US Army Air Force

"Oh Brave New World ..."

www.nuclearweaponsarchive.org

16 July, 1945 - the Manhattan Project ushers Humanity across the Rubicon, with the first atmospheric test of a nuclear weapon - the implosive/explosive plutonium device known as the "Gadget". Within a month, the fruits of "Manhattan" would be falling on Japan. The Director of the Manhattan Project, Dr Robert Oppenheimer, was moved to recall a quote from the Bhagavad-Gita, where Shiva says - "If the radiance of a thousand suns Were to burst at once into the sky, That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One. I am become Death, The Shatterer of Worlds." He perhaps would have done well to recall a quote from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" - "What's done is done - it cannot be undone ...". In sadness, JR.