Regarding the WWII Meeting of Bohr & Heisenberg 318
HarlanC writes: "The NY Times has an article (registration required) discussing the famous meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen in 1941. The conclusion is that Heisenberg revealed to Bohr the existance of a Nazi atomic program in an attempt to obtain assistance from Bohr. The Times of London article is here (long registration process required)" The play "Copenhagen" was based on a fictionalization of this meeting, it was much better than "Proof", I assure you.
Other info on the Nazi bomb program (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Other info on the Nazi bomb program (Score:4, Interesting)
The book The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg [barnesandnoble.com] is a really interesting read if you get a chance.
Additional reading (Score:3, Interesting)
I strongly recommend the book Heisenberg's War [amazon.com] by Thomas Powers. It provides a much deeper background into this meeting (and the entire German nuclear arms program) and is quite readable. Here's a bn.com link [barnesandnoble.com] to the book if you want to avoid amazon.
Re:Additional reading (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Additional reading (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Additional reading (Score:3, Interesting)
Heisenberg's War even suggests that Heisenberg worked on an atomic powered vehicle rather than a bomb for moral reasons. People tried to convince him and his family to stay in the United States as the Nazi's were becoming stronger, but he refused. His reluctance to focus nuclear energy on a bomb may have saved the world as we know it.
Re:Additional reading (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other side of the war (lets use the two-sided model here) there was the Rocket. It, much like its spiritual predecessor the Paris Gun, was also an inneffective use of resources. More people were killed constructing the Rockets than were killed by them in combat. Development of the Rocket took away from Germany's air power and perhaps helped their loss in that arena, or at least hastened it.
Both sides had overestimated the other sides progress in the areas in which they themselves were most advanced.
After the war, the two technologies came together as the ICBM, a dangerous weapon which dramatically changed the nature of the global arena. The cold war was born and much human labor was lost in the making of tools which we hope will never be used.
--
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
But it sure was psychologically devestating, no? The thought of unmanned rockets, fired from deep within Germany, able to kill Londeners. And the whirring high pitched sounds it must have made coming in, how terrifying. Plus, of course, Germany really never could have kept up with the Allies air superiority presence (especially since the Allies had radar), hence the rockets made attacking England possible late in the war.
Hitler was pretty desperate for a "miracle weapon" late in the war, and continously promised his people that Germany was close to such a weapon that would stem the tide of the war. If he had just waited another couple of years and allowed his scientists to develop jet engines before the war, rockets, maybe even A-bombs, who would have known what our world would be like today?
Re:Additional reading (Score:2, Interesting)
Doodlebugs or buzz-bombs (V1s), were actually much more frightening since their guidance system dependend on the engine cutting out and the missile diving down in silence. Hearing this was a trigger for people to run for cover. Fortunately my mother's family had time to hit the basement when one landed in their back-garden in Essex. (For extra points, WWII buffs can explain the story why these were landing in Essex and not London).
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
I've often thought it a good thing that the Germans didn't have the V-1/V-2 during the Battle of Britain. They could have created quite a bit of stress by being able to maintain a 24 hour bombardment. (Even 1-2 missiles every 1-2 hours during the time that attacks were not underway would have generated quite a stir.)
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
Plus, of course, Germany really never could have kept up with the Allies air superiority presence (especially since the Allies had radar)
The Germans had radar as well, in fact their night fighters had far superior systems than the Allies could muster. In terms of air superiority though it came down to sheer weight of numbers. Aircraft like the Me 262 and Arado jet bombers were far and away superior to the Typhoon, Thunderbolt, etc. Germany simply couldn't produce enough of them, especially when faced with the massive number of aircraft fielded by the Russians.
Re:Additional reading (Score:3, Informative)
It's even more complicated than that ...
British ant-aircraft systems were well integrated, and benefited from Hitlers insistence that the Luftwaffe switch from military targets to cities. Had the Luftwaffe continued their attacks on British airbases and defence installations as they had at the start of the Battle of Britain then the outcome would have been decidedly different. Despite outnumbering the Luftwaffe (a little known fact) at the start of the Battle of Britain, RAF losses had almost crippled defence activities prior to Hitlers directive.
