Nicholas Metropolis arrived in Los Alamos in 1943. Shortly after receiving his PhD in physics from the University of Chicago, Metropolis was recruited by J. Robert Oppenheimer to lead efforts in computational research for the bomb.
Working under Metropolis’ supervision were John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam. Metropolis collaborated with von Neumann and Ulam and developed the Monte Carlo method. The Monte Carlo method is a statistical approach to solve many-body problems. Metropolis also contributed to the development of the MANIAC I computer.