On August 6th 1945, over 100,000 people died, approximately 80,000 instantly. This was the bombing of Hiroshima using the newly developed nuclear bomb, little boy. The focus of this project was the development of nuclear science (more specifically the Manhattan Project) and its consequences on the world, both good and bad.
During this project we asked ourselves, “How did splitting the atom change the world?” and explored many affects that it has or had on the people of the world and us personally. There were many ways that nuclear advancement has shaped the current world we live in, these being important things we could often think about like healthcare and medicine, or things we might not think about like food production in farming. Many of the important effects that the advancement of nuclear science had on our world are explained in this borderline propaganda movie from 1952.
Throughout this project, we learned about the categories of historical significance from the acronym NAME and applied it to the Manhattan Project and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
Novelty
Applicability
Memory
Effects
This can be explained in this more in-depth video
To get a new perspective on these circumstances and help see them as less of a historical piece and more of a real event, we read the book “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. This book takes you into the perspective of six residents of Hiroshima through the days following the dropping of “Little Boy”
The final product of this project was a speech to be made in front of our class. For many members of our class including me, public speaking isn’t something that we were comfortable with. this added another layer to the learning from this experience, allowing us to begin overcoming some of the fears or difficulties that we face ourselves with. The objective of this speech was to convince the audience that the Manhattan Project was a historically significant event.
Do you think that you could order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of hundreds of thousands of others?
This is the decision that had to be made in the face of power that the Manhattan project contained.
The power to change the world, for better or worse. The Manhattan project caused the deaths of over 200,000 people in the few years after its completion, but prevented possibly even more.
But what does that mean for us in the present time? How did splitting the atom change the world? I will answer this question using our criteria for assessing historical significance.
The first criteria that we use to assess historical significance is “how important it was thought to be at the time” The amount of effort that the US government employed to hide their development of the bombs from the public eye, makes it very clear that even the initial effort, without considering the consequences and outcomes.
It is very clear that it was thought to be of utmost importance at the time. The bombing of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also thought to be important enough to cause the Imperial Japanese regime to surrender, thus leading to our modern age of peace.
The second criteria depends on how many people it affected. While not directly affecting that many people in the beginning, the manhattan project eventually affected at the very least, the people that did the research and the 100-200 thousand deaths from the atomic bombs.
This is quite the significant number of people, especially considering that those are just the deaths that the Manhattan project caused.
The lasting effects of the manhattan project extend much farther, affecting modern medicine, farming, and much more.
The developments funded by the us government for war, unintentionally catapulted our use of radioactive isotopes into the modern era. Thirdly, is how deeply it affected people.
This deep impact can be seen when you look at the families of the Hibakusha, those who were affected by the atomic bomb.
The bombs that were dropped on Japan as a direct consequence of the manhattan project not only killed over a hundred thousand people, but stopped possibly more than that many people from going to ware in the near future afterwards.
The developments to our modern industry have saved many lives, and affected the economy equally as much.
The fourth and fifth criteria reference the events ability to influence people and their beliefs for years afterwards. This criteria is interesting because they regard our lives today.
The manhattan project and its direct consequences have moulded our worlds modern power dynamic. This is because of the seriousness of modern nuclear weapons, and the damage and moral implications that using them would cause.
Today, many believe that using nuclear weapons without purpose is as close to evil as you can get. The sixth and final criteria we use to assess historical significance is whether or not it lead to other important events.
The manhattan project can be directly linked to the Cold War, and many other modern problems or situations regarding nuclear power or weapons.
Overall, the splitting of the atom has changed the world in many fields.
This change has affected most of the world’s people due to the developments in sciences, agriculture and more.
It’s deep, widespread, long lasting, and residual effects on the world and its people, have shown us that war is a strong developing force for humanity; even though war is a terrible thing in and of itself.
Thank you.
This is a video that I found that focusses on nuclear energy
This project has shown us the best and the worst that human beings are capable of, both of which being very significant to the development of the very society that we, and many others live in today. Can you imagine a world where we haven’t advanced nuclear science past the nuclear bomb? what does it look like? I find it very difficult to do so because I know how much of my life relies on the products of nuclear science. Nuclear science has revolutionized our world.