Page 96 - DK Life Stories Albert Einstein by AELC

Physicists quickly realized
DID YOU KNOW? the destructive power of

Like Albert, physicist nuclear fission, and Szilard
Leo Szilard was conducted a series of
a refugee who had
fled from experiments at Columbia
Nazi Germany. University in New York to
prove this. He figured out that

uranium—an easily mined mineral
within the Earth—would be ideal for an atomic

bomb. Its atoms could be split to produce a great
amount of power. As a result, an explosion of

massive size and force could be created. If the
Nazi scientists could create such a weapon,

Hitler would have the power to take over every
country in the world.

Roosevelt immediately understood the
danger of the situation and created the Advisory

Committee on Uranium. This was the start of
what would eventually become known as the

Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project
was the American-led project to develop an

atomic weapon. It was run by the Army Corps
of Engineers as of June 1942.

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