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Why did J. Robert Oppenheimer invite John von Neumann to join the Manhattan Project?
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John von Neumann
John von Neumann (right).
J. Robert Oppenheimer invited John von Neumann to join the Manhattan Project in 1943 because of his specialized expertise in the nonlinear physics of hydrodynamics and shock waves.1
Von Neumann had previously applied this knowledge to chemical explosives during the British war effort and possessed experience with shaped-charge, armor-piercing projectiles. At Los Alamos, this expertise proved critical for the implosion design of the atomic bomb. He successfully calculated that a "lens" of faster- and slower-burning explosives could achieve the extreme symmetry required to compress a sphere of plutonium into a critical mass.12