Friday, January 24, 2020

The Manhattan Project :: History

The Manhattan Project On the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay flew over the industrial city of Hiroshima, Japan and dropped the first atomic bomb ever. The city went up in flames caused by the immense power equal to about 20,000 tons of TNT. The project was a success. They were an unprecedented assemblage of civilian, and military scientific brain power—brilliant, intense, and young, the people that helped develop the bomb. Unknowingly they came to an isolated mountain setting, known as Los Alamos, New Mexico, to design and build the bomb that would end World War 2, but begin serious controversies concerning its sheer power and destruction. I became interested in this topic because of my interest in science and history. It seemed an appropriate topic because I am presently studying World War 2 in my Social Studies Class. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were always taught to me with some opinion, and I always wanted to know the bomb itself and the unbiased effects! that it had. This I-search was a great opportunity for me to actually fulfill my interest. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the US effort during World War II to produce the atomic bomb. It was appropriately named for the Manhattan Engineer District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, because much of the early research was done in New York City (Badash 238). Sparked by refugee physicists in the United States, the program was slowly organized after nuclear fission was discovered by German scientists in 1938, and many US scientists expressed the fear that Hitler would attempt to build a fission bomb. Frustrated with the idea that Germany might produce an atomic bomb first, Leo Szilard and other scientists asked Albert Einstein, a famous scientist during that time, to use his influence and write a letter to president FDR, pleading for support to further research the power of nuclear fission (Badash 237). His letters were a success, and President Roosevelt established the Manhattan Project. Physicists from 1939 onward conducted much research to find answers to such questions as how many neutrons were emitted in each fission, which elements would not capture the neutrons but would moderate or reduce their velocity , and whether only the lighter and scarcer isotope of uranium (U-235) fissioned or the common isotope (U-238) could be used. They learned that each fission releases a few neutrons.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

The Women’s Rights in Jackson Era

â€Å"Meekness, humility, gentleness, love, purity, self-renunciation, subjection of will†¦. The fairest flowers, which our fallen world can produce,† woman†s virtues, according to the most acceptable definition of the natural order in society (Melder 2). Men and women occupied totally different social situations. Between 1815 and 1840 the circumstances of women†s lives changed in a number of ways, especially in education, under law, and in the attitudes influencing woman†s social status. The most significant phase of American women†s education before 1850 was the female seminary movement, which in it†s serious phase began about 1815. Emma Willard, the founder of one of the earliest seminaries wrote the first â€Å"comprehensive design for a female institution of learning to be circulated in America, Plan for Improving Female Education (Melder 16). In 1821, she began The Troy Female Seminary which became one of the most advanced and famous institutions for educating women in the United States. Catherine Beecher, like Emma Willard, â€Å"sought to change the emphasis in the curriculum from fashionable subjects to more substantial courses, including, Latin, philosophy, history, chemistry, and mathematics. She created The Hartford Female Seminary, considered a model building â€Å"with it†s large hall seating 150 pupils at writing desks, a library, dressing room, and nine recitation rooms†(Davis 399). One of the most useful contributions of the seminary movements before 1850 centered around making school teaching a major vocation for women. Women replaced men as teachers first in the New England states during the 1830s, and spread through other regions in the 1840s. â€Å"School reformers believed that the introduction of women teacher would not only be economical, but that the influx of females would raise the quality of instruction†(Melder 25). Education gave women practical experience in leadership as well as examples to follow, yet produced a double standard in learning, limited opportunities to use their new knowledge, and the pattern of unequal pay for the same work as men. Further evidence of the changing status of American women may be found in the law. According to Blackstone†s interpretation of women†s legal condition, â€Å"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being, or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage† offering women little freedom (Melder 120). But in 1823, Maine gave legal protection to the property rights and personal independence of married women who had been deserted by their husbands, and Massachusetts followed in 1835. Then in New York in 1836, came an early proposal to give married women the right to hold independent property. While not many other legal firsts were granted to the women†s cause, during the 1830s, American women participated in a series of reform movements which included the use of strong drink, education, and the issue of slavery; each of which would benefit the well-being of the woman†s cause. Women were finally involved in the formation of meetings, circulating pamphlets and newsletters, while gaining a new since of sisterhood and intellectual independence. Socially, woman†s position began to change considerably. â€Å"After 1800, middle class American women apparently developed a distinct sense of their appropriate sphere†(Melder 7). Women were to elevate the intellectual character of her household [and] kindle the fires of mental activity in early childhood†(Graves 402). The private home was now the woman†s domain in keeping the peace and â€Å"practical piety†(Melder 8). Woman†s crowning glory was motherhood; â€Å"in the bearing, nursing, and rearing of her offspring, she could most fully carry out the responsibilities of her appropriate sphere†(Melder 9). â€Å"The relations between mother and child might hold a key to the solution of many social and moral ills, and perhaps the future of the nation itself†(Davis 22). While Elizabeth Cady Stanton omits the word â€Å"obey† from her marriage vows, women would be assigned to â€Å"conserve the moral and religious values, especially to transmit these values to succeeding generations†(Melder 143). Women were still considered second class citizens, sub-sets of their husbands, and limited mostly to the home and care of the children; much less given any real or significant rights. Women were considered mere objects of beauty, and were looked upon as intellectually and physically inferior to men. The struggle for women†s rights was a product of change, challenging conventional attitudes, demanding the end of restrictions, expanding opportunities for women, and helping to organize them nationally. The movement†s purposes, momentous yet simple, were described by an advocate in 1840: â€Å"I shall claim nothing for ourselves because of our sex, we should demand our recognition as equal members of the human family. The term â€Å"Woman†s Rights† will become obsolete, for none will entertain the idea that the rights of women differ from the rights of men. It is then human rights for which we contend†(Davis 158).

