The Moment in Time: THE MANHATTAN PROJECT 

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Wow... that was a great 3am "cant sleep" documentary!! It was Soo good, when I woke up I watched with my lunch as well!!

My Aunt, Mary Argo was a nuclear physicist recruited along with her husband Harold (also a physicist) from Brown University in 1943 to be a part of the Manhattan Project. She was assigned to calculate what a nuclear blast would do to the Earths atmosphere after detonation. She was the ONLY woman scientist invited to the Trinity test. Herself and husband Harold would say on their only day off (Sunday) that themselves and Edward Teller would hike into the desert mountains and NEVER talk of what they were working towards creating. She died young of a heart attack while hiking in New Mexico in 1986 at 66 years old. In a way seems somewhat fitting. After the war they made Los Alamos their home for good.

I loved watching this before and again after watching Nolan's Oppeneheimer. It is indeed baffling to see all those characters in the movie and the real ones here.

I just love to listen to these intelligent, humble, adorable old men tell their experience.😊💖

There are a myriad of documentaries out there on the Manhattan Project. By far, this one exceeds the rest. The details, inside quirks, interviews with the men there, and the narrator make it so. None of the men who were actually there in July of 1945 at Trinity are alive anymore in 2019, including the men specifically noted in this documentary. Thankfully and gratefully it's survived and now saved via RU-vid for generations to come.

This is perhaps the finest documentary on the Manhattan Project I have ever seen.

My first cousin twice removed, Dr Donald MacRae, who was a physicist and later the Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and yes, he was a Canadian, landed a job at Oak Ridge to find ways to enrich plutonium for the Manhattan program. He worked closely with the Oppenheimer team to undertake, albeit a hurried process, to insure the program was ready for deployment.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed.... a few people cried.... most people were silent. I remembered a line from the Bagavagitha... Vishnu... trying to pursuade the prince to do his duty to impress him takes on his multi-armed form. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds... I suppose we all felt like that one way or another." If humanity manages to destroy itself... it will all have started here.

Lived out there for 22 years near Tularosa. Bits and pieces of the project still remain if you know where to look. Quiet and eerie now, it was the first place of ultimate cataclysm. Overhead, the knowing hawk still screeches in fear. My time on the range was uncomfortable. I won’t go back, though I did enjoy the video.

47:32 That's my dad. He was in the photography unit. He's wearing the ID bracelet my mom gave him. 47:40 He's also the one taking aerial footage and stills.

Without question… Put this on it anytime but at 3 AM in the morning and you’re guaranteed another good hour of sleep… That ladies voice alone can put you out in a matter of 90 seconds

Lisa Meitner was the first to prove fission was possible. She past her findings to Einstein who brought the news to US by boat in person to Roosevelt. She was finally given credit in the book "The Making Of The Bomb". Einstein was never involved in the Manhattan project preferring to stay meutral.

Truly amazing group of individuals brought together. There was no computer, no calculator, no email, just pure brains, paper and pencil / chalk, my grandparents generation were amazing, unfortunately so much brilliance for such a horrific development, although many other amazing side science developments as a result. Very interesting documentary.

48.30 What do they mean by "Potsdam Yugoslavia"? Potsdam is right next to Berlin. The house the conference took place in is still there.

My Dad was there. He was drafted into the Army while he was studying electrical engineering at Cal-Tech in Pasadena CA. After basic training they sent him to Los Alamos where he worked on the detonators for the Plutonium bomb. It was him who climbed the tower to install and connect the detonators at Alamagordo. He used to say, "We didn't start the war, but we finished it." Other than that, he didn't have a lot to say about the project. He never looked back, but was always focused on the present, and lived to be 86. He also helped build the rope tow ski lift in Los Alamos that is shown in some reports. He had a brilliant mind. Talking with him was like coming into the light after being in twilight. His biggest fear was of becoming senile in old age, but he stayed sharp, and worked very hard, and very smart until the end. He used to quote Jesus sometimes, who said, "The meek shall inherit the earth."

gosh, hard to imagine the weight of both pride & guilt that weighed on oppenheimer....

This is by far, the best documentary on the subject I have found!

This is arguably the best documentary on the subject of the making of the first atomic weapons I’ve seen. It is very thorough (for a one hour video) yet understandable for the lay person.

Jess Oppenheimer's face, a voice saying Now I become death..., I saw years ago is still with me.

I remember a documentary stating that some of the physicists were worried that the chain reaction would keep on going. Scary.

The Los Alamos Primer is a brilliant book, the Manhattan Project is what literally fueled my passion, and the ultimate reason why I went on to become a physicist.

