British scientists were crucial to the success of the Manhattan Project, which d

eveloped the first atomic bombs during World War II. After Rudolf Peierls and Ot
to Frisch at the University of Birmingham calculated that a small sphere of pure
uranium-235 could explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite, thei
r memorandum led to Britain's own atomic bomb project. This project shared resea
rch with the US, but was eventually subsumed by the Manhattan Project under the
1943 Quebec Agreement. A British mission led by the Australian physicist