Who split the atom in World War 2?

Answer 1

Germany, UK, US, Japan all had programs working on this, and performed experiments with fission.

• Although Germany achieved fission before WW2, their work quickly stalled due to a series of mistakes and oversights. Their work redirected to reactors, which they did get limited success with.
• UK had preliminary successes but handed their results and people over to the US as it was recognized the effort to complete was too much and to protect it from German bombing.
• US succeeded in building both reactors and bombs.
• Japan could not get government priority and the high quality power vacuum tubes needed to operate cyclotrons.

The USSR also had an atomic bomb program in WW2, but it concentrated on spying on the others (especially UK and US) and did no actual work on fission until the war was over.

Answer 2

Physicists working on the Manhattan Project, notably Enrico Fermi and his team at the University of Chicago, were the first to successfully split the atom during World War II. This breakthrough paved the way for the development of atomic bombs.

Answer 3

lord Rutherford