Major Players

Scientists

Leó Szilárd

Albert Einstein

The Green Flag

On September 3, 1941, with PM Winston Churchill's endorsement, the British Chiefs of Staff agree to begin development of an atomic bomb. But it is not until December 18 the U.S. entry into the war, that a U.S. project to investigate atomic weapons (as opposed to "study fission") finally gets underway.

The Manhttan PRoject - The Begening

During February 1940, physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, living in the UK prepared a analysis of the possibility of fast fission in U-235. Their report contains the first well grounded estimates of the size of a critical mass and probable efficiency, and proposed practical schemes for bomb design and the production of U-235. This "roadmap" for fission weapon development would be elaborated upon and modified to a spectacular degree in the coming years, but it remains basically sound.