The popular movie “Oppenheimer” has provided a new generation of the U.S. public with a powerful recount of the events surrounding the Manhattan Project and the end of the Second World War.

In September 2023, Lisa McDonald—in a Ceramic Tech Today article—highlighted the role of Massachusetts Institute of Technology ceramists in the Manhattan Project,¹ based on the work of Whittemore and McCreight. In this article, we seek to remember the work of William Houlder Zachariasen, a multifaceted physicist who made a seminal contribution to glass science and played an important role in the Manhattan Project.