Marylwi Gomez
Mrs. Gaertner
English IV
27 March 2014
The Accuracy of the Film Fat Man and Little Boy
“You are here to harness your God-given talents, your minds, and your energy in the practical pursuit of one thing: a military weapon”. This is what General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project said in the film Fat Man and Little Boy. He said this to the men who were chosen to construct the atomic bomb. The construction of the atomic bomb began in 1941 and was ready to be tested in 1945 (Rhodes 415). Robert Oppenheimer a theoretical physicist who was the leader of the Manhattan Project suggested that they build a research laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico (Los Alamos Historical Society1). The film Fat Man and Little Boy demonstrates the obstacles that were faced throughout the development of the atomic bomb. Fat Man and Little Boy is a historically accurate film because it included important information and even went in depth about the events that had occurred at the same time period as The Manhattan Project.
Fat Man and Little Boy is a film set in several locations in the state of New Mexico in the year of 1945. General Leslie Groves, the man who is in charge of The Manhattan Project decides he wants Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist, to be the lead physicist of the team who is constructing the bomb. While others doubted Oppenheimer’s ability, General Groves believed he was the best man for the job. The team working on the project decided that they needed a location to help keep the project in secrecy to prevent other people as well as Germany to know about it, thus they decided to build their laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The relationship between Groves and Oppe...
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... was overexposed to radioactivity never happened in real life. The film Fat Man and Little Boy showed great detail
Fat Man and Little Boy is a film that demonstrated how the atomic bomb was created. Overall, the film was historically accurate with the exception of a few details. The creation of the fictional character Michael Merrimen was brought into the movie. Michael Merrimen was a scientist in the film but was not a real person in real life. Although film made good points on the hardships that Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves went through, it showed good leadership. Anyone who is interested in The Manhattan Project and the aftermath would enjoy watching this film. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who would be fascinated by the science used to create such a effect on Japan as well as America and the impact it had on the country.
During this time, the arms race started to progress because of the production. Brown took her time to interview people and look through archives to get the raw picture of what happened behind closed doors. The third part was “The Plutonium Disasters.” She brought light to how dangerous it was to work and live there, and most of the people in the camp did not know how it could affect their bodies. Dr. Herbert Parker, the head of the Health Physics Division, “estimated there were eight hundred million flakes of [plutonium], which, if sucked into workers’ lungs or [ingested], could lodge in soft organs and remain in the body for years, a tiny time bomb that Parker feared would produce cancer”
The atomic bombs “Little Boy” and “Fat man” killed 150,0000 people and furthermore left 125,000 impaired. 60,000 more people had died from sustained injuries as well as radiation illness. (Sullivan)
In 1917, a young female right out of high school started working at a radium factory in Orange, New Jersey. The job was mixing water, glue and radium powder for the task of painting watch dials, aircraft switches, and instrument dials. The paint is newly inventive and cool, so without hesitation she paints her nails and lips with her friends all the while not knowing that this paint that is making them radiant, is slowly killing them. This is the life of Grace Fryer. Today there are trepidations on the topic of radiation from fears of nuclear fallout, meltdowns, or acts of terrorism.
Impact of the Film, Dr. Strangelove, on American Attitudes Towards the Atomic Bomb and Cold War
Obesity is one of the most serious health problems, and it has been increasing significantly. The film “Fed Up” attempts to provide an answer to why people become obese: food itself. However, “real food” as solution offered in the film begs the question of feasibility. The film assumes that people in general have time to buy, prepare, and cool “real food” and thus commits the fallacy of contradicting its own theory by suggesting that it’s the people’s fault for not being diligent enough in taking care of their health.
So after Emperor Hirohito continued to ignore the threat on August 6th, 1945 Little Boy was aimed over Hiroshima Japan and dropped. This atomic bomb destroyed the little city and killed at least 66,000 individuals. Hirohito continued the fight and refused to surrender unconditionally. A few days later it was the decision to drop the plutonium bomb (Much stronger than Little Boy) named Fat Man over an untouched and unscathed area in Japan. The choice that was made was to bomb Nagasaki. On August 9th, 1945 the bomb was dropped and missed the target and hit the side of a mountain. The destruction was phenomenal and would have been even more devastating if the bomb had hit it 's intended target. Over 39,000 people had died in this
Miss. Evers Boys is a movie based on the real life study called “The Tuskegee Study” that took place in Macon County, Alabama, where 400 black men who had syphilis and 200 black men without this disease participated on this study without knowing the terrible truth behind it. Also the participants were poor and uneducated sharecropper who fell for Miss. Evers persuasions and rewards that doctors were offering to participants. The main results that doctors were trying to obtain from this experiment was to gain information about how African Americans men’s bodies reacted to syphilis. During the 1930’s, society believed that black men were inferior to white men, so diseases were supposed to affect differently black men. This study in particular, the participants were not informed about the capacity that this disease could damage their human system and they were not viewed as a human being and they were used as lab rat. Furthermore, one of the doctors who were involved in this experiment Dr. Raymond Vonderlehr used the term “necropsy” that is an autopsy performed on animals when speaking about the participants of this experiment (Mananda R-G, 2012).
