Atomic Age facts for kids

An early nuclear power plant that used atomic energy to generate electricity

The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is a time in history that started after the first nuclear weapon was exploded. This happened on July 16, 1945, during World War II, at a test called Trinity in New Mexico. Even though scientists had thought about nuclear chain reactions since 1933, and the first self-sustaining one happened in 1942, the Trinity test and the later bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first big uses of nuclear technology. This led to huge changes in how people thought about society and how technology developed.

For a while, atomic power was seen as a sign of amazing progress. But entering the Atomic Age also brought scary ideas like nuclear warfare, the Cold War, and the risk of nuclear disaster. However, it also led to good uses, like nuclear medicine which helps treat illnesses. It's hard to completely separate the peaceful uses of nuclear technology from military uses, which made it tricky to develop a global nuclear power industry from the start.

In 1973, the United States Atomic Energy Commission thought that by the year 2000, 1,000 nuclear reactors would be making electricity in the U.S. But this "nuclear dream" didn't come true. Nuclear technology created problems like the nuclear arms race and nuclear meltdowns. Also, cleaning up bomb plants and safely getting rid of waste from power plants became big challenges. After 1973, fewer new reactors were ordered because people needed less electricity and building costs went up. Many planned plants were cancelled.

By the late 1970s, nuclear power faced big problems around the world. It had economic difficulties and many people were against it. This became very clear with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Both of these events had a negative impact on the nuclear power industry for many years.

Early Discoveries

In 1901, scientists Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford found out that radioactivity is how atoms change from one type to another. This process also releases energy. Soddy wrote that radioactivity could be an "endless" source of energy. He imagined a future where atomic energy could "transform a desert continent" and "make the whole earth one smiling Garden of Eden." The idea of an "atomic age" with nuclear energy solving all human needs has been a common dream ever since. But Soddy also realized that atomic energy could be used to create terrible new weapons.

The idea of a nuclear chain reaction was first thought of in 1933, after the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick. A few years later, in December 1938, nuclear fission was discovered by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann. Hahn understood that the center of an atom had "burst." Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch later explained this process fully and named it "nuclear fission." The first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happened at Chicago Pile-1 in December 1942, led by Enrico Fermi.

In 1945, a book called The Atomic Age talked about the hidden atomic power in everyday things. It showed a future where fossil fuels would not be used. One science writer, David Dietz, wrote that instead of filling your car's gas tank often, you could travel for a year on an atomic energy pellet the size of a vitamin pill. Glenn T. Seaborg, who led the United States Atomic Energy Commission, wrote that there would be "nuclear powered earth-to-moon shuttles" and "nuclear powered artificial hearts."

World War II and Beyond

The phrase Atomic Age was created by William L. Laurence. He was a journalist for The New York Times and the official reporter for the Manhattan Project. This project developed the first nuclear weapons. He saw both the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki. He then wrote many articles praising the new weapon. His reports helped people understand the power of nuclear technology. This also encouraged the U.S. and the Soviet Union to develop the technology further. The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949.

In 1949, David Lilienthal, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, said that "atomic energy is not simply a search for new energy." He believed it was "a beginning of human history" where faith in knowledge could "vitalize man's whole life."

The 1950s: Nuclear Optimism

This picture of downtown Las Vegas shows a mushroom cloud in the background. Such sights were common in the 1950s. From 1951 to 1962, the government did 100 tests in the air at the nearby Nevada Test Site.

The phrase "Atomic Age" became very popular in the 1950s. People felt very hopeful about nuclear power. They believed that all future power generators would be atomic. The atomic bomb would make all other explosives old-fashioned. Nuclear power plants would replace power sources like coal and oil. People thought everything would use nuclear power in a good way. This included irradiating food to keep it fresh and developing nuclear medicine. There was a general feeling that atomic energy would bring peace and plenty. It would "provide the power needed to desalinate water for the thirsty, irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into outer space." People thought the Atomic Age would be as important as the first use of bronze or iron, or the start of the Industrial Revolution.

This even included cars. The Ford Motor Company showed off the Ford Nucleon concept car in 1958. There was also talk of golf balls that could always be found and nuclear-powered aircraft. The U.S. government even spent $1.5 billion researching nuclear planes. Nuclear policy decisions were sometimes based on exciting, almost magical ideas. People thought that if something could be done with atoms, it would be done.