General Groves doesn't get the credit he deserves. The amount of stuff he had to envision and plan for to oversee this thing is gargantuan - things that had never been done before, and massive construction projects that had to be built fast - and done without the true purpose being known. An amazing feat of engineering and vision.

Wow... these first hand accounts are second to none! Just outstanding!

My grandfather has a certificate for working on Manhattan project at Hanford, WA. He died at 42 when my dad was 2. My grandmother was pregnant with their 8th child. They said he died of enlarged heart. They said due to something else. Not the project. I moved away from the area after high school but live here now. A lot of cancer here and many in my family. Including my daughter.

Not to many of these guys are alive now..but I am glad that the history of this weapon can be explained by the people who made it

Wow…I highly recommend this video!! Probably like most people, I’ve seen/heard bits and pieces of this story all my life but this is the first (only?) coherent, compelling and very informative documentary on the subject that puts it all together compactly yet still finds ways to give new insight along with the sense of urgency and importance everyone involved must have endured. Very well done!!! Thank you 🙏👍

This is the best documentary I've seen. Can't image the movie being any better than this?

1:30 That's the guy that Richard Feynman pulled a prank on when he picked the lock on his file cabinet and stole all of his files. Feynman had been complaining that they have terribly secret files and they need to have better locks and teller said that his was pretty good so during the middle of a lecture (Feynman sitting behind Teller) Feynman snuck out of the room; picked Tellers lock and took the files. Then he runs back to the group just as the lecture was finishing and asks teller to show him his file cabinet. Teller says "Sure" takes him over to the cabinet and says "I'd be happy to show you". Then he opens the cabinet and says "If you hadn't already seen it yourself". Feynman tells the story better in his own lecture titled "Los Alamos From Below" which I have listened to a thousand times and I'll listen to it a thousand more. It will NEVER get boring.

One of the best documentaries I have ever seen!

There have only been two U.S. federal programs that had unlimited budgets, the first was the Manhattan Program...and the second was the Apollo Program (a Ph.D. Aerospace/Computer Engineer who works for a large American defense contractor's Missile Systems company.

I had the honor of meeting the man who said he was detailed in building Los Alamos from the ground up while fixing his chainsaw at Western Auto. He told me he was building a cabin in the mountains when a long line of cars came down a dirt road and stopped. They asked him what he was going to do and he told them he was going to finish this cabin then go join the army. They told no he wasn't he needed more importantly there. His wife was sitting in there big yellow convertabale caddilac said with a very wonderful accent they were all such children always drinkinking Martinii's after 4:00. Wonderful people one heck of a story.

Fantastic documentary! This, along with The Day After Trinity, are some of the best docs I've seen on this subject.

I’m super excited for the film “Oppenheimer”, Christopher Nolan’s new project expected to release 2023. Knowing Christopher’s work, “Oppenheimer” will probably be one of my favorite movies ever.

I was absolutely riveted by the explanations and observations of Drs. Edward Teller and Hans Bethe. 🤔

Really great documentary about a fascinating period in our history. Thank you.

Watching this so I can be more informed before watching Oppenheimer I believe it’ll be one of the greatest movies made in the last ten years

