Lesson Progress
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- Uranium discovered and named in 1789 (Klaproth)
- Radiation was discovered in 1895 (Becquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie)
- Early 20th Century saw dramatic improvements in understand what atoms
were and how they worked (Rutherford, Bohr, Soddy, Chadwick,
Einstein)
- Nuclear fission, chain reactions and critical mass discovered in 1939
(mostly British - Enrichment process developed in 1940/41
- Once Pearl Harbour was attacked, the USA entered the war and ramped up efforts to develop a N-bomb
- Manhattan Project saw $1B invested to enrich U235 and design and
build nuclear bombs (Oppenheimer) - After the war, attention turned to generation of electricity.
- First demonstration scale plants: late 1950s
- Commercialization: 1960 (Westinghouse)
