Nuclear weapons production and testing contaminated many sites across the US and exposed people unknowingly to radiation and toxic materials. Some have gone uncompensated for decades.
Cillian Murphy as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in ‘Oppenheimer.’
Universal Pictures
Spying was a concern from the dawn of the nuclear age, but charges that J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the development of the first nuclear weapons, was a Soviet spy have been proved wrong.
Lise Meitner, in the front row, sits alongside many male colleagues at the Seventh Solvay Physics Conference in 1933.
Corbin Historical via Getty Images
The trailer for ‘Oppenheimer’ fails to include female physicists, which is indicative of a broader media trend that, if reversed, could lead to greater gender diversity in science.
Chien-Shiung Wu’s experiments were instrumental in supporting some of the biggest 20th-century theories in physics.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Chinese American physicist Wu worked on the Manhattan Project and performed groundbreaking experiments throughout her long career.
The gadget in the Trinity Test Site tower. Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information.
Many pieces leading to Alzheimer’s disease have been identified. To put the pieces together, one scholar argues that the government should launch a Manhattan Project-scale effort to find a cure.
Mark Oliphant in 1939.
From a collection at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Gift of Ms Vivian Wilson 2004
Australian scientist Mark Oliphant helped push the development of nuclear weapons during World War II but later riled at US attempts to keep the UK and others out of the nuclear arms race.
Nuclear reactors line the bank of the Columbia River at the Hanford site in 1960.
USDOE
During the Cold War, the US built nuclear weapons at a network of secretive sites across the nation. Some are still heavily polluted and threaten public health today.
Canberra’s attitude to nuclear weapons has always been riddled with contradictions. Homegrown nuclear campaigners winning the Nobel prize have put the cat among the pigeons.
For the first time, human beings harnessed the power of atomic fission.
Keith Ruffles
By figuring out fission, physicists were able to split uranium atoms and release massive amounts of energy. This Manhattan Project work paved the way both for atomic bombs and nuclear power reactors.
‘I will attack and I might like that.’
Quality Stock Arts