The Atomic Bomb
Bacher was one of hundreds of scientists recruited by the United States government's Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the 1940s. Bacher headed the project's physics division. On the day the bomb was to be test detonated in the New Mexico desert, Bacher assembled the plutonium core in an old farmhouse near the Alamogordo testing site. During this, the central portion wedged tightly and would go no further, causing a moment's panic, but Bacher managed to dislodge the jam after some nerve-wracking minutes, and transported the bomb to the testing site.
Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bacher developed mixed feelings about his participation in the Manhattan Project. While he felt satisfaction in helping to end the war, the remorse at helping to pioneer such destructive technology haunted him.
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Famous quotes containing the words atomic bomb, atomic and/or bomb:
“The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“There are no accidents, only nature throwing her weight around. Even the bomb merely releases energy that nature has put there. Nuclear war would be just a spark in the grandeur of space. Nor can radiation “alter” nature: she will absorb it all. After the bomb, nature will pick up the cards we have spilled, shuffle them, and begin her game again.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)