♪ ♪
(windshield wipers beating)
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: On the afternoon of January 16, 1939,
two of the most famous scientists in the world
visited a remote mansion outside New York City.
♪ ♪
Hidden inside was a world-class laboratory,
the consuming passion of a secretive millionaire.
MICHAEL HILTZIK: Within the scientific community,
there were tales of this mysterious hilltop laboratory,
fabulously equipped,
owned and operated by this millionaire
who moved in the background, like a shadow.
And you couldn't just get in.
But if you were a top-flight talent,
the invitation would come from Alfred Loomis.
NARRATOR: Physicists Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi
brought staggering news.
That afternoon,
Alfred Loomis became one of the first people to learn
that scientists had split the atom
in a process that transformed mass into energy,
potentially huge amounts of energy.
Nobody knew the answer to the critical question:
could this be used to build an unimaginably powerful bomb?
Under any circumstances,
the prospect would have been unsettling.
Under these circumstances, it was terrifying:
nuclear fission had been discovered in Hitler's Germany.
(people cheering and shouting) ♪ ♪
For years, Loomis had been hearing rumors of the work
going on in German labs--
jet engines, tanks, artillery,
synthetic fuels, ballistic missiles,
and now, nuclear fission.
With every discovery,
Hitler was growing more dangerous.
♪ ♪
Bohr and Fermi left Tuxedo Park the next morning.
Alone in his mansion, Loomis decided to pursue
what must have seemed a forlorn hope:
he would dedicate himself
to overcoming Germany's scientific advantage.
It was an implausible notion,
but it would change Loomis's life
and, against all odds, alter the course of history.
ROBERT BUDERI: I remember first learning about Loomis
and just being blown away.
I'm, like, "What?
This thing happened and nobody knows about it?"
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Alfred Loomis didn't start out reclusive, a millionaire,
or even a scientist.
In fact, he had tried hard to live an unremarkable life.
After graduating from Harvard in 1912,
he took a job as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street,
made a good marriage, started a family,
and settled in the village of Tuxedo Park,
40 miles outside Manhattan.
♪ ♪
On the surface, there was little that distinguished Loomis
from any number of his well-bred peers.
But behind the polished façade
was a raw, unformed ambition and a most unusual mind.
Alfred's rigid propriety was in fact a penance,
the legacy of his father's transgressions.
Everyone knew that his father was unfaithful,
everyone knew that he drank too much.
His parents' marriage was miserable,
and so Alfred had this sort of rootless, parentless existence.
And he felt the shame of his father's behavior
hanging over him.
NARRATOR: Growing up in an emotional void,
Alfred found solace in scientific exploration.
He was captivated by life's mysteries--
the smallest increments of time,
prime numbers, black holes.
The pursuit of the unknown offered an escape,
but only for a time.
The family's troubles culminated
when Alfred's father died suddenly,
leaving the young man responsible
for his mother and sister.
CONANT: The family had name and stature, but they didn't have money.
Alfred wanted to make sure
his sister and his mother would be okay,
so he had to enter a profession, earn money,
and make up for, in wealth and respectability,
what his father had not bequeathed them.
NARRATOR: Alfred's marriage was the perfect expression
of his rectitude.
♪ ♪
JACQUELINE L. QUILLEN: Oh, my Lord, my grandmother,
Ellen Farnsworth Loomis, was beautiful.
I mean, she was called "the most beautiful girl in Boston."
JACQUELINE LOOMIS: They were very, very active.
I don't think they had a quiet moment.
It was the one time that I think they were both incredibly happy,
and had a lovely marriage.
NARRATOR: Alfred and Ellen played tennis and golf,
attended soirées,
and were praised in the social columns.
Despite Alfred's determination to fit in,
there were things that set him apart.
♪ ♪
QUILLEN: I have seen Alfred
take on my father, a very good chess player,
and two other scientists, good chess players.
He was playing all three of them simultaneously.
he was looking away from it,
possibly on the telephone in another
room, and the moves were called out to him.
Alfred would nod his head
and then reply what his move was.
Alfred never lost.
NARRATOR: There were other signs
that there was more to Alfred Loomis
than met the eye.
In his off hours, he applied for patents
on various small devices he had invented,
ranging from a slide rule for calculating securities
to a reliable fire extinguisher.
♪ ♪
For five years,
Loomis bridled his restless mind at Tuxedo Park.
Then, in 1917, he got a reprieve
when the United States went to war with Germany.
♪ ♪
He trained as an officer
and with the help of an influential cousin,
was posted to the Army's research center
near Aberdeen, Maryland.
CONANT: For Alfred Loomis, this is like Heaven.
Being able to invent things, having a real impact,
this is a whole intoxicating new world to him.
(firing)
DAVID ZIMMERMAN: He comes up with a device to measure muzzle velocities
much more accurately than any other existing device.
Accurate muzzle velocity
means more accuracy hitting your targets.
And the fact that Loomis actually improves
the accuracy of the major weapon of the First World War
is quite an extraordinary accomplishment
for someone who is in fact a lawyer.
(gun fires)
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: When the war ended in 1918,
Alfred returned to his old law firm.
He needed the income --
he had a wife and three sons to support now,
as well as his mother and sister.
But at Aberdeen,
he had glimpsed a different, irresistible future.
His ambition had crystallized.
(pouring and hissing)
♪ ♪
QUILLEN: The world was exploding with new science.
It's as if the whole world of science
went from black and white to Technicolor,
and Alfred wanted to be part of it.
NARRATOR: For Loomis,
the prospect of a lifetime's worth
of soirées, socializing, and corporate law
had become unbearable.
If he was going to avoid that fate,
Loomis would have to make enough money
to get out from under his obligations.