Steven Shapin: Barrel of Greenbacks (opens in new tab)

The Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb, transmuted pure theory into mass slaughter, and it changed everything for the scientists who did the work. For Oppenheimer, as its scientific director, it brought first power, then fame, then banishment. For Alvarez, the bomb was a launchpad to a brilliant life as an experimental physicist and counsellor to the Cold War state.