Beginning of Essay
The nuclear age opened with the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Many people believed that weapons capable of mass destruction would make war unthinkable in the future. They hoped that the world would learn to live in peace. But a race to d ....

Middle of Essay
.... release of nuclear energy through the fission, or splitting, of heavy atomic nuclei. The first atomic bomb was tested by the United States near Alamogordo, New Mexico. In the final stages of World War II, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and on Nagasaki three days later to force Japan to surrender. The explosion produces great amounts of heat, a shock wave, and intense neutron and gamma radiation. The region of the explosion becomes radioactively contaminated, and wind-borne radioactive products may be deposited elsewhere. The hydrogen bombs an explosive weapon of enormous destructive powercaused by the fusion of the nuclei ....