Introduction

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is one of my favourite ever books. It's not just a book about the Manhattan Project, it's also about the history of physics and the physics community in the early 20th century. I'm privileged to have Richard Rhodes as my guest for this episode. He spoke with many of the scientists who worked at Los Alamos during a rare window in which they were old enough to speak candidly about the 1940s. After about 31 minutes of discussion, we shift back to the Manhattan Project. We then come to a two-hour discussion on the fascinating history of how the bomb was made.