On 2 August 1939, Albert Einstein wrote to the US President Franklin D Roosevelt. His letter would result in the Manhattan Project, and one of history's most significant – and destructive – inventions. The dramatic account of the lethal harnessing of atomic power told in the 2023 blockbuster film Oppenheimer might have been nothing more than science fiction had a two-page letter, dated 2 August 1939, never been written.
"Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy," reads a typed letter to US President Franklin D Roosevelt signed by hand by the esteemed physicist Albert Einstein. This energy, he continues, could be used "for the construction of extremely powerful bombs". Expressing suspicion at Germany's decision to halt uranium sales in occupied Czechoslovakia, the letter was the impetus for a $2 billion top-secret research programme, the "Manhattan Project": a race to beat Germany in the development of atomic weapons.
The three-year project, led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer , would propel the US into the nuclear age and lead to one of history's most significant – and destructive – inventions: the atomic bomb. On 10 September 2024, Einstein's consequential and carefully worded letter will be auctioned at Christie's New York , and is expected to fetch in excess of $4m. Two versions of the letter were drafted: a shorter version, being auctioned by Christie's, and a more detailed version , deliv.