As for the technical superiority of aircraft, it varies from model to model. The Me109 had too short a range for really effective bomber escort, but with the was well matched against most enemy fighters until quite late in the war. The Focke-Wulf Fw190 (which was eventually renamed the Ta152 for its final versions) was far superior to British aircraft, and an equal to the American mustang. What the Germans lacked was large, long range bombers, and a really good close support aircraft like the Russians crude but heavily armoured Shturmovik.
As for tanks, the Tiger I, Tiger II and Panther were the best tanks of the war. They suffered from being too complicated, and thus slow to build. The Russians could produce vast numbers of the crude T-34, and afford to lose them and their crews. The Germans escelled at recovering damaged tanks, but this couldn't counter the Russians massive numerical superiority. Earlier tanks like the Panzerkampfwagen IV, which formed the backbone of the Panzer divisions, could hold its own even towards the end of the war. The PzKW IV had some trouble against the T-34 when it first encountered it, but its better trained crews and good armenent countered this.
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
Development of the V-Weapons certainly took away resources from the German war effort, but they also diverted considerable resources within England, as well as massive physiological effects. Quite a bit of effort went into rebuilding AA defenses and civil defenses that had lain largely unused since shortly after the Battle of Britain.
Re:Additional reading (Score:5, Insightful)
The most interesting fact I learned from that book was this:
To seperate,process, and manufacture the uranium nad plutonium neccassary for the a-bombs it required 32% of the United States Electrical output, 23% of the US's Silver output (144,000 Troy Ounces was the figure I believe), and 14% of the US's aluminum output to construct the plants (at Oak Ridge, Tennesse and Hartford, Washington). Remember this is 1944 people - height of america's industrial might. Now ask yourself if germany could've done the same...
Germany wasn't exactly Iceland either (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Germany wasn't exactly Iceland either (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, in the middle of all that, the United States undertook the largest and most expensive research project of all time, and did it with what was essentially spare/leftover resources.
THAT's how big the US economy was compared to the rest of the world at that time, and it shows a giant reason why Germany would not have been able to build a bomb in time to be used during the war.
Re:Germany wasn't exactly Iceland either (Score:2)
But they had to convert those natural resources into bullets, tanks, guns, etc. Also, despite their control of continental Europe, they lacked food and oil, two important resources for fighting any war or building any bomb (hence the push into Russia, to get to their oil fields).
In a nutshell (Score:3, Informative)
Despite the after-the-fact romancing (of a guy who would very probably have delivered the Nazis an atomic weapon if he could have) there's good reason to believe that the only thing preventing Heisenberg from developing the bomb were his own miscalculations. Not the least of which was his determination that the amount of fissionable material required to create a critical mass was much greater than was actually required (there's a fascinating theory vs. engineering story behind that, but you can probably look it up.) This calculation led him to believe that any atomic weapon would be enormous and hard to deliver.
After the war Heisenberg was taken to a detention center in the UK where he was surveilled with listening devices. When the he learned that the US had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, he was stunned, and (IIRC) initially remarked to his co-detainees that we must have found a way to deliver a colossally huge bomb or something of the sort.
Some have theorized that Heisenberg was both extremely clever and extremely loyal to the German people-- so much so that he deliberately foiled the Nazi research effort, then faked disbelief in order to mislead the Allied eavesdroppers. Personally, I think he just blew it.
But you're right. Judge for yourself.
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
That depends entirely on two things:
1.) Are we talking about Germany as it was on the map before they invaded Poland, or are we talking about Germany and all the other European countries that were either Axis powers (Italy, Romania, etc.) and/or occupied by the Germans? In other words, just Germany, or "Fortress Europe?"
2.) Just that, or do we toss in a hypothetical victory in the Eastern Front? The Soviet Union/Russia has a LOT of untapped (still) resources.
Also don't forget that the Nazis had the "advantages" of slave labor and an essentially command economy (and the Soviets would have been used to it anyway if they got taken over), while the US had to pretty much buy all this stuff on the open market (with a little nudge here and there).