I had a science teacher who worked there during the war. What stories he told us. My brother who was born in 43 and my sister, born in 46 also had teachers that had worked at Los Alamos during the war. It seems that many of them never left New Mexico, that's where we went to school in the 60s. They all had so many interesting stories to tell. They all believed in what they were doing, most had family either in combat in Europe, the Pacific or both. Many even had families held by the Nazis in Europe . My dad was a Marine who fought the Japanese from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, an uncle who was a crew chief on B17s until the B29s replaced them. Another uncle who was aboard a destroyer in the Pacific another aboard the USS Augusta in the ETO. My mother and her sisters worked on building aircraft or on repairing same that were brought back for major refits. Every one of them understood the total defeat of Germany and Japan were necessary to a lasting peace. What is not known by most today is this, WW2 was, in fact, a continuation of WW1. All the countries involved in the 1st were involved in the second and were driven by settling old scores. Germany was not defeated on the battlefield, their leaders who took over after Wilhelm their king was forced from power, signed a peace accord due to their looming collapse from the cost of the war. They decided they had no hope of winning after America entered the war. 20 years after WW1 a rearmed rebuilt Germany set out to reclaim all they gave up in the 1st. Japan also was again in the second war to settle old scores from the 1st and in part, their right to rule over all Asian peoples which for a time they did. Japan was not planning on surrender. They, in fact, had pulled back hundreds of aircraft, ships of all types and thousands of troops for the sole purpose of continuing the fight on the home islands. They were training small children to run out into the ocean carrying packs on their backs, when we tried to land troops on the beaches those packs would contain explosives, older children and old people were trained to charge out also carrying explosives on them, younger adults, mostly women were trained to use spears to attack troops that had made it off the beach. The Emperor decided to surrender only after the second atomic bomb convinced him that Japan could not win. The Army upon learning of the Emperor's plan to surrender attacked the palace killing most of the Palace guards in a plan to stop the Emperor from making a radio broadcast telling the people to lay down their arms. Even after the surrender, there were many top military commanders who still believed they could win. Had the US not dropped the 2 bombs the death toll to all sides would have been in the millions. Another fact not understood was that ever since 43 the US was bombing Japan main islands day and night. The Japanese had factories built in residential areas and by 43 had many factories set up in the workers homes. Therefore "just bombing military targets " was not possible. In one air raid on the Capitol city over 150,000 people were killed. In fact, more people were killed and more cities were destroyed by nonatomic weapons than with. What the 2 atom bombs did do even though less damaging, was to shock the Emperor and many of his subjects into realizing that they could not, would not win. That we could, in fact, destroy them without setting foot on their homeland. That had been the chief point the military leaders kept promising the nation, that the Americans and British would never risk an invasion and in fact, would sue for peace, that would allow Japan to rebuild and fight again, winning the next time because they had learned from their miscalculations about Americans ability to wage war. So, in fact, the use of the atom bomb saved far more lives than it took and kept another world war from happening for, so far 70 years and counting. Both the Korean War and the Vietnam war were the outgrowth of WW2 as were many small wars in far corners of the globe but no full-scale wars like WW1 and WW2. Remember that in WW1 somewhere around 30million people died, another 25 million deaths due to disease spread as a result of the war. WW2 more than 50 million died both directly from the war and disease caused by the war. Thats not counting the millions killed by Stalin before the outbreak of WW2. Japan and Germany are now 2 of our closest allies as a result of how we treated them in the post war years. We helped them to rebuild and also left them to govern themselves.

Just think how fast they made this happen. It goes to show what technology could exist under the right pressure the question is is it for the right reasons? Excellent program.

Till this Day I watch this Documentary once a week, it's just Extraordinary, Robert Oppenheimer's Biography, then the Atomic Bomb 💣 and how it all began the Documentary is Fascinating Genuinely!!!

Excellent report, thank you for the information, lots of people don't know that, thanks again.

Engineering, as noted by several scientists, the complex engineering hurdles to get over to have the bomb come to it’s fruition, that was the prime accomplishment.

Excellent documentary, great film footage and interesting to listen to the people who actually worked on the devices.

Thnx for uploading!

I'm in IRLS211 and this was part of my studies this week for a WWII forum question. I never knew the behind the scene story in how the atomic bomb came to be and this documentary explained it very well. It was not boring and it held my attention from beginning to end. Well done!

I own a piece of trinitite rock glass. The whole site was scraped and cleaned in the 50's I think and a man had kept dump truck loads of it which later in life was sold to a man who now sells small pieces of it on line. Pretty cool. Trinitite rock glass is what was created by the heat of the explosion. The glass bits are what was originally pieces of sand before the explosion.

The planning and execution of this project is truly mind blowing! Groves said when he was flat on his belly during the 1st test. He was wondering what he'd do if the bomb didn't go off 😂.

Been searching for this. 4 over 40 yrs. This is it the explanation. Damn phone won't let me send or save. Truth and trust. My advice is step up.

From what I know of the Manhattan project there were tests on car parts specifically parts made by people who donated them to the military to help the war. The side name of this project was the philadelphia project named around tools that were tested also. I found that fascinating.

One of the best documents I've seen, so fascinating and well made! I wanna watch these before Oppenheimer movie comes this year.

This video was amazing made me cry 😢towards the end mix feelings for sure a lot this guys with brilliant minds in to such detail work I love it 😢thank you 🙏

Thanks for posting this interesting documentary.

Great documentary - To know more about the topic a great book is the Making of the Atomic Bomb - Very detailed story on all the views on the topic!

We were taught in school back in the early 60's that in the event of a nuclear exchange we were to get under our desks. " Duck and cover" ... like that would help.

Still boggles my mind (yet pleases me for obvious reasons) that the premier Nazi physicist Heisenberg miscalculated the amount of U 235 needed to make a bomb, which resulted in the abandonment of the Nazi bomb work. Two of his students, who were on the side of the Allies, made the correct calculation. Scared both of them that if they could derive the correct amount surely their esteemed teacher could.

