ABSTRACT
If World War I has become known as the “war of the engineers”, World War II could aptly be described as the war of the scientists. It demonstrated in striking fashion that the outcome of military conflict may be decisively influenced by the technological prowess of the warring states. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the last days of the conflict were but the most drastic evidence of the potency of the weaponry that had been developed during the course of the war. Less spectacular but arguably equally significant technological developments, among them the invention of radar and jet-propelled aircraft, as well as advances in rocket technology, provided further evidence of the central role of science and engineering to modern warfare. The Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, employing thousands of scientists at a number of different locations throughout the United States, may be seen as the origin and quintessence of modern big science; indeed, World War II fundamentally altered the relationship between science and the state. 1
