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Development and history of nuclear weapons and their importance today.
KRAFKA, Jiří
The term atom has fascinated the philosophers since Ancient Greece. Since this period the scientists from the whole world have been more and more interested in the atom. They have researched its structure, properties and applicability. The atom has also become the basic element for constructing nuclear weapons. Many states all over the world tried to construct these weapons during the Second World War. In 1945 the United States of America managed to design ones. The Americans used them against the civil inhabitants twice. The weapons were dropped over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since the year 1945 more than 2 000 nuclear tests have been taken. That is why international contracts which adjust the testing and use of nuclear weapons have emerged. In the theoretical part of my bachelor's thesis on the topic "The development and history of nuclear weapons and their significance for today's world" I deal with the atom, its history and radioactivity. The next part of the bachelor's thesis is dedicated to the development of nuclear weapons in various countries which tried to design a nuclear weapon during the war. Afterwards I described the war use of nuclear weapons against the civil inhabitants in two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which lead to the end of the WW II. The aim of the bachelor's thesis was to evaluate possible use of nuclear weapons, alternatively a nuclear war, and to verify and compare students' knowledge of nuclear weapons and their effects. These students involved in the research were the ones studying the programme Population Protection in the bachelor's as well as in the master's study. Within the thesis the following hypotheses were stated: "The knowledge of students of the study programme Population Protection has normal distribution" and "The knowledge of students of master's study will be statistically more prominent than of the ones studying the bachelor's study. To reach defined aims it was necessary to analyse literary and other sources. Next, it was indispensable to create a questionnaire and perform a questionnaire survey. The research ensemble comprised 126 students of the bachelor's study programme and 50 students of the master's study programme. The questionnaire which was presented to these students consisted of 14 questions. It was aimed at finding out the knowledge in the sphere of nuclear weapons and on the basis of the results I compared the knowledge of the students of the bachelor's study programme and the master's one. The students of the programme Population Protection in the master's study proved better knowledge of examined issues than the students of the bachelor's study. However, the students showed unsatisfactory knowledge in some of the questions. Especially in the second one, only 33 % of the respondents knew what the name of nuclear programme in Germany was. The next problematic question was the one number 13, in view of the fact that 53 % of the students know that the most nuclear tests were performed by USA and 47 % of the students thought that it was the Soviet Union which carried out the most tests. The question number 4 was correctly answered by 55 % of the students. The question was: "What was the name of the first nuclear bomb?". The sixth question concerning the year of testing this first bomb was also correctly answered by only 55 % of the students. On the other hand, the students proved the best knowledge when responding to the seventh and eighth question. When answering the question number 7, 96% of the students know that after the explosion of a nuclear bomb a mushrooms cloud is formed. The gained data from the questionnaires were statistically processed. Subsequently, the given hypotheses were confirmed, the knowledge of students of the study programme Population Protection has normal distribution and the knowledge of students of master's study will be statistically more prominent than of the ones studying the bachelor's study.
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