ABSTRACT
World War II would radically transform both science and technology. If World War I and the interwar period set the stage for the military–industrial–academic complex and for big science, then World War II was certainly the period when those concepts began to flower and become firmly established. The experience of World War I led many people to conclude that new weapons systems, based upon advancements in science and technology, might be a determining factor in the outcome of World War II. Even while the United States was still technically neutral, Roosevelt committed $6,000 towards the establishment of an Advisory Committee for Uranium, or U-Committee. Like the Americans and the British, German scientists quickly recognized the potential of nuclear fission, but the history of the German nuclear program has been a subject of continuing debate. Before 1943 the majority of wartime research did not go into the creation of an atomic bomb; rather it went into the development of radar.