The collection of sheer scientific genius is mind boggling. These are people I only got to read in physics and chemistry books. Their anecdotes used to get me super excited, when our chemistry teacher told us stories of these behemoths of science before starting a new chapter.

Quite an intense documentary, with more detail and history than any I've seen before.

It is amazing how Oppenheimer instantly recognized the world ending potential of this weapon

I do not know what to say or think, I was not a Japanese prisoner or a marine, much less a Japanese civilian on that terrible day, much less can I imagine the lives lost or saved by this act. What I can think of is that humanity must strive to avoid getting to this now and forever.

Excellent use of my time. Thank you very much. This exceptional documentary recently turned 20 years old and somehow I haven't seen it before... . Subscribed!

At Oak Ridge, the amount of electricity to do the work necessitated the building of Fontana Dam, one of the 4 largest dams and reservoirs in the world. One question was how long it would take for the concrete to fully harden and the figures showed that it would take 75 years. That dam is now part of the Appalachian Trail. The Great Smoky mountains are on the west of the reservoir and the climb up AND down is quite stressing!

The Manhattan Project shows us what we are capable of with teamwork, hardwork, determination. Who knows what discoveries lie ahead.

The Manhattan Project and the role of General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer introduced to me the power of collaboration and project management. Great documentary!

and Iran ... bleugh. This is a very good documentary. Well done. I would also recommend The Day After Trinity, also excellent. Great interviews and archive footage.

Famed Danish Physicist Niels Bohr said at the beginning of WWII that it was possible to build the bomb but no one would because it would require one of the big economies to turn their entire economy to just that purpose. After the war when he was given tours of the enormous enrichment plants in Washington state and Tennesse, along with the many universities nuclear reactor research sites and the Los Alamos site, he commented; See, I was right.

My father worked on the Manhattan project he was a supervising engineer in Oak Ridge Tennessee. What an intense experience it was and what he told me.

This is a great documentary; certainly the best I have seen on this particular subject. The execution of the Manhattan Project was close to perfect. The greatest scientific minds in the world temporarily buried their egos and cooperated magnificently with each other. U.S. government support was fantastic. A Herculean effort, from countless thousands, gave Manhattan Project scientists the raw material they needed. Only a true superpower could have pulled off the Manhattan Project. If World War Two had erupted at the present time - in the second decade of the 21st century - America would not be able to succeed with something like the Manhattan Project (at least not in the same time period). Our society has deteriorated too damn much.

Just one example. Go into the single battle of Iwo Jima and look at the horrors that took place to take that one little piece of dirt and then think how much worse would be the loss of life to everyone involved. If you really want to understand the war in the Pacific find a vet who can bring himself to speak of it. My father was one such man. When I asked about the war he would quietly hang his head and say,” It’s just to horrible to think about.” It’s easy for people to have their opinions safe and secure in the comforts of freedoms won at an unbelievable cost. Freedom more than anything is the most expensive thing on earth. The cost is human life. The cost is in living the rest of life without limbs, sight and an unbelievable array of human conditions. Many come home broken in spirit and soul. No one has any right to make judgements on such things until they have been in the same situation. We need to show respect to those who are willing to serve our nation and make that ultimate price.

I feel very privileged to have seen Phillip Morrison deliver a lecture in the early 70s for a UCLA extension course at the Claremont Colleges.

My grandparents met working on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, TN

Very well researched and produced documentary.

Tremendous documentary. What innovation, determination and collaboration resulted from their efforts. Their historic contribution to this country and really the world is beyond words.

I don't know if there's a cooler answer to a journalist's question:"What were you thinking about when the bomb went off" than what Oppenheimer said. Weather he was thinking about that verse from Bhagadvagita or not, that was one of the best quotes anyone who witnessed the Trinity test could have thought about. But imagine being there, witnessing one of the most important and ground braking singular events in a history.

This brings me back to 1956 as a young chemical engineer in charge of the treatment of 130 000 tons per month of uranium bearing ore. This was funded by the Manhattan project , and one did not think that the end purpose was the production of nuclear weapons. This industry died later, discredited and feared, although appears to be finding a new life with the current energy shortage and the new 😊dangers of global warming

''Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!

50 years later to the date, I stood at ground Zero, and stood in the doorway of the MCDonald Ranch House. Not sure if it is still done, but they used to open the site to small tours twice a year.

My great grandfather was the chief machinist at Gilman Hall, University Of California, Berkeley College Of Chemistry from 1914-1945 - which is where Plutonium was discovered.

