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Work on the atomic bomb approaches its culminating point, led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and Army Commander General Leslie Groves. Scientists at Los Alamos are divided regarding the moral and social implications of their work but pressures from Washington drive the project forward. Oppenheimer finds some rest in the poetry of Baudelaire as his wife, Kitty, contemplates the contradictions of peace, war, and love. On the night they must test the first atomic bomb a massive electrical storm lashes the site. As panic takes hold, Oppenheimer faces his own personal crisis alone in the desert, recalling a sonnet by John Donne that inspired him to name the test site 'Trinity': Batter my heart, three-person'd God.
With the rain still coming down, Groves disregards all warnings about the storm, and Oppenheimer orders everybody to prepare for the test shot at 5.30 A.M. Everyone waits, each absorbed in his own thoughts. Suddenly, the night sky is filled with a terrifying vision of Vishnu as described in the Bhagavad Gita. At zero minus ten minutes, a warning rocket is fired and a siren sounds. Then the storm breaks, and the sky over Ground Zero suddenly clears. Another warning rocket goes off, and at zero minus 60 seconds, a third one signals the final countdown. There is an eerie silence, and then an era begins.a
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