The Manhattan Project: From Los Alamos to Brookhaven Lab

In 1946 as World War II drew to a close, Camp Upton, the US Army training center, closed down.  Los Alamos, center of the US atomic energy initiative during the war and home of The Manhattan Project, was now expanding to 10 government sites around the country. Camp Upton, in the rural area of Yaphank, Long Island, was a natural location for one of these facilities, a new research center for peaceful uses of atomic energy. In 1947, Brookhaven National Laboratories was born. Former Los Alamos physicists as well as scientists from around the world came to Brookhaven and Bellport and settled here during the years following the war. Tom Williams’ father, Dr. Clarke Williams, was one of them.  A nuclear physicist and authority on neutrons, he was also the deputy director of the lab for many years. Tom will speak about growing up here, his father’s career and his reminiscences of life in this important chapter of our local history.