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Re: [Phys-L] A bomb without Einstein?



Regarding speculation about Einstein's letter that initiated the Manhattan Project...

It was Leo Szilard who wrote the letter to the President and then went to Einstein and got him to sign it. If Einstein had not been available or refuse to sign it, Szilard probably would have gotten other prominent scientists to sign it. While Einstein's name was significant, the contents of Szilard's letter, especially to President's military advisors also carried significant weight.

Ironically, six years later when Szilard got 69 scientists at the Met Lab to sign a petition to the President against using the atomic bomb on a Japanese city, his petition was ignored, or at least counteracted by a July, 1945, poll requested by Arthur Holly Compton in which 131 out of 150 participants favoring options favoring the military use of the atomic bomb against Japan, and by the June 16th recommendation of the Interim Committee (Compton, Fermi, Lawrence, and Oppenheimer) that "we can see no acceptable alternative to direct military use."

Of course, that recommendation was to a different President, who later stated, "We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history - and won." (The New York Times, Tuesday, August 7, 1945, p. 1) and still later stated: "The atom bomb was no 'great decision'... It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness." - Harry S. Truman, at a Columbia University Seminar, April 28, 1959, New York City, as quoted in _The Buck Stops Here: The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed History_, Thomas J. Craughwell, Edwin Kiester Jr., Quarry Books, 2010, p. 178.

In a related speculative mood, could the plutonium bomb have been successful in 1945 without chemists Arthur Wahl and Stanley Thompson, or physicists Richard Tolman and Seth Neddermeyer?

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX


-----Original Message-----
From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] On Behalf Of Savinainen Antti
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 1:32 PM
To: phys-l@phys-l.org
Subject: [Phys-L] A bomb without Einstein?

Hi,

I read a blog on Einstein's role in the atomic bomb with interest: <http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/06/27/bomb-without-einstein/>.
I confess that I may have given too much credit (or blame, depending on your moral views) for Einstein on providing a crucial impulse for the Manhattan Project.

Cheers,

Antti
Finland

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