Members of the Manhattan Project Team

Members of the Manhattan Project Team

40 Years After: MIT, Los Alamos, and the Bomb
April 17, 1985
Stratton Student Center

Victor K. Weisskopf, Philip Morrison, Martin Deutsch, Anthony French, David H. Frisch, Cyril S. Smith, Jerrold Zacharias, Jerome B. Wiesner, with His Excellency the Indian Ambassador to the United States of America, K.S. Bajpai

A discussion on what the world has learned about averting a nuclear holocaust. The panelists were ten MIT faculty who were members of the Manhattan Project team, which built the first atomic bombs at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The lecture was opened with a screening of the film “The Day After Trinity.” Trinity was the code name for Alamagordo, New Mexico, the site of the first detonation of the plutonium bomb. Institute Professor Victor K. Weisskopf opened the talk: “The scientists at Los Alamos believed that such powerful weapons would make war impossible. We were naïve. We meant well. But at this moment in history, I do believe we are on a collision course.”

Opening screening: The Day After Trinity. April 17, 1985.