In May of 1941 she gave birth to their first child, Peter. In 1939 Niels Bohr brought news that the Germans had split the Atom. Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard told the U.S. that it was dangerous to allow the Nazis to have the power of the atom. The United States started the Manhattan Project, and American led-military effort to make the bomb for wartime use. Oppenheimer soon became involved and in 1942 Gen. Groves chose him to direct the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer later suggested that instead of the scientists working on the project in several areas, they should all be located at one facility. Groves approved the idea and the Manhattan Project moved to Los Alamos. Robert believed that it would be better to concentrate everybody in one area for reasons of making it easier to accomplish work and share ideas and Groves liked the idea because it increased security. In early research of the bomb scientist knew very little. They worked on the basis that nuclear fission provided an incredible amount of energy for just a little bit of matter. It would only take a fraction of the amount of nuclear fragments to produce the same amount of energy as a large amount of TNT. There was a theory that if you bombarded a large nucleus with a neutron you could split the atom and this fission would create a large amount of energy. Also the splitting of the nucleuses would cause a chain reaction sending neutrons outward to spit other atoms. At first they werent sure if the chain reaction would occur. At one time there were afraid that a nuclear explosion would set ablaze the entire atmosphere. Teller came up with some calculations on the heat build-up in a fission reaction. He concluded that there might be enough heat to cause a reaction between the deuterium and nitrogen. Since nitrogen makes up about 80 percent of the atmosphere this may set light to the nitrogen in the atmosphere. Some believed they would rather be slaves of the Nazis than to destro...