Re:Additional reading (Score:2, Interesting)
1.) German industrial power was nothing like the US and didn't have access to the resource's US did.
2.) The german effort was 2 years behind the US's in theory terms - not counting materials.
3.) It is *highly* doubtful the US strategic command would've let anything like Oak Ridge plant be built in Germany without bombing the shit out of it. You can't hide a facility that covers hundreds of acres - nor can you protect it. The vibrations from the bombs impacting close to the seperators are enough to destroy them.
4.) Actually the entire manhatten project was run like a command economy - everything had to provided and NOW (the silver for the seperators was actually taken out of the US Treasury, some 3$ billion dollars worth , in 1943 dollars).
If the germans would've gotten a few more years headstart, or could've delayed the US for 2-3 more years it is possible yes. But remember this, by that time the US would've had the bomb.
Re:Additional reading (Score:2)
To seperate,process, and manufacture the uranium nad plutonium neccassary for the a-bombs it required 32% of the United States Electrical output, 23% of the US's Silver output (144,000 Troy Ounces was the figure I believe), and 14% of the US's aluminum output to construct the plants (at Oak Ridge, Tennesse and Hartford, Washington).
Over what period? Also, how many did they make, including test cores, etc?
Pu test cores (Score:2)
Re:The Manhatten approach may not have been the on (Score:2, Insightful)
Germany's superior scientific traditions were lost when all the best minds went to the other side of the ocean just at the Nazis were taking over. Many of the people who made the bomb fled Germany and Italy.
Also, German scientists were mostly theoreticians, not experimenters or engineers. Remember, these were the theoreticians who came up with quantum physics *theories*. They had hardly any "analytical approach" at all. When it came to making the bomb, among the hundreds of thousands of people working on the Manhattan project, the Americans employed hundreds of engineers for every theoretical scientist. Of the several hundered people employed by the Nazis to make the bomb, the people were mostly scientists and technicians. Most of the German engineers were working on the V2 and non-atomic bombs.
> On the Luftwaffe 1946 web site there are some very speculative but very interesting possibilities of how the Germans could have (a) been designing a totally different type of bomb (b) come up with a way of producing plutonium that did not require the full-blown nuclear reactors at Hanford.
The Nazis never made one atom of plutonium. They did not know how. Even if they did know, they did not have the resources. After the war, German scientists were astonished to discover how much the Americans knew about plutonium, how much the Americans made, and that one could make a bomb out of it.
Heisenberg (Score:4, Funny)
heh heh heh.
Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2, Insightful)
We aren't one people, we are many peoples. But we all happen to live in this little part of world together, and we might just try to make the best out of it. It's the opposite of going to war.
Sorry if this seems flamish, but as an American I'm nervous about anything that could bring together all of Europe under one flag.
I think you have it backwards. European cooperation leads to less wars and conflicts, not more.
Besides, why shouldn't I be just as nervous about the US under one flag?
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2)
Economics.
One of the root causes of the Civil War was high tarrifs on cotton. The North (which had factories for processing cotton) wanted to keep tarrifs high on goods made from Cotton. The South (which produced the cotton on the backs of slaves) wanted tarrifs low, so it could sell to Europe (which paid better than the North). And the Europeans wanted cheap raw materials from the South and no competition from factories in the North.
England and France were voting with their wallets, not their consciences.
-jon
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2)
Aside from the way that the 13 colonies had similar heritages, histories, a common language, and a more-or-less united vision of what a good government should be, the EU gives me the heebie-jeebies not because of the prospects of a united Europe, but who's doing the uniting. For example, this is from the same people who gave us France...
That, and I have trouble seeing the EU being anything but an extreme. Either something so fractured and balkanized (heck, this is where we get the term "Balkanized") as to make the UN seem like a united front, or an uber-police-state. Neither is all that healthy.
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2)
In the copy of the Federalist Papers published by Penguin they point out that Boston and Philly had more in common with London then they did with each other.
