Who named the trinity project used in the first atomic bombs?

Answer 1

The United States' effort to develop a nuclear weapon came during World War II in response to the potential threat of a German nuclear weapon. On 6 December 1941, President Roosevelt appointed a committee to determine if the United States could construct a nuclear weapon. Six months later, the committee gave the President its report, recommending a fast-paced program that would cost up to $100 million and that might produce the weapon by July 1944 (1: 12,13).

The President accepted the committee's recommendation. The effort to construct the weapon was turned over to the War Department, which assigned the task to the Army Corps of Engineers. In September 1942, the Corps of Engineers established the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), under the command of Major General Leslie Groves, to oversee the development of a nuclear weapon. This effort was code named the "Manhattan Project" (1: 13).

During the first 2 years of the Manhattan Project, work proceeded at a slow but steady pace. Significant technical problems had to be solved, and difficulties in the concentration of uranium-235 and production of plutonium, particularly the inability to process large amounts, often frustrated the scientists. Nonetheless, by 1944 sufficient progress had been made to persuade the scientists that their efforts might succeed. A test of the plutonium implosion device was necessary to determine if it would work and what its effects would be. Led by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Manhattan Project scientists at Los Alamos Laboratory (later to become the Los Alamos National Laboratory) were "to make preparations for a field test in which blast, earth shock, neutron and gamma radiation would be studied and complete photographic records made of the explosion and any atmospheric phenomena connected with the explosion"