[leonidasrup]

> Or it might have ignited a fusion reaction in the atmosphere and destroyed the world

"The “near zero” chances Oppenheimer unnerves Groves with in-movie probably come from Manhattan Project physicist Arthur Compton, who told author Pearl S. Buck in a 1959 interview that they’d calculated the odds at “slightly less than one-in-three-million.” In 1975, Bethe denied that there had ever been a less-than-one-in-three-million chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, but the idea had already lodged itself in the public imagination."

https://www.inverse.com/science/did-oppenheimer-really-worry...