Re:"How Much Is That in Real Money..." (Score:2)
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2)
How so? The ECB might be in Germany, but few of the highest EU positions of power are occupied by Germans. If you mean just by the sheer size of their population and economy, well, that's hardly their fault, is it? Although they're sure trying hard to kill their economy at the moment.
-
Re:Thank goodness Bohr did not do it (Score:2)
Knee-jerk reaction, because your original statement is most often pronounced in an accusatory context. Sorry if you didn't mean it that way. In any case, I wasn't so much being defensinve as just trying to point out that Germany is far from running the show. There are a few things it has pushed hard (along with France), such as the Euro, and a certain softening of national overtones in general. But in terms of getting its way whenever it wants, that's not even close to being the case.
-
Uncertainty (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Uncertainty (Score:3, Funny)
Copenhagen (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Copenhagen (Score:3, Insightful)
What are the odds it wasn't a druggie, but a SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER?
Re:Copenhagen (Score:3, Informative)
As for the on stage seating....it's part of the props for the play....there is audience seating behind the actors. So he was most certainly not on stage for any type of sign language reason.
Also, the person he was with got pretty pissed at him cuz he was acting like such an idiot, that they left before the end of the play.
So enjoy your ill-gotten pc-thug karma! (politically correct, that is)....
Sorry, it can't be proven. (Score:3, Redundant)
Re:Sorry, it can't be proven. (Score:2)
Bohr observed Heisenberg to be there, collapsing the wave function and placing Heisenberg in Copenhagen in 1941. He just had no idea how to define the exact point at which this happened. At least, that's how he interpreted it ;-)
*rimshot*
Both plays were overrated (Score:2)
It Doesn't Matter (Score:4, Insightful)
The Reich would not have been able to build an atomic bomb because they couldn't have set up the infrastructure without it being bombed to support the atomic bomb creation.
In Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" he goes into alot of detail about how much industrial infrastructure was needed to make the Uranium and Plutonium for the 3 American atomic bombs.
And don't forget the amount of money and metals it took to make the equipment. The United States built 2 cities of 50,000 people each, one at Oak Ridge and the other at Hanford.
Germany didn't have the manpower, materials or bomb-proof infrastructure during the war to produce an atomic bomb.
Not clear (Score:2)
As for working capital and manpower, the Nazis were simply stealing or forcing much of what they needed.
Re:Not clear (Score:2, Insightful)
Not enough to win the war.
Besides, for every Nazi "Super-Weapon" something else had to be paused.
Books on the U-Boat war argue that if the V-2s and Me-262 hadn't been built, there would have been the manpower for the advanced U-Boats to be built.
Through-out 1944 and 1945, the German war production was a series of starts and stops when someone wanted a new "super-weapon". The huge rail-guns used to shell targets on the Russian Front used as much steel as it took to built hundreds of armored vehicles, yet the Germans lacked armor and had artillery to spare. Instead of building battle-field rockets like the Americans and Russians, the Germans built V-1s and V-2s that didn't have a marked impact on the war.
The Germans didn't have the manpower or capital to do these things.
Re:Not clear (Score:2)
The U-Boat example is a good one; Hitler diverted Navy building into turn of the century type battleships, which had shown in WWII they were largely obsolete in the fact of submarines and aircraft carriers; likewise, the Me262 was set back when Hitler repeatedly demanded jet powered bombers large enough to reach the United States - the impact of the Me262 would have been much higher had it arrived in, say, 1943.
Finally, Hitler, like the US in Vietnam, over-estimated the value of sophisticated technology and terror campaigns against civilians; the V weapons were a millitary dissapointment, for example.
Re:Not clear (Score:2)
Um, no. The Kriegsmarine *asked* for Battleships. The problem was that Hitler started the war years earlier than he had promised the Armed Forces. (The Battleships were the first things started because they took longer to build, U-boats came much later in the planned sequence.) Almost all BB construction was long halted by 1943, which is when it was obvious the BB was obsolescent (not obsolete).