In the U.S., military planners believed that showing the peaceful uses of the atom would also support the American system of private business. It would show the skill of scientists, improve living standards, and protect democracy against communism. Some news reports even predicted that electricity would soon be so cheap from giant nuclear power stations that electricity meters would be removed. They said power would be "too cheap to meter."

When the Shippingport reactor started in 1957, it made electricity at about ten times the cost of coal power. Scientists at the AEC's own lab wrote a report in 1958 describing possible accidents. They said 3,000 people could die immediately, and 40,000 could be injured. However, Shippingport was an experimental reactor. Kenneth Nichols, a consultant for other nuclear power stations, wrote that while these early plants were experimental, they "became competitive because of inflation" and the rising prices of coal and oil. He noted that building nuclear plants in the U.S. took almost twice as long as in France, Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea due to changing rules and long hearings. French nuclear plants produce 60% of their electricity and have been cheaper than oil or coal.

Fear of a possible atomic attack from the Soviet Union led U.S. school children to practice "duck and cover" drills.

Atomic City

During the 1950s, Las Vegas was called "Atomic City." It became a popular place for tourists to watch nuclear weapons tests happening above ground at the nearby Nevada Test Site. After the first atomic bomb, Able, was dropped there, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce started advertising the tests as entertainment for tourists.

The explosions became popular. Casinos in the city made money from the tests by advertising hotel rooms or rooftops that offered views of the testing site. They also planned "Dawn Bomb Parties." People would gather to celebrate the explosions. Most parties started at midnight, with musicians playing until 4:00 a.m. Then, the party would stop briefly so guests could quietly watch the explosion. Some casinos even created "atomic cocktails," a mix of vodka, cognac, sherry, and champagne. Meanwhile, groups of tourists would drive into the desert with family or friends to watch the explosions.

Even though there were health risks from nuclear fallout, tourists were told to simply "shower." Later, however, anyone who had worked at the testing site or lived in areas exposed to nuclear fallout often became sick. They had higher chances of developing cancer or dying too soon.

The 1960s: Growing Concerns

The term "atomic age" was first used in a positive, future-focused way. But by the 1960s, the dangers of nuclear weapons started to become more important than the idea of nuclear power. In the Thunderbirds TV series, vehicles were shown that were imagined to be completely nuclear-powered.

Project Plowshare

The nuclear industry and the U.S. government tried to calm public fears about nuclear technology. They wanted to encourage people to accept nuclear weapons. They did this by showing the peaceful uses of the "friendly atom." These uses included medical treatments, moving earth, and later, nuclear power plants. At the height of the Atomic Age, the U.S. started Project Plowshare. This project involved "peaceful nuclear explosions." The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman said that Plowshare was meant to "highlight the peaceful applications of nuclear explosive devices." This would create a world opinion that was "more favorable to weapons development and tests." Plowshare was named from the Bible, specifically Micah 4:3. This verse says that God will turn swords into plowshares, so no country would use weapons against another.

Proposed uses for these explosions included making the Panama Canal wider. They also suggested building a new sea-level waterway through Nicaragua, called the Pan-Atomic Canal. Other ideas were cutting paths through mountains for highways and connecting inland river systems. Some proposals involved blasting caves for water, natural gas, and oil storage. It was even suggested to plant underground atomic bombs to extract shale oil in Utah and Colorado. Serious thought was given to using these explosives for various mining operations. One idea was using nuclear blasts to connect underground aquifers in Arizona. Another plan involved surface blasting in California for a water transport project.

However, Project Plowshare's 27 nuclear explosions had many negative effects. These included damaged land, communities that had to move, water contaminated with tritium, radioactivity, and fallout from debris thrown high into the atmosphere. These problems were ignored or downplayed until the program ended in 1977. This was largely due to public opposition, after $770 million had been spent on the project.

1970s to 1990s: Challenges and Accidents

The abandoned city of Pripyat. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant can be seen on the horizon.

French supporters of nuclear power developed an artistic view of nuclear technology to gain support. Leclerq compared the nuclear cooling tower to some of the grandest buildings in Western culture. He said that nuclear power plants would be seen as the "cathedrals of the 20th century."

In 1973, the AEC predicted that by the year 2000, 1,000 reactors would be making electricity for homes and businesses across the U.S. But after 1973, orders for new reactors dropped sharply. This happened because people needed less electricity and building costs went up. Many orders and partly finished plants were cancelled.