Back in 8th grade, I did a presentation on The Manhattan Project, I don’t remember much about what I put together, but I do remember that I got an A on it.

Fascinating. My great uncle Dr. Rose was in the nuclear health physics division on this project and ended up in charge of that at Argonne after the war.

This was kind of light on Groves' accomplishments. Before the US entered the war, public sentiment was against any involvement in any European war. Very few people knew or cared that Japan was creating an Empire in the East. Many people in the military and government knew that eventually the US would be involved. Groves constructed the new training camps over the country. They sat empty until after December 7, 1941. Groves was also well educated, having taken many hours of military and college courses.

I remember reading that verse from the Bhagavad-Gita years ago. It really does describe nuclear weapons. And yet some good did come from it, such a medically-useful isotope used in cancer treatment. It's up to us to use nuclear power for good, not destruction.

Absolutely fantastic documentary 👏.. wow!!!

Thank you for this I am using this in a huge project where I could go to nationals this is amazing for me thank you

This turned just one second into an eternity ! Even a microsecond was a long time !

Mother and Daddy knew many of the scientists during the period the research was being made at the University of Chicago. Daddy was assigned to an entirely different agency, but they were all housed in pretty much the same areas of Chicago and at parties after work apparently the conversation got loose after a few drinks. Daddy told me that just about everyone, at least of the officers who lived and worked around there, had a pretty good idea of what was going on, and when the scientists were moved to Los Alamos, they figured the bomb and the potential end of the war was near.

Horrific weapon. And yet, it may be one of the reasons I’m here. Estimates upwards of a million casualties or more have been made for the conquest of Japan. My father was on a troop train to the pacific when the bomb was dropped. And so he was re-directed to Germany as an occupation force. I’m terribly saddened nonetheless at the thought of the tens of thousands that lost their lives as a result of those terror weapons. War is indescribably dreadful.

absolutely fascinating

My mom worked in the mail room of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos Summer 1945 when she was 17! She didn’t know what they were doing. Her brother in law was one of the scientists (Milo Bolstad). Legend has it that some of the scientists were interested in her/ hitting on her, proposing, some combination thereof, I think including Oppenheimer! I have a pic of her in Los Alamos outdoors during that summer.

Very interesting! I read all I can find on this subject.

44:44 that speech, Oppenheimer face, eyes, words, never seen such a dramatic profound expression of fear, those eyes, never seen those eyes before. deep beyond words words in that speech.

Awesome. Haunting. An awesome testament to the power of our technological species...we can build anything...overcome any technological challenge. Natures secretes are no match for us. But social problems are much more difficult for us to solve...a pity, really.

It is a fantastic historical document.

Feynman disturbing Teller's sleep with bongo drumming, nice anecdote! :-)

Fantastic video. Thank you for sharing this.

Incredible documentary, thanks

Wow! Very informative and learned a lot, I have visited Hiroshima at ground zero,Los Alamos (now Kirkland AFB) & spoke to 1st LT. Jacob Beser's son (Enola Gay's flight crew radar countermeasures officer,his job was to baby sit the electronic proximity fuse, the only man to fly BOTH missions) in Baltimore.

Who else is here after watching Oppenheimer?

Terrific footage

Imagine a time When it all began in the dying days of a war A weapon, that would settle the score Whoever found it first Would be sure to do their worst They always had before Imagine a man Where it all began A scientist pacing the floor In each nation, always eager to explore To build the best big stick To turn the winning trick But this was something more The big bang, took and shook the world Shot down the rising sun The end was begun, it would hit everyone When the chain reaction was done The big shots, try to hold it back Fools try to wish it away The hopeful depend on a world without end Whatever the hopeless may say Imagine a place Where it all began They gathered from across the land To work in the secrecy of the desert sand All of the brightest boys To play with the biggest toys More than they bargained for The big bang, took and shook the world Shot down the rising sun The hopeful depend on a world without end Whatever the hopeless may say Imagine a man When it all began The pilot of Enola Gay Flying out of the shock wave On that August day All the powers that be And the course of history Would be changed for evermore The big bang, took and shook the world Shot down the rising sun The end was begun, it would hit everyone When the chain reaction was done The big shots, try to hold it back Fools try to wish it away The hopeful depend on a world without end Whatever the hopeless may say The big bang, took and shook the world Shot down the rising sun The hopeful depend on a world without end Whatever the hopeless may say-RUSH Manhattan Project

That thunderstorm on test day must have been eerie for anybody there who had any form of superstition