Finally, Hitler, like the US in Vietnam, over-estimated the value of sophisticated technology and terror campaigns against civilians;
Um, the US didn't use particularly sophisticated technology in Vietnam. Nor did they conduct terror campaigns, however the VC *did*...
the V weapons were a millitary dissapointment, for example.
The key problem was that by the time the V-1/2 reached operational status (after starting as marginal blue sky programs later seized upon as potential V-weapons), their was little logistics capabilities to support them. The (relatively) few that were launched terrified the hell out of the Allies, who spent much energy hunting down and killing launch and production sites.
Re:Not clear (Score:2)
Germanies real problem was threefold:
Re:Not clear (Score:2)
Instead of building battle-field rockets like the Americans and Russians, the Germans built V-1s and V-2s
The German army certainly did have rocket launchers - the dreaded Nebelwerfer which came in a number of forms and was employed on all fronts. They didn't feature as prominently in their arsenal as the Katyusha did in the Russians, but many Allied veterans remember the screech of the Nebelwerfer with particular loathing.
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:3, Informative)
Not true. In fact, German infrastructure was in fine fettle throughout the war until the invasion of Germany proper. One reason for this is that the Nazis refused to allow Germany to be put on a war footing until after the initial thrust of Barbarossa failed, in 1941. From that time, German industrial production more than tripled, reaching a peak in late 1944/early 1945.
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:2)
Basically, there were production of heavy-water at a place called Rjukan, and for fear of nazis being able to use this, it was bombed, ships were bombed and sabotaged, and the factory was sabotaged.
It is particulary the factory sabotage that has made a few great heroes in Norway. It was done without any casualities on either side, the Germans knew nothing before the next day (the factory always made a lot of noise, so the guards didn't hear it blow up).
However, while the story around here is that these heroes prevented Germany from getting the bomb, I am quite sure that if they did, these actions would delay them by a few months at most. The factory was reopened after a few months of repairs, and there wasn't a whole lot of heavy-water on those ships.
The story is that the Germans could have found that when you "burn" Uranium, you get a portion of Plutonium, which is good for nuclear bombs, and since they didn't get a reactor working, they didn't find that. However, this is demonstrateably false, as this was proved theoretically by a German physicist in Berlin in 1941 (i don't have the reference).
I think that when the Germans closed the bomb project they knew how to make a bomb. I don't think there can be any question about that. However, what they may not have known is what kind of resources that would be required to do it. That's the calculation Heisenberg never committed, however easy it seems.
But even that can't answer all the questions.
As for the original post, well, what matters here is what this story means to the "if I don't do it, somebody else will"-attitude. If there were indeed german scientists who blocked the project, with this in mind...
The secret contents of the letter (Score:4, Offtopic)
Dear Werner,
Ever since your last visit, I haven't seen my cat, Fluffy. You haven't seen her, have you?
Sincerely,
Neils
Re:The secret contents of the letter (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm pretty sure it said "I send you this letter to have your advice.
Re:The secret contents of the letter (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Werner,
Ever since your last visit, I haven't seen my cat, Fluffy. You haven't seen her, have you?
Sincerely,
Neils
and the reply was:
Neils,
I don't have her, though you might want to contact
Schrodinger. Not sure if she's still alive.
Yours truly,
Werner
Off Topic Quote (Score:3, Funny)
A Biography (Score:4, Interesting)
See also this book (Score:4, Informative)
Thomas Powers provides lots of interesting detail, citations, background. From reading various sources, I see Heisenberg as badly misjudged and misrepresented. I think he was basically a good guy in a very bad situation and, integrating all the available material, it feels like he basically did the Right Thing, and played a key role in keeping the German nuclear program working in directions other than building a bomb.
Re:See also this book (Score:2)
Richard Rhodes (Score:2, Insightful)
Richard (not David) Rhodes, for which he won a
Pulitzer Prize. Doesn't exactly inspire great
confidence in the NYT's QA program...
Re:Richard Rhodes (Score:2)
Ah, but you forget -- Dave Rhodes was involved. His idea is essential to the workings of the Bomb:
"Just send five neutrons to every fissionable nucleus on this list!"
