The idea of a thermonuclear fusion bomb ignited by a smaller fission bomb was first proposed by Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller when they were talking at Columbia University in September 1941, at the start of what would become the Manhattan Project. Teller spent much of the Manhattan Project attempting to figure out how to make the design work, preferring it to work on the atomic bomb, and over the last year of the project was assigned exclusively to the task. However once World War II ended, there was little impetus to devote many resources to the "Super", as it was then known.