The Manhattan Project
“That night, there was very little doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief”
~Leo Szilard
~Leo Szilard
The Manhattan Project was a research project which started in 1939 after agents under the United States government suspected that Germany had been attempting to develop nuclear devices. During WWII, the Manhattan Project, with more than 130,000 workers and scientists participating, cost over 2 billion dollars at that time, which is equivalent to about 24 billion USD in 2021 (CTBTO). After 6 years of research and development, the scientists in the Manhattan project successfully produced and tested the first set of nuclear weapons: the uranium bomb and the plutonium bomb (Pruitt).
Significance of the Project The inventions from the Manhattan Project, the Uranium bomb and the Plutonium bomb, not only ended WWII immediately but also kick-started the Cold War, which was known as the competition over political, economic, and technological fronts between the Soviet Union and the United States (Pruitt). |