Los Alamos: Breaking Scientific Boundaries

Test leader Edward Creutz joined the Manhattan Project in 1942 as a physicist at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Lab. Working under Eugene Wigner, Creutz helped design water-cooled production reactors, which became the basis for the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Site. In 1944, Creutz moved to Los Alamos to develop explosive lenses for Fat Man, the first implosion-type weapon.  Find out more about tour reservations and schedules on the Bradbury Museum website.  

By studying magnetic field disruptions at the Battleship Bunker (TA-18-2), scientists learned more about implosion. This building is on Los Alamos National Laboratory property. You can only access it through guided tours offered on specific dates. Find out more about tour reservations and schedules on the Bradbury Museum website.

If you want to learn more about the history of the Manhattan Project, make sure to stop by the Bradbury Science Museum. The museum’s interactive exhibits share stories from the project and provide a glimpse of the historic sites “behind the fence.” You’ll also discover the modern advances in research and cutting-edge science that still take place today at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The leaders of Project Y in Los Alamos have statues memorializing them in downtown Los Alamos. One statue is of J. Robert Oppenheimer who oversaw the Los Alamos Laboratory and gathered top scientists and engineers to design and fabricate the world’s first atomic weapons. The other statue is of Gen. Leslie Groves who led the Project Y from a military standpoint, securing funding and supporting project plans and ideas.

This memorial commemorates the building where the world's first atomic device was assembled. When the Manhattan Project acquired the Los Alamos Ranch School, engineers took advantage of the existing buildings, including a small icehouse on the bank of Ashley Pond. Scientists assembled the nuclear components for a test device, known as “the Gadget”, in the Ice House. The Gadget was detonated on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity test site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range.

From the outside, Pond Cabin looks like any typical Southwestern ranch building. Its rustic appearance belies the role it played in groundbreaking plutonium research. During the Manhattan Project, Emilio Segrè used the cabin as an office for his plutonium research team. This building is on Los Alamos National Laboratory property. You can only access it through guided tours offered on specific dates.

This building in downtown Los Alamos originally housed the electrical generator for the Los Alamos Ranch School. After the establishment of the Manhattan Project, the Power House became George Kistiakowsky’s home. Kistiakowsky  joined Project Y to investigate the feasibility of developing an implosion-type weapon using shaped explosive charges.

The Slotin Building is the place where scientist Louis Slotin conducted a criticality experiment that went awry in early 1946, leading to his death. The Slotin Building is on Los Alamos National Laboratory property. You can only access it through guided tours offered on specific dates.

On July 16, 1945, Manhattan Project scientists detonated the world’s first atomic device, known as “the Gadget,” at 5:29 am Mountain War Time. The US Army conducted the test at the Trinity Site in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 210 miles (337 km) south of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Today the Trinity Site is part of the White Sands Missile Range and can only be visited during a Trinity Site Open House, typically hosted twice a year.