In the summer of 1945, the forbidding landscape of the New Mexico desert, known as the Jornada del Muerto, became the stage for the birth of the atomic age. At the center of this "Journey of Death," a 100-foot steel tower held "the gadget"—a five-foot sphere of explosives and metal containing a heart of man-made plutonium. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the wasted and sleep-deprived director of the Los Alamos laboratory, bore the immense responsibility for this object, which felt warm to the touch like a living thing. The successful test of this device marked a terrifying transition from theoretical physics to a reality of elemental forces, forever altering the course of human history.The aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left the world—and the scientists who created the weapon—profoundly altered. While President Truman was sobered by the "horrible" thought of wiping out another 100,000 people, the scientific community was deeply divided. Leo Szilard, the man who first conceived of the chain reaction, condemned the use of the bomb as one of the greatest blunders in history, while Otto Hahn, the discoverer of fission, was driven to deep depression. Oppenheimer himself expressed doubts to General Groves, reflecting a complex mixture of professional triumph and moral haunting that would define the legacy of the pioneers who brought the power of a star to Earth.

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