Ancient Greek philosophers first developed the idea that all matter is composed of invisible particles called atoms. The word atom comes from the Greek word, atomos, meaning indivisible.
Scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries revised the concept based on their experiments. By 1900, physicists knew the atom contains large quantities of energy. British physicist Ernest Rutherford was called the father of nuclear science because of his contribution to the theory of atomic structure. In 1904 he wrote:
If it were ever possible to control at will the rate of disintegration of the radio elements, an enormous amount of energy could be obtained from a small amount of matter.
Albert Einstein developed his theory of the relationship between mass and energy one year later. The mathematical formula is E=mc2, or "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared." It took almost 35 years for someone to prove Einstein's theory.
The Discovery Of Fission
In 1934, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted experiments in Rome that showed neutrons could split many kinds of atoms. The results surprised even Fermi himself. When he bombarded uranium with neutrons, he did not get the elements he expected. The elements were much lighter than uranium.
In the fall of 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman fired neutrons from a source containing the elements radium and beryllium into uranium (atomic number 92). They were surprised to find lighter elements, such as barium (atomic number 56), in the leftover materials.
These elements had about half the atomic mass of uranium. In previous experiments, the leftover materials were only slightly lighter than uranium.
Hahn and Strassman contacted Lise Meitner in Copenhagen before publicizing their discovery. She was an Austrian colleague who had been forced to flee Nazi Germany. She worked with Niels Bohr and her nephew, Otto R. Frisch. Meitner and Frisch thought the barium and other light elements in the leftover material resulted from the uranium splitting -- or fissioning. However, when she added the atomic masses of the fission products, they did not total the uranium's mass. Meitner used Einstein's theory to show the lost mass changed to energy. This proved fission occurred and confirmed Einstein's work.
http://www.nuc.umr.edu/nuclear_facts/history/history.html
THAT, foxy, is what we call evidence.
We didn't just keep messing around with beakers and tubes until one day KABLAMO. there was a theory, experiments, evidence, back to theory, experiment, evidence leading up to the ability to manipulate atoms. In other words, The Manhattan Project was NOT the product of faith but evidence in science.
You asked how the fuse was lit. Science will reserve an answer until physical evidence becomes available. That is the criteria by which we derive our understanding of physical truth. Can you say the same thing about your notion of an ID? What is your evidence of such? Further, who created your god in order for your god to have created this Earth? Can you show me any evidence of such?
Giving me some dimestore rhetoric about explaining everything that has ever happened to me in my life is laughable. I can say the same regarding your life and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. With a sum total of Zero evidence we can all imagine a god with a chariot pulling the sun accross the sky. Does this fuzzy logic make Helios the Intellegent Designer? hardly.
The rest of the jim jones lecture is just not applicable. You seem to think that it takes a special someone, in this case a christian, to understand god. Im sorry, the physical world is not pick and choose like that.
And I KNOW we don't have all the science we will ever have. THAT is the beauty of science versus dogma. when you can whip out some evidence on par with a SCIENTIFIC standard, or care to tell me who created your god, then get back to me.
