Alex WellersteinVerified account

I've been looking over some Trinity-related literature at the moment. A few things that popped out to me this time that I hadn't remembered reading.

New Mexico was actually #2 on Groves' list of preferred test sites. #1 was in California. Groves went with #2 after he learned that to get permission to test in #1, he'd need to go through Gen. Patton, and Groves loathed Patton, "the most disagreeable man I had ever met."

George Kistiakowsky, the top scientist for high explosives, chose to leave for the test site just after midnight on Friday the 13th, because he "believed in unorthodox luck."

Scientist Philip Morrison later said that the "scariest thing" about the test experience was "the fast driving young woman who drove us down there with the convoy, who was a high-speed, pedal to the floor the whole way."

Groves and Oppenheimer had to watch the test from different shelters, separated a bit, so that if one of them died, the other could keep managing the project.