Charles Mann

But in the physics community, 40 years isn't such a long time.

After the thing went off, there was tremendous excitement at Los Alamos.

Everybody had parties.

We all ran around.

I sat on the end of a Jeep and beat drums and so on, except for one man that I remember.

His name was Bob Wilson, who got me into it in the first place.

He's sitting there moping.

He says, what are you moping about?

He says, it's a terrible thing we made.

I said, but you started it.

You got us into it.

You see, what happened to me, and what happened to the rest of us, is we started it for a good reason.

But then we're working very hard to do something, right?

And to accomplish it is a pleasure, it's excitement.

And you don't stop to think anymore, you know, you just stop.

After you thought at the beginning, you stop thinking.

So he was the only one who was still thinking about it at that particular moment.

She had tuberculosis, which was highly contagious.

And his own parents and sister even were saying, you know, break up your marriage plans.

You can't do this.