Nuclear power has been a debated topic since the 1970s. Highly radioactive materials can get too hot and escape from the reactor building. Nuclear waste (spent nuclear fuel) must be removed regularly from reactors. It needs to be stored safely for up to a million years so it doesn't harm the environment. Recycling nuclear waste has been discussed, but it creates plutonium, which can be used in weapons. Even with recycling, there is still a lot of unwanted waste that needs to be stored and disposed of. It has been hard to find places to build large, special facilities for long-term nuclear waste disposal.

By the late 1970s, nuclear power faced big problems around the world. It had economic difficulties and many people were against it. This became very clear with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Both of these events had a negative impact on the nuclear power industry for many decades. A magazine article in Forbes in 1985 called the failure of the U.S. nuclear power program "the largest managerial disaster in business history."

In just over 30 years, nuclear power went from a fast and revolutionary rise to an equally fast decline. No other energy technology has had such a quick and powerful international start, followed so quickly by an equally big downfall.

The 21st Century

The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan was the worst nuclear accident in 25 years. It caused 50,000 households to move after radiation leaked into the air, soil, and sea.

In the 21st century, the term "Atomic Age" often brings up feelings of nostalgia or a sense of being naive. Many people think it ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, some historians still use the term to describe the time after World War II. Atomic energy and weapons continue to have a strong effect on world politics today. Some science fiction fans use the term to describe not only the era after World War II but also modern history up to the present day.

The nuclear power industry has made reactors safer and improved their performance. They have also suggested new, safer (but mostly untested) reactor designs. However, there is no guarantee that reactors will always be designed, built, and operated perfectly. Mistakes do happen, and natural disasters can affect nuclear power plants. For example, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant in Japan. According to UBS AG, the Fukushima accident made people wonder if even an advanced country like Japan could handle nuclear safety. Scary situations involving terrorist attacks are also possible. A team from MIT estimated that if nuclear power use tripled from 2005 to 2055, at least four serious nuclear accidents would likely happen in that time.

In September 2012, after the Fukushima disaster, Japan announced it would completely stop using nuclear power by 2030. However, this goal became unlikely under the later Abe administration. Germany planned to completely stop using nuclear energy by 2022, but was still using 11.9% in 2021. In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United Kingdom promised to build up to 8 new reactors. This is to rely less on gas and oil. They hope that 25% of all energy produced will be from nuclear sources.

Anti-nuclear Movement

A large protest against nuclear power happened on May 6, 1979, in Washington D.C. About 125,000 people, including the governor of California, attended a march and rally. In New York City on September 23, 1979, almost 200,000 people protested against nuclear power. These protests happened before the shutdown of several nuclear power plants, including Shoreham, Yankee Rowe, and Rancho Seco.

On June 12, 1982, one million people protested in New York City's Central Park. They were against nuclear weapons and wanted an end to the Cold War arms race. This was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on June 20, 1983, at 50 places across the United States.

In 1986, hundreds of people walked from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. There were many Nevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and 1990s.

On May 1, 2005, 40,000 anti-nuclear and anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New York. This was 60 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the largest anti-nuclear rally in the U.S. for several decades.

Timeline

Discovery and Development

• 1896 – Henri Becquerel notices that uranium gives off an unknown radiation that fogs photographic film.
• 1898 – Marie Curie discovers thorium gives off similar radiation. She calls it radioactivity.
• 1903 – Ernest Rutherford starts talking about the possibility of atomic energy.
• 1905 – Albert Einstein creates the special theory of relativity. This explains radioactivity as mass–energy equivalence.
• 1911 – Ernest Rutherford develops a theory about the structure of the atomic nucleus. This is based on his experiments with alpha particles.
• 1930 – Otto Hahn writes an article asking: "The Atom – the source of power of the future?"
• 1932 – James Chadwick discovers the neutron.
• 1934 – Enrico Fermi starts bombarding uranium with slow neutrons. Ida Noddack predicts that uranium nuclei will break apart.
• 17 December 1938 – Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann discover and prove nuclear fission using chemical methods.
• 6 January 1939 – Hahn and Strassmann publish the first paper about their discovery.
• 10 February 1939 – Hahn and Strassmann publish a second paper, using the term uranium fission for the first time. They predict more neutrons will be released.
• 11 February 1939 – Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch publish the first theory explaining nuclear fission. Frisch creates the term.
• 11 October 1939 – The Einstein–Szilárd letter suggests the United States build a nuclear weapon. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the order on December 6, 1941.
• 26 February 1941 – Plutonium is discovered by Glenn Seaborg and Arthur Wahl.
• September 1942 – General Leslie Groves takes charge of the Manhattan Project.
• 2 December 1942 – Under Fermi's leadership, the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happens at the Chicago Pile-1.

