  This article is set during the 1944 and 1945 final push to complete Project Y
-- the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos -- and focuses primarily on overcoming
the challenge of creating and demonstrating a successful convergent explosive
implosion to turn a subcritical quantity of plutonium into a critical mass. The
critical mass would then efficiently yield kilotons of trinitrotoluene
(TNT)-equivalent energy in about a microsecond, demonstrating the implosion
atomic bomb concept. This work culminated in the Trinity atomic test near
Alamogordo on July 16, 1945. This implosion effect demarcated the approach to
explosive science and technology the Laboratory has followed ever since,
including development of high-explosive synthesis and formulation, small and
large test and diagnostic facilities, shock dynamics theory, high-explosive
system design engineering, and three-dimensional implosion modeling and
simulation using some of the fastest computers in the world. This work also
ushered in a period of broader application of precision high explosives in
conventional munitions, demolition, mining and oil exploration, and space
travel.
