In other words, it was worth going to any lengths to defeat the evil that Hitler represented. Those doubts, even if they do not appear in official reports, were discussed in many private discussions.' (Land of Enchantment.(29).11-12) 'Now that the bomb could not be used against the Nazis, doubts arose. 'For me, Hitler was the personification of evil, and the primary justification for the atomic bomb work,' remembered the physicist Emilio SegrГЁ. Their work had been driven by the absolute necessity of winning the bomb race with Germany: Scientists at Los Alamos celebrated-and for a happy moment, they thought their job was done. Hope because everyone knew that if they could just build this incredible weapon they might be able to end a devastating war in one fell swoop, instead of dragging it out with countless lives lost.ДЄdolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and days later Germany surrendered. The bomb-for those in the know about it-became something of a symbol of victory, power, scientific prowess, and hope. He banged his desk, and said, 'This requires action!' (Finding Einstein.(3).35)Д«ut very quickly, the race to build the first atomic bomb became something bigger than just a scientific achievement. 'Alex,' he began, 'what you are after is to see that the Nazis don't blow us up.' Thus, in the beginning, creating the atomic bomb was just that-an attempt to build it before an enemy could: The thought of making weapons of mass destruction had never occurred to him.Д«ut now, suddenly, he couldn't shake it from his mind: fission might make it possible to build a whole new type of explosive. Like all the scientists involved in the discovery, Oppenheimer was fired up by new ideas in physics, deeper glimpses into the weird inner world of atoms. In the beginning, the possibility of a weapon that used fission to release incredible amounts of energy was almost like a dream for theoretical physicists: Finally, people like Oppenheimer who wanted to do something to help their country had a way of really aiding in the war effort. While Oppenheimer and Groves were striving desperately to build something tangible-the world's first atomic bomb-they were also working to fulfill a very symbolic task as well.

Bomb the race to build