Creator of the American atomic bomb. Father of the Soviet atomic bomb

“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 of the twentieth century, whose very “complexity” 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 occurrence were made in late XIX V. 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 the explosion of a monstrous destructive force and that uranium can become a source of energy, like a conventional 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 a powerful weapon pushed militaristic circles to quickly create it, but the problem of having a large amount of uranium ore for large-scale research was a brake. 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 in almost all of Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 laureates Nobel Prize. 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, enjoyed studying the mysticism of ancient Indian books. A communist, a traveler, and a staunch American patriot, a very spiritual man, he was nevertheless willing to betray his friends in order to protect himself from the attacks of anti-communists. The scientist who developed the plan to cause the greatest damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki 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 a scientific paper that showed how deeply he understood the 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, a rising scientific star, accepted offers from two of several universities vying 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, as well as his ability to read Sanskrit, was natural result constant pursuit of knowledge. In his own words, he was also deeply alarmed by the explosion of anti-Semitism in fascist Germany and Spain and invested $1,000 a year out of 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 Hitler's Germany had discovered nuclear fission in preparation for global war. 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 possible consequences 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. Exactly at 5.30 am the detonator with remote control 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. The first nuclear explosion shocked 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, the approach of two American planes from the east (one of them was called Enola Gay) at an altitude of 10-13 km did not cause alarm (since they appeared in the sky of Hiroshima every day). 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 detonated in Hiroshima, a replica of 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 worries about testing a bomb on civilians and the joy that the weapon had finally been tested.

However, on next year He accepted the 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 headed by Stalin Soviet Union were seriously preparing for cold war, each side focused its attention on the arms race. Although many of the scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project did not support the idea of ​​​​creating new weapons, former employees Oppenheimer Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence believed that National security USA demands speedy development hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer was horrified. From his point of view, the two nuclear powers were already confronting each other, like “two scorpions in a jar, each capable of killing 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 feeling out of place under Oppenheimer and clearly envious of his achievements, Teller began to make efforts to lead new project, implying that Oppenheimer should no longer be involved in the work. He told FBI investigators that his rival was using his authority to keep scientists from working on the hydrogen bomb, and revealed the secret that Oppenheimer suffered from bouts of severe depression in his youth. 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, relativity theory, physics elementary particles, 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 behind. Soviet project. And American scientific and technical results were obtained by those who came to English group Klaus Fuchs.

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 to avoid a “misfire” during 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, articles on nuclear physics began to disappear from the pages of scientific journals. 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 FSB of Russia (formerly the KGB of the USSR), 17 volumes of archival file No. 13676 are buried under the heading “keep forever”, which document who and how attracted US citizens to work for Soviet intelligence. 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 big mistakes, we managed to avoid dead-end directions in the creation of atomic weapons and create an atomic bomb in the USSR in a shorter time, 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.” ".

Third Reich Victoria Viktorovna Bulavina

Who invented nuclear bomb?

Who invented the nuclear bomb?

The Nazi Party always recognized the great importance of technology and invested heavily in the development of missiles, aircraft and tanks. But the most outstanding and dangerous discovery was made in the field of nuclear physics. Germany was perhaps the leader in nuclear physics in the 1930s. However, with the Nazis coming to power, many German physicists who were Jews left the Third Reich. Some of them emigrated to the United States, bringing with them disturbing news: Germany may be working on an atomic bomb. This news prompted the Pentagon to take steps to develop its own atomic program, which was called the Manhattan Project...

An interesting, but more than dubious version about “ secret weapon Third Reich" was proposed by Hans Ulrich von Kranz. In his book " Secret weapon Third Reich" puts forward the version that the atomic bomb was created in Germany and that the United States only imitated the results of the Manhattan Project. But let's talk about this in more detail.

