shot into the sky over an area 1.6 kilometers in diameter. The earth shook from the explosion, the tower disappeared. A white column of smoke quickly rose to the sky and began to gradually expand, taking on the terrifying shape of a mushroom at an altitude of about 11 kilometers. First nuclear explosion amazed scientific and military observers near the test site and turned their heads. But Oppenheimer remembered the lines from the Indian epic poem "Bhagavad Gita": "I will become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Until the end of his life, satisfaction from scientific success was always mixed with a sense of responsibility for the consequences.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, there was a clear, cloudless sky over Hiroshima. As before, approaching from the east of two American aircraft(one of them was called Enola Gay) at an altitude of 10-13 km did not cause alarm (since every day they appeared in the sky of Hiroshima). One of the planes dived and dropped something, and then both planes turned and flew away. The dropped object slowly descended by parachute and suddenly exploded at an altitude of 600 m above the ground. It was the Baby bomb.

Three days after "Little Boy" was blown up in Hiroshima, exact copy The first "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. On August 15, Japan, whose resolve was finally broken by these new weapons, signed an unconditional surrender. However, the voices of skeptics had already begun to be heard, and Oppenheimer himself predicted two months after Hiroshima that “mankind will curse the names Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”

The whole world was shocked by the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tellingly, Oppenheimer managed to combine his feelings about testing the bomb on civilians and joy that the weapon was finally tested.

Nevertheless, the following year he accepted an appointment as chairman of the scientific council of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), thereby becoming the most influential adviser to the government and military on nuclear issues. While the West and the Soviet Union led by Stalin were seriously preparing for cold war, each side focused its attention on the arms race. Although many of the Manhattan Project scientists did not support the idea of ​​creating a new weapon, Oppenheimer's former collaborators Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence believed that National security The United States demands the speedy development of a hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer was horrified. From his point of view, two nuclear powers and so they were already confronting each other, like “two scorpions in a jar, each able to kill the other, but only at the risk of own life" With the proliferation of new weapons, wars would no longer have winners and losers - only victims. And the “father of the atomic bomb” made a public statement that he was against the development of the hydrogen bomb. Always uncomfortable with Oppenheimer and clearly jealous of his achievements, Teller began to make efforts to head the new project, implying that Oppenheimer should no longer be involved in the work. He told FBI investigators that his rival was keeping scientists from working on the hydrogen bomb with his authority, and revealed the secret that Oppenheimer suffered from seizures in his youth. severe depression. When President Truman agreed to fund the hydrogen bomb in 1950, Teller could celebrate victory.

In 1954, Oppenheimer's enemies launched a campaign to remove him from power, which they succeeded after a month-long search for "black spots" in his personal biography. As a result, a show case was organized in which many influential political and scientific figures spoke out against Oppenheimer. As Albert Einstein later put it: “Oppenheimer’s problem was that he loved a woman who didn’t love him: the US government.”

By allowing Oppenheimer's talent to flourish, America doomed him to destruction.

Oppenheimer is known not only as the creator of the American atomic bomb. He owns many works on quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, particle physics, theoretical astrophysics. In 1927 he developed the theory of interaction of free electrons with atoms. Together with Born, he created the theory of the structure of diatomic molecules. In 1931, he and P. Ehrenfest formulated a theorem, the application of which to the nitrogen nucleus showed that the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of nuclei leads to a number of contradictions with the known properties of nitrogen. Investigated the internal conversion of g-rays. In 1937 he developed the cascade theory of cosmic showers, in 1938 he made the first calculation of a neutron star model, and in 1939 he predicted the existence of “black holes”.

Oppenheimer owns a number of popular books, including Science and the Common Understanding (1954), The Open Mind (1955), Some Reflections on Science and Culture (1960) . Oppenheimer died in Princeton on February 18, 1967.

Work on nuclear projects in the USSR and the USA began simultaneously. In August 1942, the secret “Laboratory No. 2” began working in one of the buildings in the courtyard of Kazan University. Igor Kurchatov was appointed its leader.

IN Soviet times it was argued that the USSR solved its atomic problem completely independently, and Kurchatov was considered the “father” of the domestic atomic bomb. Although there were rumors about some secrets stolen from the Americans. And only in the 90s, 50 years later, one of the main characters then, Yuli Khariton, spoke about the significant role of intelligence in accelerating the lagging Soviet project. And American scientific and technical results were obtained by Klaus Fuchs, who arrived in the English group.

Information from abroad helped the country's leadership make a difficult decision - to begin work on nuclear weapons during a difficult war. The reconnaissance allowed our physicists to save time and helped avoid a misfire at the first atomic test which had enormous political significance.

In 1939, a chain reaction of fission of uranium-235 nuclei was discovered, accompanied by the release of colossal energy. Soon after, from the pages scientific journals Articles on nuclear physics began to disappear. This could indicate the real prospect of creating an atomic explosive and weapons based on it.

After the discovery by Soviet physicists of the spontaneous fission of uranium-235 nuclei and the determination of the critical mass, the residency was initiated by the head of the scientific and technological revolution

A corresponding directive was sent to L. Kvasnikova.

In the Russian FSB (formerly the KGB of the USSR), 17 volumes of archival file No. 13676, which document who and how recruited US citizens to work for Soviet intelligence, are buried under the heading “keep forever.” Only a few of the top leadership of the USSR KGB had access to the materials of this case, the secrecy of which was only recently lifted. Soviet intelligence received the first information about the work on creating an American atomic bomb in the fall of 1941. And already in March 1942, extensive information about the research ongoing in the USA and England fell on I.V. Stalin’s desk. According to Yu. B. Khariton, in that dramatic period it was safer to use the bomb design already tested by the Americans for our first explosion. "Considering state interests, any other solution was then unacceptable. The merit of Fuchs and our other assistants abroad is undoubted. However, we implemented the American scheme during the first test not so much for technical reasons as for political reasons.

The message that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of nuclear weapons caused the US ruling circles to want to start a preventive war as quickly as possible. The Troian plan was developed, which envisaged starting fighting January 1, 1950. At that time, the United States had 840 strategic bombers in combat units, 1,350 in reserve, and over 300 atomic bombs.

A test site was built in the area of ​​Semipalatinsk. At exactly 7:00 a.m. on August 29, 1949, the first Soviet nuclear device, codenamed RDS-1, was detonated at this test site.

The Troyan plan, according to which atomic bombs were to be dropped on 70 cities of the USSR, was thwarted due to the threat of a retaliatory strike. The event that took place at the Semipalatinsk test site informed the world about the creation of nuclear weapons in the USSR.

Foreign intelligence not only attracted the attention of the country's leadership to the problem of creating atomic weapons in the West and thereby initiated similar work in our country. Thanks to foreign intelligence information, as recognized by academicians A. Aleksandrov, Yu. Khariton and others, I. Kurchatov did not make big mistakes, we managed to avoid dead-end directions in the creation of atomic weapons and create more short time an atomic bomb in the USSR in just three years, while the United States spent four years on it, spending five billion dollars on its creation.

As academician Yu. Khariton noted in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on December 8, 1992, the first Soviet atomic charge was manufactured according to the American model with the help of information received from K. Fuchs. According to the academician, when government awards were presented to participants in the Soviet atomic project, Stalin, satisfied that there was no American monopoly in this area, remarked: “If we had been one to a year and a half late, we would probably have tried this charge on ourselves.” ".