Announcement of the Atomic Age Marker

This marker is placed on the side of Corcoroan Hall where the Fifth Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics took place. The intent of the conference was to discuss low-temperature physics and superconductivity; however, such a revolutionary discovery could not be ignored. Coming just weeks after the announcement Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovering barium while bombarding uranium with neutrons, and then from a letter by physicist Lise Meitner, Otto Frisch correctly interpreted what was nuclear fission. Bohr, excited for his announcement he was in immediate contact with his fellow physicists at Columbia and Princeton. John Wheeler, who completed a fellowship with Bohr and theoretical physicist at Princeton, noted Bohr's excitement, although there were "no good verbs associated with it" and that fission "is a very unhappy word. Upon Bohr's arrival in Washington, D.C., he delivered his finding to his colleagues at the conference and was met with a few minutes of general discussion. A colleague whispered into the ear of Edward Teller, a professor at George Washington University and co-organizer of the event, that "Perhaps we should not discuss this." Shortly after, physicists recognized that fission of uranium creates nuclear reaction and weapons of mass destruction.

Bohr's discover and announcement has had great effects on the civilian world. Although absent from the development of peacetime nuclear technology in the United States, Bohr advocated for the development of the technology and, most notably, helping the establishment of CERN, or better known as the European Council for Nuclear Research. In the United States, after the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1946, plans to commercialize nuclear power had already proliferated throughout the nation. In 1955 BORAZ-III became the first nuclear power plant in the world to provide an entire town with electricity. Since then, commissions and reactor technology development has provided a safer and more efficient use of nuclear fission.

Arguably the most impactful effect of this discovery and announcement is the development of weapons that utilize uranium fission. The first application of Bohr's discovery and the organization that ushered the world into the Atomic Age was the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was the U.S. Army's secret atomic program employing many scientists, including Neils Bohr. From the developments of the Manhattan Project, the world's first transportable atomic bomb was created. This weapon was then used in 1945, in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in order to force the surrender of Japan and end World War II. The use of the first atomic bomb sparked the nuclear arms race that defined the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Development of nuclear and military technologies, such as smaller or more effective bombs and more efficient delivery methods including missiles, led to the development of strategies involving the use of nuclear weapons to this day. Military theories such as deterrence, brinkmanship, mutually assured destruction, and nuclear supremacy all became prevalent in this new Atomic Age, and it is with this marker that we are reminded of where a world defined by the atom, was introduced. 

“The History of Nuclear Energy .” enegry.gov . U.S. Department of Energy , n.d. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/The%20History%20of%20Nuclear%20Energy_0.pdf.

“Niels Bohr.” Atomic Heritage Foundation, October 7, 1885. https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/niels-bohr.

“Nuclear Fission Announcement.” GW Libraries. George Washington University Libraries . Accessed July 7, 2020. https://library.gwu.edu/scrc/university-archives/gw-history/nuclear-fission-announcement.