This episode is presented by eBay.

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Then when you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals

on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

sellers.

Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American for the seven days starting December 31st, 2008. I'm Steve Merski. This week on the podcast, we'll talk first about the

Manhattan Project and later about the opera Doctor Atomic, which portrays the efforts and anxieties of the

scientists at Los Alamos, especially Robert Oppenheimer.

The opera ran in New York back in October and November, accompanied by numerous events in the

city related to the Manhattan Project.

I went to a gathering of surviving project scientists at New York

University back on October 17th. They shared some of their memories of the project and

its aftermath, and we'll hear some highlights from that session. First, Harold Agnew, who was a

young physicist during the war and went on to become director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory

from 1970 to 1979.

Here he talks about Enrico Fermi and then Leo Zillard.

You hear a lot about Oppenheimer.

You hear some about General Groves.

You don't hear as much publicly about Fermi.

But to me, the real brains, the scientific brains, was Fermi. And in a way, we owe all to Sweden. Now, if you look at the literature,

the letters in Colombia, between Pagram, who was the dean and Fermi, you see that

...