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Sleepy Hollow Film Review Essay - 1162 Words

‘Sleepy Hollow’ film Review Blood and murder usually go down a treat for the people who love gore but this is not the case in the movie ‘Sleepy Hollow’. Repetition is the key to an ultimately predictable film. Just as in any other film we see a substance with a resemblance to blood fall onto a piece of paper. This tells our minds the movie will have elements of horror. Then two hands, male and female, clasp. A headless horseman then appears decapitating an innocent man on the run in the woods. This all sets the rest of the film as a romantic horror. There is still one element that is left to be seen but not to worry. While the ghoulish headless horseman is out decapitation people Ichabod Crane, a detective from New York, is having a hard†¦show more content†¦Only to their disappointment it is only candle wax. Also the black and white faces of the characters make the people seem cold. This ensures that you do not feel anything for the characters even if one of them was brutally decapitated. Another problem I had with this movie was setting. ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’, ‘The Corpse Bride’, ‘Ed Wood’, ‘Sleepy Hollow’, and ‘Planet of the Apes’ are all movies directed by Tim Burton. They are all set mostly in the woods and are all mostly seen as creepy horror movies. In ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Tim Burton again uses ideas from his old movies to try and pin point the audiences needs. Only this backfires and makes his movie seem repetitive and very ordinary. You start to predict what will happen as soon as you have seen the headless horseman appear time and time again from the tacky fog that surrounds the woods. Camera Shots also make the movie repetitive and tacky. When the director wants you to feel fear for the character he will use a point of view shot. So when the headless horseman is crossing the bridge to fight Ichabod Crane we see him: a tall, dark figure walking towards us. Yet, we cannot see Ichabod Crane’s face. How do we know that Ichabod Crane isn’t laughing at the cheap special effects? A big close-up at the beginning of a substance which resembles blood falling on a piece of paper is actually hiding the fact that the so called blood came from a candle andShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Tim Burton s The Nightmare Before Christmas 1431 Words   |  6 PagesBeetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Sleepy hallow, to just name a few. He was won 20 awards and has been nominated 56 times (IMDb). Everyone loves his dark, gothic, eerie, horror and fantasy films. Ever since he was in high school, he was recognized for his great talents, and throu ghout his life, his films have been recognized as works of art. It can be easily said he is one of the greatest film directors of all time. Timothy Walter â€Å"Tim† Burton was born AugustRead MoreAnalysis of Jeepers Creepers Video Box Cover Essay634 Words   |  3 Pagesthat it is a horror film. Also, the mode of address is direct, and therefore is interacting with the audience. There are no star names on the front and therefore this may mean that the film is low-budget, the film company is Helicon SK which is not very well know, and also draws me to the conclusion that the film has a low-budget. However, the only focus is on the executive producer, Francis Ford Coppola, as they have also produced previous films that have been successfulRead MoreCompare And Contrast The Opening Scenes Of Tim Burtons Corpse Bride And The Nightmare Before Christmas1010 Words   |  5 Pagesart, horror movies, and painting. A tremendous youngster, he was interested in filmmaking since his pre-high schooler years. He regularly enjoyed shooting short movies utilizing the rough stop-movement activity strategies. His most seasoned surviving film is The Island of Specialist Agnor, which was made when he was 13. Finishing his education at Burbank Secondary School, he enrolled at the California Institute of Arts here that he influenced movies to like, Stalk of the Celery Beast and KingRead MoreGeorge Orwell23689 Words   |  95 Pagesthe kind of brain that could understand the poems of T. S. Eliot or the theories of Karl Marx, the higherups would see to it that you were kept out of any important job. The intellectuals could find a function for themselves only in the literary reviews and the left-wing political par ties. The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude