Did inventor of the atomic bomb commit suicide?

Answer 1

Although many people were involved in the development of the first atomic bombs, the man who first conceived of the nuclear chain reaction mechanism (in 1933) underlying the atomic bomb, and first foresaw its potential to be used as a weapon, was a Hungarian physicist named Leó Szilárd, who had fled to London to escape Nazi persecution. After discovering that uranium could carry such a nuclear chain reaction, he sent a letter (also signed by Albert Einstein) to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging the government to create a research project to develop a nuclear weapons. The result was the Manhattan Project, which in 1945, exploded the world's first atomic bomb.

Leó Szilárd, along with many other scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, opposed the actual use of the atomic bomb in war, and hoped that by merely by showing the tremendous power of the bomb, they could force the surrender of Germany and Japan. He was horrified that the bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He did not commit suicide, but he did stop researching nuclear physics -- in 1947, two years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he changed fields and became a molecular biologist. He continued to warn of the danger of nuclear weapons until his natural death in 1964.