History of Heisenberg after WWII (Score:5, Informative)
Re:History of Heisenberg after WWII (Score:2)
I find it particulary interesting what Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker exclaimated in this conversation:
OK, there are many ways to interprete this, but it is a very interesting statement.
Actually, I asked Joseph Rotblat what he thought happened in Copenhagen that day. He didn't answer, really, he just pointed out the many different possibilities, but he did put some emphasis on the possibility that the group did block the development.
Ende der Unschuld (Score:2)
The chemist was Seaborg (Score:2)
Heisenberg's really dumb mistake (Score:3, Interesting)
Heisenberg had estimated that a ton of U-235 was needed to reach critical mass, which was, of course, a huge overestimate. This is the reasoning he gave in a conversation with Otto Hahn immediately after being surprised by the news of Hiroshima (the conversation was secretly taped by the Allies):
"If I have pure 235 each neutron will immediately beget two children and then there must be a chain reaction which goes very quickly. Then you can reckon as follows. One neutron always makes two others in pure 235. That is to say that in order to make 10^24 neutrons I need 80 reactions one after the other. Therefore I need 80 collisions and the mean free path is about 6 centimetres. In order to make 80 collisions, I must have a lump of a radius of about 54 centimetres and that would be about a ton."
Can you see the mistake in his logic?
Re:Heisenberg's really dumb mistake (Score:2, Interesting)
> "If I have pure 235 each neutron will immediately beget two children and then there must be a chain reaction which goes very quickly. Then you can reckon as follows. One neutron always makes two others in pure 235. That is to say that in order to make 10^24 neutrons I need 80 reactions one after the other. Therefore I need 80 collisions and the mean free path is about 6 centimetres. In order to make 80 collisions, I must have a lump of a radius of about 54 centimetres and that would be about a ton."
> Can you see the mistake in his logic?
Mistake 1: The neutron release number is 2.3, not 2. So he only needs 66 collisions to produce 10^24 collisions.
Mistake 2: The mean free path is less than 6 cm since the U235 cross-section is larger than he estimated. (He should have done the experiment and known for certain instead of relying on theory alone.)
Mistake 3: The minimum radius is actually slightly less than the average free path length. Meaning that if one of the 2.3 neutrons escapes the uranium before hitting another nucleus, then the remaining 1 or 2 are sufficient to continue the chain reaction.
Mistake 4: He needs less than 10^24 collisions.
Re:History of Heisenberg after WWII (Score:2)
Did Heisenberg have an accurate calculation of the critical mass? Was he misled by poor experimental data, or bad theory? Did he think too much enriched uranium was needed for a bomb for Germany to make? Or did he know the true amount but hide it from his superiors because he was so noble?
Once he knew the Americans had done it, and gotten over his surprise, he was able to describe pretty accurately what was involved. But could he have described it as accurately *beforehand*, or did he only then recognize an important mistake?
No one knows; but historians, laymen, and playwrights will enjoy arguing about these questions for a long time.
"Copenhagen" the play (Score:2, Insightful)
Our Man Heisenberg (Score:3, Interesting)
He was an OSS operative.
There's nothing that specifically indicates this, of course. But look at the human site of the game. Here was a man who worshipped Einstein, who had many other associations with Jewish scientists, and who himself narrowly escaped academic blacklisting when the Nazis took power. And somehow he ends up as scientific chief of a major German weapons project!
There's actually a well-documented meeting with an OSS agent in Geneva. Official histories state that Heisenberg was there to give a talk, and the agent, Moe Berg, was there to determine the progress of the German bomb effort and (at his own discretion!) terminate Heisenberg. Supposedly Heisenberg told Berg that the project wasn't going well, and Berg took his word for it and let him live. Not, in my opinion, a very plausible story.
OK, no evidence at all for this theory. But it's worth thinking about.
I got no Times, no Times for you! (Score:3, Informative)
The Sunday Times and The Times have always been separate publications. Nowadays Rupert Murdoch owns them both, and has been combining some of their operations. But that's a recent development.