Nuclear Arms Use

• 16 July 1945 – The first nuclear weapon is exploded in New Mexico, United States, in the successful Trinity test.
• 6 August 1945 – The second nuclear weapon, and first used in war, is dropped. The Little Boy uranium bomb is dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
• 9 August 1945 – The third nuclear weapon, and second and last used in war, is dropped. The Fat Man plutonium bomb is dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
• 5 September 1951 – The U.S. Air Force announces a contract to develop an "atomic-powered airplane."
• 1 November 1952 – The first hydrogen bomb, designed by Edward Teller, is tested.

"Atoms for Peace"

• 8 December 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the Atoms for Peace program. This aims to provide nuclear power to developing countries.
• 21 January 1954 – The first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), is launched.
• 27 June 1954 – The first nuclear power plant begins operating near Obninsk, USSR.
• 17 September 1954 – Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, says nuclear energy will be "too cheap to meter."
• 17 October 1956 – The world's first nuclear power station to deliver electricity for sale opens in the UK.
• 29 September 1957 – More than 200 people die from the Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion in Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union. 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels.
• 1957 to 1959 – The Soviet Union and the United States both start using ICBMs (long-range missiles).
• 1958 – The neutron bomb, a special nuclear weapon, is invented by Samuel T. Cohen.
• 1960 – Herman Kahn publishes On Thermonuclear War.
• November 1961 – An article in Fortune magazine outlines plans for a huge network of underground fallout shelters in the United States. These shelters would protect millions of people in case of nuclear war.
• 12 October 1962 to 28 October 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world very close to nuclear war.
• 10 October 1963 – The Partial Test Ban Treaty begins. It bans nuclear testing above ground.
• 26 August 1966 – The first pebble-bed reactor goes online in Jülich, West Germany.
• 27 January 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty bans putting nuclear weapons in space.
• 1968 – Physicist Freeman Dyson suggests building a space ark using an Orion nuclear-pulse propulsion rocket. This rocket would be powered by hydrogen bombs.

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl

• 28 March 1979 – The Three Mile Island accident happens in Pennsylvania. This reduces excitement for nuclear power in the United States.
• 6 May 1979 – A large anti-nuclear protest is held in Washington, D.C., with 125,000 people attending.
• 23 September 1979 – In New York City, almost 200,000 people protest against nuclear power.
• 26 April 1986 – The Chernobyl disaster happens in Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR. This reduces enthusiasm for nuclear power worldwide.

Nuclear Arms Reduction

• 8 December 1987 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev agree to reduce nuclear arsenals.
• 1993–2007 – Nuclear power is the main source of electricity in France. During these two decades, France produced over three quarters of its power from nuclear sources (78.8%).
• 31 July 1991 – As the Cold War ends, the Start I treaty is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union. It reduces deployed nuclear warheads for each side to no more than 6,000.
• 1993 – The Megatons to Megawatts Program is agreed upon by Russia and the United States. It starts in 1995. By 2013, uranium from 20,000 Russian nuclear warheads is converted to reactor-grade uranium. This is used in U.S. nuclear plants to make electricity. This provided 10% of U.S. electrical power (50% of its nuclear power) from 1995–2013.
• 2006 – Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace, and environmentalists like Stewart Brand suggest using more advanced nuclear power technology to fight global warming.
• 21 November 2006 – Construction begins for the ITER fusion power reactor project in France. It is hoped that research there will lead to practical commercial fusion power plants by 2050.
• 2006–2009 – Nuclear engineers suggest building nuclear reactors that use the thorium cycle to fight global warming.
• 8 April 2010 – The New START treaty is signed by the United States and Russia. It requires both sides to reduce deployed strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each.

Fukushima

• 11 March 2011 – A tsunami from the Tōhoku earthquake severely damages the Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan. This causes partial nuclear meltdowns in several reactors. Many international leaders express concerns, and some countries rethink their nuclear energy programs. This event is rated level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the highest level. It is the only nuclear accident other than Chernobyl to be rated at level 7. It caused the biggest change in nuclear policy to date.

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