Doctor Atomic of July 16, 1945 (the day of the test). During the second act, time frequently slows down for the characters and then snaps back into reality. The opera ends in the final, prolonged moment before the bomb is detonated. Although the original commission for the opera suggested that U.S. physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," be fashioned as a 20th-century Doctor Faustus, Adams and Sellars deliberately attempted to avoid this characterization. Alice Goodman worked for two years with Adams on the project before leaving, objecting to the characterization of Edward Teller, as dictated by the original
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists legal and ethical considerations. Once the Soviet Union developed atomic weapons, the concern surrounding the world's destruction was a great fear of the scientists working on the "Bulletin." The proximity of nuclear devastation was a popular interest and, as a result, "Bulletin" co-editor Hyman Goldsmith asked landscape artist Martyl Langsdorf to create a cover for the June 1947 magazine. Langsdorf, who was married to Manhattan Project physicist Alexander Langsdorf, first considered using the symbol for uranium but then realized that a clock would better convey "a sense of urgency." The resultant Doomsday Clock, which only has bullets labeling the numbers