The Sunday Times registration process has an amusing flaw. Tried to tell it I was born in 1830. Not acceptable. 1890? Nope. 1899? Get serious. I meant to try "1900" next, but typed "2000" by mistake. That was acceptable! Apparently 1-year-olds read the Sunday Times, but not centenarians!
Prospects for a Nazi A-bomb (Score:2, Informative)
The German bomb program, such as it was (Score:3, Informative)
A key error... (Score:2)
They were doing some studies on nuclear materials with a view towards military applications, but had no specific usage in mind. The 'bomb program' was created by lazy journalists and editors who (in 1945) conflated 'nuclear' with 'bomb' in that same way they do with 'computer' and 'Wintel' today. The myth of the 'bomb program' has persisted despite the utter lack of evidence that Germany was pursuing a bomb. (Almost every study of the 'bomb program' has started with the assumption that it existed, which is poor logic and poorer scholarship. Very few have started from zero and seen what conclusions come from examining the evidence without bias.)
The myth of the 'ethical scientists' is largely the same face saving nonsense that came postwar from almost every German who had any affiliation with the Party or the Military.
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a horrible idea. It's just as important to learn from the almost-mistakes and close calls of history as it is from the mistakes and successes.
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:2, Insightful)
But then, that would be silly. Although perhaps a reality exists where it isn't silly. ;-)
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:2)
The study of history is largely the study of what-ifs. Without them, you have a non-fiction story. With them, you have a learning experience.
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:2)
[Sound of original poster pressing the "Independant Thought Alarm" button]
Re:The What-IF's. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. Dave Rhodes wrote Make Atomic Bombs Fast!.
Sorry.
k.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:4, Funny)
Of course. The Americans shouldn't have developed nuclear weapons even though they had the technology to do so, and their rivals had active weapons programs. Then, once available, they shouldn't have used them, even though their use was not outside the norms of war at the time, and even though they brought the war to a prompt end. America should destroy its remaining weapons, and then there will be rainbows and bread and roses, and all of humanity can gather around the campfire to smoke pot and sing folk songs.
War is hell, period. But it's a fact of life. Get over it.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2)
Why don't we all smoke pot and design some nuclear weapons? We can use computers now to do all the hard number crunching. . .
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that like it's a bad thing...
Many people feel that saving approximately 1 million American lives was more important at that time than a percentage of the populations (both military and civilian) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You should also consider how many Japanese would have been killed without the surrender (nuclear weapons are not needed for massive destruction...see Dresden for instance).
Do you seriously think the Japanese would have hesitated to kill any number of American civilians if they had the means? It was a vicious war, and both sides were concerned about victory (and survival) above all else.
Perhaps he should have been frightened, period. Perhaps the whole lot of them should have been clockmakers, like Albert said.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps we should praise the brilliant inventors of nuclear weapons, since those weapons have apparently halted the practice of "world war". Peace is a good thing, right?
Regardless, not pursuing the a-bomb wasn't an option...someone would have. Most would agree that the US has been a model citizen as a nuclear superpower. At least we have tremendous safeguards surrounding the use of such devices.
Of course, that part goes unmentioned in the NYT article, because that might call into question just who really *did* use those horrible weapons, and it might have to be stated that it wasn't everyone's favorite boogeyman of the 20th century. We can't have people thinking about the realities of the past; no, interesting what-ifs make for much better propaganda.
Sounds to me like you've absorbed quite a bit of propaganda yourself... ;-)
Personally, I'm worried that nuclear stockpiles will be cut to the point where world war becomes 'thinkable' again.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:3, Informative)
besides your valid points, I will also point out that the Japanese Army had few equals when it came to butchering civilians... In just a few weeks in Nanking, they killed more chinese civilians (through beheadings, torture, and rape of children followed by murder) than both the allied atomic blasts killed, and their total toll on civilian populations around the world is much, MUCH higher than any reported allied caused civilian death tolls (depending on how you view russia, and whose "ally" they really were).
In any case, huge numbers of civilians were killed around the world (FAR outstripping battlefield casualties), in very large part due to German and Japanese policy. It was not a very honorable war, on any side, but the stakes became too high to expect much compassion.
