Now I am a great fan of In Our Time which draws together a group of experts who in the company of Melvyn Bragg discuss topics, ranging from history, science and the arts.
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| The Trinity shot, the first nuclear test explosion, July 16th, 1945 |
And on today's edition, "Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb in the USA during World War Two.
Before the war, scientists in Germany had discovered the potential of nuclear fission and scientists in Britain soon argued that this could be used to make an atom bomb, against which there could be no defence other than to own one.
The fear among the Allies was that, with its head start, Germany might develop the bomb first and, unmatched, use it on its enemies.
The USA took up the challenge in a huge engineering project led by General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer and, once the first bomb had been exploded at Los Alamos in July 1945, it appeared inevitable that the next ones would be used against Japan with devastating results.
With, Bruce Cameron Reed, The Charles A. Dana Professor of Physics Emeritus at Alma College, Michigan, Cynthia Kelly, Founder and President of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, and Frank Close, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson"
Picture; the "Trinity" shot, the first nuclear test explosion, July 16th, 1945, W. Aeby, Civilian worker at Los Alamos laboratory, working under the aegis of the Manhattan Project.
*The Manhattan Project, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00108h1
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