The First War of Physics (73 page)

6. Working with Frisch in Birmingham in early 1940, German émigré physicist Rudolf Peierls, pictured here with his Russian wife Genia, realised that an atomic bomb was feasible. The Frisch–Peierls memorandum summarised their reasoning and led to the formation of the MAUD Committee. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, photograph by Francis Simon)

7. James Chadwick won the Nobel prize in 1935 for his discovery of the neutron. Together with Polish physicist Joseph Rotblat, he had independently concluded that a uranium bomb might be feasible. He strongly supported the Frisch–Peierls memorandum. (Photograph by Bortzells Esselte, Nobel Foundation, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Weber and Fermi Film Collections)

8. The Frisch–Peierls memorandum encouraged American physicists to greater efforts and, with the publication of the report of the third National Academy review group, the S-1 project was established. Pictured here, from left to right, are: Ernest Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Vannevar Bush, James Bryant Conant, Karl Compton and Alfred Loomis. (Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Berkeley National Laboratory, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

9. American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was asked to lead work on the physics of fastneutron chain reactions in May 1942. He was subsequently to become the scientific director of the project’s weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, and the ‘father of the atom bomb’. (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

10. Edward Teller (pictured left) and Enrico Fermi joined the Manhattan Project’s Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago. Fermi worked to build the world’s first nuclear reactor. Initially unsure what to do, Teller worked with Emil Konopinski on the physics of a thermonuclear bomb. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

11. The world’s first nuclear reactor, a uranium–graphite ‘pile’, was successfully tested in a squash court at the University of Chicago on 2 December 1942. There are no photographs of the completed reactor – this is an artist’s impression. (Archival Photofiles (apf2–00503), Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

12. West Point graduate Leslie Groves was ‘probably the angriest officer in the United States Army’ when he was appointed to lead the Manhattan Project in September 1942. Groves moved quickly to establish the facilities necessary for the production of the first atomic bombs. (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

13. Norwegian chemist Leif Tronstad escaped from Nazioccupied Norway in September 1941. He became head of Section IV of the Norwegian High Command, based in Britain. Through his colleague Jomar Brun, he encouraged sabotage of the heavy water plant at Vemork, which he had helped to design, and worked with the SOE in the planning of sabotage raids. (Hydro)

14. Explosive charges laid by Norwegian commandos during Operation Gunnerside wrecked the heavy water concentration cells. Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, commander-in-chief of the German forces in Norway, declared the operation ‘the finest coup I have seen in this war’. However, the plant was operational again within a few months. (Hydro)

15. The heavy water plant was part of the larger Norsk Hydro Vemork facility designed to produce fertilisers, perched high in the fjords near the Norwegian town of Rjukan. The main building can be seen here on the right. The plant can be reached only via a narrow suspension bridge, visible to the left of the picture, which spans a deep ravine. (Hydro)

16. Inaugurated in April 1943, the Los Alamos laboratory was an isolated collection of shoddy army buildings with poor facilities, inadequate housing and intermittent electricity. The scientists and their wives fought the oppressive, concentration-camp atmosphere with humour and impressive quantities of alcohol. (Los Alamos National Laboratory)