Fermi and the Manhattan Project embodied an age of discovery that rewarded quality over quantity in expertise. In nuclear physics, the 1930s and 1940s were an age of fundamental breakthroughs, and when it came to making those breakthroughs, one Enrico Fermi was worth thousands of less brilliant physicists. American leadership in this era was built in large part on attracting geniuses like Fermi: men and women who could singlehandedly tip the scales of scientific power.
