HISTORYThere is no worse fate for the human effort that creating weapons. Is it logical case that thousands of men, companies, governments and scientists pool forces to plan, prepare, recruit and deploy the annihilation of millions of people? Obviously enough proportion of people thought so. Millions of dollars and over two years of work focused on killing as many people as quickly as possible. The Manhattan Project, another mistake of the human species.
The Manhattan Project was the code name for a science project conducted during World War II by the United States with partial support from the UK and Canada. The ultimate goal of the project was the development of the first atomic bomb before Nazi Germany got it. The scientific research was directed by physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer while security and military operations were the responsibility of General Leslie Richard Groves. The project was carried out in numerous research centers being the most important of them the Manhattan Engineering District located in the place now known as Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The project brought together a large number of eminent scientists (physics, chemistry, computer science). Since, after testing in Germany before the war, it was known that atomic fission was possible and that the Nazis were already working on its own nuclear program met several brilliant minds who were also pacifists and leftists mostly. Many Jewish exiles, made common cause in the struggle against fascism contributing their bit to the cause: get the bomb before the Germans. The first successful nuclear test occurred in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
IMAGES OF HIROSHIMA BEFORE (photo left) and AFTER EXPLOSION (right)
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