Here's a little
history about LANL...
On December 6, 1941 -- the day before
Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor -- President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an order establishing the "
Manhattan Project," on the advice of
Albert Einstein, to build an
atomic bomb. General
Leslie Groves was put in charge of the project, and
Robert Oppenheimer was made head of the
development and
production side of things. The site of a
remote boys' school called the
Los Alamos Ranch School in
New Mexico was chosen as the
headquarters of the Manhattan Project in 1942. The school was moved out, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory was built.
Having dispensed with that
very brief review of stateside
WWII history, lemme add that I've visited the
Los Alamos area often (though I rarely get to see anything but the outside of the National
Laboratory buildings), and I really do like LANL a
lot. Aside from the
beautiful forested
scenery of the area, I just like the idea of a whole
town built for the advancement of
science. Regardless of whether or not you think the
A-Bomb was a necessary or unnecessary
evil, LANL has had
many other
accomplishments -- in all branches of the sciences -- since then, and the oft-repeated wish (usually expressed in the guestbook of the excellent
Bradbury Museum) that the entire town of Los Alamos should be demolished seems extremely
counterproductive. Hell, it's probably the only town in the country where
geeks outnumber the
normals -- what's not to love?