The Manhattan Project: Physics That Changed History

The Manhattan Project was the top-secret U.S. effort to build atomic bombs during World War II.
It began in 1942 and united thousands of scientists, engineers, and military staff.
Albert Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt helped spark the program, warning Nazi Germany might build a bomb.
Key research sites included Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford.
Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 were developed as the bomb fuels.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” led the Los Alamos lab.
The first test, codenamed Trinity (July 16, 1945), unleashed unprecedented power.
The project produced two bombs: Little Boy (uranium) and Fat Man (plutonium).
Their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened the end of WWII but caused immense destruction.
The Manhattan Project transformed physics into a force that reshaped global politics and ethics.