Nuclear Physicists And The Development Of A Nuclear Bomb Scientists in the 1930s, using machines that could break apart the nuclear cores of atoms, confirmed Einstein's formula E=mc˛ . The release of energy in a nuclear transformation was so great that it could cause a detectable change in the mass of the nucleus. But the study of nuclei -- in those years the fastest growing area of physics -- had scant effect on Einstein. Nuclear physicists were gathering into ever-larger teams of scientists and technicians, heavily funded by governments and foundations, engaged with massive experimental devices. Such work was alien to Einstein's ha