The atomic bomb is the subject of much controversy. Since its first detonation in 1945, the entire world has heard the aftershocks of that blast. Issues concerning Nuclear Weapons sparked the Cold War. We also have the atomic bomb to thank for our relative peace in this time due to the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The effects of the atomic bomb might not have been the exact effects that the United States was looking for when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively (Grant, 1998). The original desire of the United States government when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not, in fact, the one more commonly known: that the two nuclear devices dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated with the intention of bringing an end to the war with Japan, but instead to intimidate the Soviet Union. The fact of Japan's imminent defeat, the undeniable truth that relations with Russia were deteriorating, and competition for the division of Europe prove this without question.
Wood, Linda K. “Men and Mission of the Manhattan Project.” World War II July 1995: 38-45. SIRS Research. SIRS Knowledge Source. Manheim Township H.S. Library, Lancaster, PA. 13 Feb. 2003.
After Truman decided to bomb Japan, they had to plan it out. They first had to decide where to release the bomb. They ended up choosing Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Japan as their two locations. Hiroshima was a significant military city in the war. It confined two army headquarters and was Japan’s communication center (World War 2 Atomic Bomb 1). Hiroshima was also a huge industrial city and had not been bombed before so it would let Japan see the wrath of the United States (Koeller 1). The planning and actual event of the bombing went great. On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 in the morning the bomb was dropped. The bomb that landed in Hiroshima was called the “Little Boy” (World War 2 Atomic Bomb 2). The bomb ended up killing about 170,000 people. 70,000 people died the first day and 100,000 people died in the next few months due to the radioactivity of the bomb and burns fro...
“Little Boy” and “Fat Man”, the world’s first two nuclear bombs were dropped in two major cities in Japan: Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945. This “experiment” by the United States Government completely demolished the two cities, killing over 150,000 people instantly and nearly 50,000 people died from aftermath as well as radiation.
The Manhattan Project was the code name for a science project conducted during World War II by the United States with the partial support of the United Kingdom and Canada. The ultimate goal of the project was the development of the first atomic bomb before Nazi Germany. The scientific research was directed by physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer while security and military operations were carried out by General Leslie Richard Groves. The project was carried out in many research centers being the most important of them the Manhattan Engineer District located on the site now known as Los Alamos Manhattan Project was the code name for a science project conducted during World National Laboratory. The project brought together a wealth of scientific luminaries as Robert Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, etc. . . . Since, after experiments in Germany before the war, it was known that atomic fission was possible and that the Nazis were already working on its own nuclear program, several bright minds met. Many Jewish ex...
When the United States caught word that Germany was close to creating the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists wanted to create it first, for the U.S. After three years of research, the first small atomic device was exploded on July 16, 1945 in the lab at Los Alamos. Having proved their concept worked, a larger scale bomb was built. Less than a month later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (Rosenberg).
The United States’ decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima required extensive research leading to its production. The main goal of the American side was to damage the enemy’s confidence, while choosing a target with the highest military output in order to conclude the war (Robinson).The group in charge of developing the technology was known as the Manhattan Project, and was kept top-secret. Selection began in the spring of 1945, with assistance from the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, his Headquarters (Robinson).There was a variety of experts working on the project, including mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and specialists trained in weather and blast effects Headquarters (Robinson). In order to monitor all of the results, the city had to be untouched, meaning the target had to have no signs of previous bombings. Based on these requirements, the designation of Hiroshima for the bombing was not a simple determination. After a target was selected and the weapon was developed, testing was set to begin. On July 16, 1945, the first test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, proved that the bomb was prepared for release onto...
Also, many messages between the United States and Japan declared that if the Japanese didn’t surrender, they would face ultimate annihilation (Atomic bomb). Consequently, when the Japanese refused to budge, the United States dropped two atomic bombs, the Little Boy and the Fat Man, on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a result, the Japanese people faced ultimate plight.