In mid-1944, Oppenheimer shifted the focus of work at
Los Alamos from research to the design of the two bombs, Fat Man
and Little Boy. It was an indication that the project had reached
a new stage–the scientists moving from theory to application–and
they began to prepare themselves for the first test of their work.
It was decided that Little Boy, the U-235 bomb, needed
no test, as its design was basic enough that scientists were certain
it would work. But the plutonium bomb, Fat Boy, was less of a sure
thing. Oppenheimer and Groves decided to arrange a test, which
would be the world's first nuclear explosion.
They selected an isolated area in the middle of the desert
near Alamogordo, New Mexico, called the Jornada del Muerto, or "Journey
of Death." The desolate land stretched sixty miles to the north
and south and forty miles to the east and west. It was code-named
"Trinity."
No one knows who named the site, but some have claimed
that the name came from Oppenheimer himself. According to this
version of the story, Oppenheimer took the idea from a John Donne poem,
which read, "Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you / As
yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend; / That I may rise, and
stand, o'erthrow me, and bend / Your force, to break, blow, burn,
and make me new."
There was initial concern about what would happen after
the explosion; the scientists realized that they could only complete
the test if the wind was traveling in a certain direction. If it
was blowing the wrong way, the wind could carry fallout (radioactive
dust and debris) over civilized areas. The lead physicists, particularly
Oppenheimer, were consumed by anxiety as they waited to see if
the test could take place and, more crucially, if the bomb would
work.
The wait seemed to last forever.
