Manhattan Project

noun

1. U.S. History. the unofficial designation for the U.S. War Department's secret program, organized in 1942, to explore the isolation of radioactive isotopes and the production of an atomic bomb: initial research was conducted at Columbia University in Manhattan.

Manhattan Project

noun

1. (during World War II) the code name for the secret US project set up in 1942 to develop an atomic bomb

Manhattan Project

1. The code name for the effort to develop atomic bombs (see also atomic bomb ) for the United States during World War II . The first controlled nuclear reaction took place in Chicago in 1942, and by 1945, bombs had been manufactured that used this chain reaction to produce great explosive force. The project was carried out in enormous secrecy. After a test explosion in July 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (see also Hiroshima ) and Nagasaki .

Word History and Origins

Origin of Manhattan Project¹

Extracted from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan District and DSM (Development of Substitute Materials) Project

Example Sentences

And yet Mr. Trump cloaked the effort’s announcement in glamour, calling it “potentially ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” aiming “to liberate our economy, and make the U.S. government accountable to ‘WE THE PEOPLE.’”

From New York Times

Trump has likened the new initiative to the Manhattan Project, a top-secret World War Two programme to develop the first nuclear weapons.

From BBC

It’s been a testing ground for the Manhattan Project and a crossroads for drug trafficking networks, as dramatized in the television series “Breaking Bad.”

From Los Angeles Times

However, says author Steve Olson, who wrote about the Manhattan Project’s plutonium reactors in “The Apocalypse Factory,” “that is not going to happen with any Republican administration if Republicans continue on their current path.”

From Los Angeles Times

The Cambridge academic was a pioneer in the field of fluid dynamics, and was even brought into the Manhattan Project to model the likely stability of the world's first atomic bomb test.

From BBC