Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a jingoistic call on social media for a “new Manhattan Project,” this time to win the so-called race for artificial intelligence supremacy.

Upon learning that Germany could be working on a similar project, Albert Einstein sent President Roosevelt a 1939 letter warning him about the potential for a nuclear chain reaction.

Manhattan Project: Albert Einstein Albert Einstein was an international pop star of science who urged the US government to build an atom bomb.

“It was an awesome responsibility.” The legacy of the Manhattan Project remains mixed, Sayward says. The bombs dropped in Japan killed more than 129,000 people — most of them civilians.

In 1939, scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to set up the new advistory committee on Uranium to study the potential role of the metal as a weapon.

Einstein's influence on the Manhattan Project Einstein's letter to Roosevelt sold for nearly $3.9 million at auction. CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD. 2024 ...

Einstein's influence on the Manhattan Project Einstein's letter to Roosevelt sold for nearly $3.9 million at auction. CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD. 2024 ...

On 2 August 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter that would result in the Manhattan Project, and one of history's most significant, and destructive, inventions – the atomic bomb.

A letter from Albert Einstein, which encouraged the US to develop the world's first nuclear bombs, is to go up for auction. Written to President Franklin D Roosevelt, in 1939, the note warns that ...