Thin Man (nuclear bomb) and the name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel "The Thin Man" and series of movies by the same name. The "Fat Man" bomb would be round and fat and was named after Sydney Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon". "Little Boy" would come last and be named only to contrast to the "Thin Man" bomb. Oppenheimer assembled a team at the Los Alamos Laboratory to work on plutonium gun design that included senior engineer Edwin McMillan and senior physicists Charles Critchfield and Joseph Hirschfelder. Critchfield had been working with sabots, which Oppenheimer believed would be required by the
The Thin Man While some story elements were used in one of the sequel movies, this early draft is very different from the final published novel. Although Hammett lived until 1961, "The Thin Man" was his last published novel. Lillian Hellman, in an introduction to a compilation of Hammett's five novels, contemplated several explanations for Hammett's retirement as a novelist, I have been asked many times over the years why he did not write another novel after "The Thin Man". I do not know. I think, but I only think, I know a few of the reasons: he wanted to do a new