Nuclear weapons began to cause fear among people from the very moment when the possibility of their creation was theoretically proven. And for more than half a century the world has been living in this fear, only its magnitude changes: from the paranoia of the 50-60s to permanent anxiety now. But how did such a situation even become possible? How could the idea of creating such a terrible weapon come into the human mind? We know that the nuclear bomb was actually created by the hands of the greatest physicists of those times, many of them were Nobel laureates at that time or later became them. The author tried to give a clear and accessible answer to these and many other questions, talking about the race for possession of nuclear weapons. The main attention is paid to the fate of individual physicists directly involved in the events under consideration.