Everything Everywhere Daily The Manhattan Project (Encore)
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Dec 7, 2025 Discover the incredible story behind the Manhattan Project and its monumental impact during WWII. Learn about the initial discoveries of nuclear fission and the urgency that drove scientists to action. Explore the creation of key facilities like Los Alamos and the challenges of producing plutonium and uranium. Delve into the mystery of how 125,000 people worked in secrecy, often unaware of the project's true purpose. Conclude with the devastating legacy of atomic bomb development that changed the world forever.
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Fission Discovery Sparked Urgent Action
- The Manhattan Project's origins trace to 1938 German discovery of nuclear fission and rapid theoretical work that revealed huge energy potential.
- That discovery created urgent fear among physicists that Nazi Germany could build a weapon, prompting early US action.
Scientists Prompted Government Intervention
- Einstein and Szilard's 1939 letter to FDR pushed the U.S. government to investigate uranium for weapons.
- The Office of Scientific Research and Development later centralized that work under Vannevar Bush as the S-1 Committee.
Allied Science Combined With U.S. Scale
- British research (MAUD/Tube Alloys) proved key early findings but lacked resources to build a bomb.
- The U.S. ramped up only after entering WWII, making rapid development a strategic necessity.