 After the August 1943 Quebec Agreement merged the British and American atomic bomb projects , Mark Oliphant persuaded the Admiralty to release Massey to work on the Manhattan Project . In November 1943 , Massey set out with Oliphant for the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley in a B @-@ 24 Liberator bomber . The Radiation Laboratory 's part was to develop an electromagnetic isotope separation process . Massey was in charge of its Theoretical Group , which included American David Bohm and Australian Eric Burhop . They studied the characteristics of electric discharges in magnetic fields , today known as Bohm diffusion , and studied the ionization of uranium compounds used as feed in the electromagnetic uranium enrichment process such as uranium tetrachloride ( <unk> ) and uranium hexafluoride ( UF6 ) . Oliphant returned to Britain in March 1945 , and was replaced as head of the British mission in Berkeley by Massey . Wartime papers produced by the group were collected and published in The Characteristics of Electrical Discharges in Magnetic Fields ( 1949 ) . 
