The film, Oppenheimer, chronicles the development of the A-bomb during WWII. I’m hoping this Snippet will provide additional context.
As early as 1933 Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, living in London, realized that the neutron-driven fission, or splitting, of heavy atoms could be used to start a chain reaction that yielded vast amounts of energy. He understood that being used for good could mean endless cheap power for the world. Used for evil, as a bomb, it could produce enough destruction to threaten our entire planet.
In January 1939, two German scientists, experimenting with Uranium, succeeded in producing the reaction Szilard had described. They had split the atom! Their results were confirmed and presented at a Washington DC conference on Theoretical Physics where some of the greatest minds on the planet had gathered.
Even as they met, German armies were speeding across Europe, the ‘Final Solution’ of mass genocide was already underway. And, if they developed such a weapon, the rest of the world was at risk.
After meeting with the Germans, Leo Szilard and Edwin Teller, both Hungarian physicists, were convinced President Roosevelt had to be told…and quickly. The only man with the global reputation to do so was Albert Einstein.
The essence of the letter written by Szilard and signed by Einstein read:
In the course of the last four months, it has been made probable that it is possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable, though much less certain, that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be construct.
America had no choice; it must establish its own nuclear program. It went on to warn of likely efforts by Germany to develop such a bomb. Roosevelt read the letter, acknowledged its importance, and moved it to an agency to consider.
But this was 1939! America was not yet in the war. Its primary enemy was still the Great Depression, unemployment, and public despair. And the Presidential election of 1940 was in the offing. Would the American people allow him to break a precedent set by George Washington and run for a 3d term? If he did, there would be hell to pay. He’d better have a damn good reason.
Despite further entreaties the United States did little in 1940 or 1941. It would take the attack on Pearl Harbor and a Declaration of War.
The Manhattan Project was launched in early 1942 to develop an atom bomb. It would bring together various atomic research projects around the country. Physicists at Berkeley and Livermore, Columbia and the University of Chicago all began working on a project that would change our world forever.
The detonation of the bombs in 1945 were, indeed, the Alpha and Omega of our lifetime. Technology ended a war, and while it gave us 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, as well as decades of ‘duck & cover,’ shelters, and fears of world annihilation, it also gave us a great deal of safe, inexpensive, power. Today 436 reactors in 32 countries are successfully producing cheap energy.
Man will continue to develop new technologies without fully understanding where it will lead. We will stumble along the way. But, so far, despite frequent missteps, we continue to survive. Perhaps it is all part of a master plan, as some believe. Perhaps we’re just lucky. Either way, enjoy today, tomorrow shall always remain the great unknown.