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:
“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967)
“No atomic physicist has to worry, people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale. Sure, he’s got the fridge full of sausages and spring water.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)