Chapter 16 "Revelations" Summary

In November 1943, James Chadwick asks Otto Frisch if he would like to work in America. Within a week, the British clear the scientists picked by General Groves to review barrier development as well as those going to Los Alamos for relocation to America. These include Frisch, Rudolph Peierls, George Placzek, Klaus Fuchs, Chadwick, and others. Some travel by train to Los Alamos, greeted by Robert Oppenheimer, smoking a pipe and wearing a pork-pie hat: "Welcome to Los Alamos, and who the devil are you?" (page 523) Neils Bohr and his son Aage join them. They discuss Heisenberg's drawing of a heavy-water reactor. Oppenheimer wants the experts, on the last day of 1943, to turn an atomic pile into a weapon. Oppenheimer appreciates Bohr's presence, since he makes the enterprise hopeful. Bohr reveals later he traveled to Los Alamos not to help...