THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
During the Second World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt started a secret project along with Robert Oppenheimer and Major General Leslie Groves to research design and develop an atomic bomb. This project is known as the Manhattan project. Along with America, Canada and the United Kingdom were also a part of this project.
In 1939, when members of the scientific community such as Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi learnt that German physicists had somehow discovered the method of splitting a Uranium atom, they feared that the Nazi scientists would use that knowledge to construct a bomb which would be able to cause massive destruction. Fermi travelled to Washington to convey his fears to the government officials but they fell on deaf years. Then, on 2nd August, 1939, Einstein signed a letter written by two well known scientists, Leo Szilard and
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Roosevelt warning him of new learnings by physicists through which a uranium atom could be split, which would release a large amount of energy. Using this process, a sustained nuclear reaction could be produced which could lead to the construction of very dangerous bombs. Roosevelt did see the need of such a project, and so, on 12th May, 1942, he started the attempt to design and build an atom bomb. This project was initially given the codename, ‘Development of Substitute Materials’ but it was decided that the name was too indicative of the real purpose of the project. Subsequently, it was renamed ‘The Manhattan Project.’ The British were running their own nuclear research project under the name of ‘Tube Alloys,’ and they were sharing