J. Robert Oppenheimer and John Von Neumann. View of two of the principal members of the Manhattan Project, J. R. Oppenheimer (left, 1904-1967) and John Von Neumann (right, 1903-1957). This project was started in 1942, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, in order to develop, construct and test the atomic bomb. The American physicist Oppenheimer, who studied under well known physicists such as Rutherford, Heisenberg and Dirac, was nominated director of the Manhattan Project in 1943. The Hungarian-American mathematician Von Neumann was an expert in hydrodynamics. His knowledge was of great importance in the design of the implosion device used for the plutonium bomb.