Trinity test

The Trinity test was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

Explosive lens: A shaped explosive arrangement that focuses detonation waves to create a converging shock. Trinity’s implosion device used explosive lenses to compress its plutonium core evenly.
Manhattan Project: The United States-led wartime program that developed the first nuclear weapons. Trinity was the project’s first full-scale nuclear detonation.
Kenneth Bainbridge: The American physicist who directed the Trinity test’s technical preparations and operation. Bainbridge led the test organization and later told Oppenheimer, “Now we are all sons of bitches.”
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The U.S. atomic attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Trinity validated the plutonium implosion design later used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Jornada del Muerto: A desert basin in south-central New Mexico whose name means “Journey of the Dead Man.” The Trinity site lies in this remote basin, chosen partly for isolation and security.
Plutonium: A radioactive metallic element whose isotope plutonium-239 can sustain nuclear fission. The Gadget used a plutonium core driven into a supercritical state by implosion.
Leslie Groves: The U.S. Army engineer who directed the Manhattan Project. Groves oversaw the project’s organization and the decision to test the plutonium weapon.
George Kistiakowsky: The Ukrainian-American chemist who led the explosives work at Los Alamos. His group developed the explosive lenses essential to the device’s implosion.
Potsdam Declaration: The July 1945 Allied ultimatum demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender. The test’s success preceded the declaration and informed Allied leaders’ expectations about the war.
Trinity Site: The location on the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range where the Trinity device was detonated. The site preserves the ground zero of the first nuclear explosion.

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