Otto Hahn, the famous German physicist and radiochemist, together with another prominent scientist Fritz Straussmann, discovered the fission of the uranium nucleus in 1938, essentially giving rise to work on the creation of nuclear weapons. In 1938, atomic developments were not classified, but in virtually no country except Germany, they were not given due attention. They didn't see much point. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain argued: “This abstract matter has nothing to do with state needs.” Professor Hahn assessed the state of nuclear research in the United States of America as follows: “If we talk about a country in which the least attention is paid to nuclear fission processes, then we should undoubtedly name the United States. Of course, I'm not considering Brazil or the Vatican right now. However, among developed countries even Italy and communist Russia are significantly ahead of the US.” He also noted that little attention is paid to the problems of theoretical physics on the other side of the ocean; priority is given to applied developments that can provide immediate profit. Hahn's verdict was unequivocal: "I can say with confidence that within the next decade the North Americans will not be able to do anything significant for the development of atomic physics." This statement served as the basis for constructing the von Kranz hypothesis. Let's consider his version.

At the same time, the Alsos group was created, whose activities boiled down to “headhunting” and searching for the secrets of German atomic research. A logical question arises here: why should Americans look for other people’s secrets if their own project is in full swing? Why did they rely so much on other people's research?

In the spring of 1945, thanks to the activities of Alsos, many scientists who took part in German nuclear research fell into the hands of the Americans. By May they had Heisenberg, Hahn, Osenberg, Diebner, and many other outstanding German physicists. But the Alsos group continued active searches in already defeated Germany - until the very end of May. And only when all the major scientists were sent to America, Alsos ceased its activities. And at the end of June, the Americans test an atomic bomb, allegedly for the first time in the world. And at the beginning of August two bombs are dropped on Japanese cities. Hans Ulrich von Kranz noticed these coincidences.

The researcher also has doubts that only a month passed between the testing and combat use of the new superweapon, since the production of a nuclear bomb is impossible in such a time. short term! After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the next bombs in the United States entered service only in 1947, which was preceded by additional tests in El Paso in 1946. This suggests that we are dealing with a carefully hidden truth, since it turns out that in 1945 the Americans dropped three bombs - and all were successful. The next tests - of the same bombs - take place a year and a half later, and not very successfully (three out of four bombs did not explode). Serial production began another six months later, and it is unknown to what extent the atomic bombs that appeared on the American army warehouses, corresponded to their terrible purpose. This led the researcher to the idea that “the first three atomic bombs - the same ones from 1945 - were not built by the Americans on their own, but received from someone. To put it bluntly - from the Germans. This hypothesis is indirectly confirmed by the reaction of German scientists to the bombing of Japanese cities, which we know about thanks to David Irving’s book.” According to the researcher, the atomic project of the Third Reich was controlled by the Ahnenerbe, which was under the personal subordination of SS leader Heinrich Himmler. According to Hans Ulrich von Kranz, “a nuclear charge is the best instrument of post-war genocide, both Hitler and Himmler believed.” According to the researcher, on March 3, 1944, an atomic bomb (Object “Loki”) was delivered to the test site - in the swampy forests of Belarus. The tests were successful and aroused unprecedented enthusiasm among the leadership of the Third Reich. German propaganda had previously mentioned a “miracle weapon” of gigantic destructive power that the Wehrmacht would soon receive, but now these motives sounded even louder. They are usually considered a bluff, but can we definitely draw such a conclusion? As a rule, Nazi propaganda did not bluff, it only embellished reality. It has not yet been possible to convict her of a major lie on the issue of “miracle weapons”. Let us remember that propaganda promised jet fighters- the fastest in the world. And already at the end of 1944, hundreds of Messerschmitt-262s patrolled the airspace of the Reich. Propaganda promised rocket rain to the enemies, and since the fall of that year, dozens cruise missiles Fau hit English cities every day. So why on earth should the promised super-destructive weapon be considered a bluff?

In the spring of 1944, feverish preparations began for the serial production of nuclear weapons. But why weren't these bombs used? Von Kranz gives this answer - there was no carrier, and when the Junkers-390 transport plane appeared, betrayal awaited the Reich, and besides, these bombs could no longer decide the outcome of the war...

How plausible is this version? Were the Germans really the first to develop the atomic bomb? It’s difficult to say, but this possibility should not be ruled out, because, as we know, it was German specialists who were leaders in atomic research back in the early 1940s.

Despite the fact that many historians are engaged in researching the secrets of the Third Reich, because many secret documents have become available, it seems that even today the archives with materials about German military developments reliably store many mysteries.