The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Rhodes

The Japanese physics colloquium in Tokyo had decided in March 1943 that an atomic bomb was possible but not practically attainable by any of the belligerents in time to be of use in the present war. Robert Serber’s lectures at Los Alamos in early April asserted to the contrary that for the United States an atomic bomb was both possible and probably attainable within two years. The Japanese assessment was essentially technological. Like Bohr’s assessment in 1939, it overestimated the difficulty of isotope separation and underestimated U.S. industrial capacity. It also, as the Japanese government had before Pearl Harbor, underestimated American dedication. Collective dedication was a pattern of Japanese culture more than of American. But Americans could summon it when challenged, and couple it with resources of talent and capital unmatched anywhere else in the world.