Character Analysis
Herb Anderson
A physicist present at the Chicago Pile test.
Robert Bacher
A physicist who supervised the assembly of the plutonium core at the Trinity test site.
Hans Bethe
A German-born physicist, about Oppenheimer, Bethe said "He had, after all, no experience in directing a large group of people" (On The Cliff(8.)38). Despite this, Bethe was impressed by Oppie's ability to manage everything at Los Alamos, and later said that Oppenheimer brought out the best in all of them.
Walther Bothe
A German physicist who wouldn't tell Goudsmit about progress on the atomic bomb project.
Earl Brodie
A fellow secret agent and friend of Moe Berg's, this guy confided what the Swiss Deal actually was.
Albert Einstein
We're pretty sure you know who this guy is. For our purposes, he's the really smart dude who was able to get President Roosevelt's attention regarding the possibility/potential of an atomic bomb.
Enrico Fermi
A world-famous Italian physicist, Fermi helped design the Chicago Pile test and went on to work at Los Alamos.
Richard Feynman
Feynman was a really smart physics grad student. At first he wanted nothing to do with the bomb, but when he realized that if Hitler built one first he'd be screwed, he changed his mind. He also ended up being one of Fuchs's only friends at Los Alamos.
Otto Frisch
The nephew of Lise Meitner, Frisch was a physicist (apparently brains really run in the family) who came upon the realization that uranium fission = BOOM.
Georgi Flerov
A Soviet physicist who looked for fission articles in the newspaper, and not finding any, pushed for Soviet atomic bomb development in order to keep up with the Americans and Germans.
Samuel Goudsmit
Goudsmit was a physicist and the scientific head of the Alsos mission.
Otto Hahn
In 1938 Otto Hahn accidentally discovered that uranium atoms will split into two and release a great deal of energy (hey there, fission) when hit with speeding neutrons.
Werner Heisenberg
Heisenberg was a pre-eminent German physicist, and the dude most likely in charge of the German atomic project.
Clarence Hiskey
Chemist, communist, and regretful blurter of top-secret information to KGB informants—after a dinner, Hiskey told Franklin that he was working on a bomb more powerful than anything anyone could ever imagine. When Franklin went back another time with orders to grill him for all he's worth, Hiskey's wife's presence interfered. Eventually, the FBI realized that Hiskey was a valuable target for the KGB, so they shipped him off to a military base in Northwest Canada, far from any action on the development of the atomic bomb.
Donald Hornig
Hornig was a Harvard University chemistry student who was recruited by Oppie after the acquisition of Los Alamos as a home base.
Jack Hubbard
Hubbard was head meteorologist for Trinity test, and he faced the ire of Groves when the weather wasn't cooperating.
George Kistiakowsky
This chemistry professor was chosen by Oppie to figure out how to create a symmetrical implosion for the plutonium bomb.
Igor Kurchatov
This Soviet physicist was in charge of Laboratory Number 2.
Ernest Lawrence
A member of the Uranium Committee, Lawrence begged everyone to get Oppenheimer involved to move their progress along.
John Manley
Manley was a physicist at Los Alamos and an eyewitness to Trinity test bomb.
Robert Marshak
Marshak was a physicist whose wife wanted to know why they were suddenly moving to New Mexico.
Dorothy McKibbin a.k.a. the Gatekeeper
McKibbin wasn't a scientist, but we decided to group her with all the Los Alamos dudes because she was "the Gatekeeper." She was the one who ran the administrative tasks associated with Los Alamos, and she was also the first friendly face the bewildered scientists encountered upon arriving in New Mexico.
Lise Meitner
Hahn's former partner, Lise was a Jewish physicist in Sweden who was forced out of Germany by the rise of Nazi power. Along with Frisch, she was one of the first people to discover that splitting uranium could be used to build a huge bomb.
Philip Morrison
Morrison was a physicist at Los Alamos who said, "The only way we could lose the war was if we failed in our jobs" (Born Rebel.(23).25). One of his jobs was to drive the plutonium core out to the Trinity test site in the backseat of a Jeep. Talk about tense, right?
Yoshio Nishina
Nishina was Japan's top atomic physicist who was asked to consult about building their own atomic bomb.
Frank Oppenheimer
Robert's little brother, Frank was also a physicist. He worked at Los Alamos and helped prepare Trinity test site.
Isidor Rabi
Rabi was a physicist at Los Alamos who witnessed the Trinity test bomb.
Dr. Norman Ramsey
Ramsey was the professor of physics who was in charge of briefing Tibbets about the atomic bomb.
Emilio Segrè
This guy was a physicist at Los Alamos who had doubts about finishing an atomic weapon after Hitler's death and the end of the war in Europe.
Robert Serber
One of Oppenheimer's former students, Serber became Oppie's right hand man and assistant extraordinaire when Oppie was designated the Coordinator of Rapid Rupture. He followed Oppenheimer to Los Alamos and continued to be an essential asset to the project.
Bruno Rossi
This famous Italian-born physicist was most impressed with a young Ted Hall and his remarkable uranium-235 handling skills.
Stanislaw Ulam
A mathematician, Ulam was recruited to Manhattan project.
George Weil
Weil was the unfortunate soul whose job was to remove the "zip" rod (risking catastrophe) during the Chicago Pile test.
Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard
Hungarian-born Jewish physicists who fled from Europe, these two made it their mission to track down Einstein in order to ask him for help getting the government's attention regarding the possibility of an atomic bomb. They also attended the Chicago Pile experiment.
Bob Wilson
Wilson was a physics professor at Princeton who convinced Feynman to help with the bomb project.
Leona Woods
A physics graduate student, Woods was present at the Chicago Pile test.