American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

There I listened to his story. . . . Was there really any chance that an atomic bomb would trigger the explosion of the nitrogen in the atmosphere or the hydrogen in the ocean? . . . Better to accept the slavery of the Nazis than to run a chance of drawing the final curtain on mankind.” In the event, Bethe soon ran further calculations that convinced both Teller and Oppenheimer of the near-zero possibility of igniting the atmosphere. Oppenheimer spent the rest of the summer writing up the group’s summary report. In late August 1942, Conant sat reading it and scribbled notes to himself headed “Status of the Bomb.” According to Oppenheimer and his colleagues, an atomic device would explode with “150 times energy of previous calculation”—but it would need a critical mass of fissionable material six times the previous estimate. An atomic bomb was entirely feasible, but it would require the marshaling of massive technical, scientific and industrial resources.