IMO, it is a wonder that Japan is not a charred cinder annexation of China, as retribution for WWII. (They should be sending thanks to Taiwan every day, for helping to divert national aggression.)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you joking?? AFAIR US is the only country to ever use nuclear weapons against another country during war. (The justice of this is of course negotiable, and I somewhat agree with you that it probably was the best solution.)
Furthermore the US is most probably the country with the largest amount of nuclear tests in the world... Also in fairly recent times! That doesn't really count as a "model citizen" in my book.
- Henrik
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2)
The invasion planners estimated a far, far lower number, 50,000 or so.
If we'd agreed to let them keep their Emperor a few weeks earlier, the Japanese would've surrendered. We held out for unconditional surrender but, after dropping the two bombs, relented and accepted their surrender and allowed the emperor to remain on the throne..
Eisenhower and Marshall both opposed use of the bomb. In 1962 Eisenhower reiterated his belief that it wasn't necessary and that neither was invasion , that Japan was done and would've surrendered within weeks without either action taking place.
This is all documented (in Richard Rhodes's book, among many other places).
Peace is a good thing, right? (Score:2)
We only have relative peace. Here are some wars (just off the top of my head) conducted after 1946:
Korea.
Vietnam.
6 day war (Israel vs Egypt[or arabic countries])
The Gulf War.
The Balkans.
Pakistan vs India.
Tchechnia.
Tens of civil wars in Africa.
IRA vs Great Britain
Afghanistan.
Or did you mean wars that took place in the US?
Just because they aren't fighting in your backyard, doesn't mean they aren't fighting.
Peace is a good thing, but don't think for a moment, that we have a global peace.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:3, Informative)
Allied casualties (US/UK/Commonwealth) were projected in the tens of thousands. Japanese civilians were being instructed in the use of satchel charges and sharpened bamboo sticks for use in repelling the invaders.
k.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2)
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more horrible, the US building and using an atomic bomb, or school children being trained to defend Tojo's Japan with bamboo spears? Doesn't the fact that it required not one but TWO nuclear attacks before the Japanese decided to surrender give you pause about possible justifications?
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
1.) The US submarine force had what was essentially a total blockade of resource-poor Japan since May. They face destruction by slow starvation. No surrender.
2.) The first bomb in early August (after three months of the previously-mentioned blockade). Three days go by with no surrender.
3.) The second bomb. Still no surrender.
4.) The Soviet Union delcares war on Japan and starts a big land-grab in Asia. They now face a potential invation from two fronts (one of which all too willing to feed an army into the meat-grinder that the Japanese are trying to turn their islands into)
So what's the next step? For the Japanese army, the next step was a coup, an effort to depose Hirohito's government and prevent him from airing a surrender announcement. After all, how many more bombs could the US drop? Can't be more than one or two...
There is a misconception about Japan that still persists to this day (as can be seen in your opinion) that they have Western ideals and a Western way of thinking. This is not true today and it sure as hell wasn't true in the 1940's. Just because defeat is inevitible isn't necesarily reason for them to surrender.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a misconception indeed, and you persist in it. Japan was not unwilling to surrender because insufficient force had been
displayed, but rather because the demands were
not made in a way that made it reasonable for
Hirohito to accept them. At the same time, the
social structure of Japan was such that while
the Emperor had not declared the war effort
over, the country would fight a useless
impossible battle to defend their country.
If the US had listened to the advice of its
own anthrolopologists employed at the time to
study japanese culture (see, for example The Chrysanthemum and the Sword), surrender
could have been obtained with no further bloodshed at all. Unfortunately, the leaders
of their time chose to disbelieve this information and fit the behavior of the Japanese into their own model of thinking, which said that
they were impossibly, irraitionally resolute, and would only surrender if impossible force and
arms were displayed. This worked, but other workable courses were yet available which were not tried.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2)
not made in a way that made it reasonable for
Hirohito to accept them. At the same time, the
social structure of Japan was such that while
the Emperor had not declared the war effort
over, the country would fight a useless
impossible battle to defend their country."
I would have gotten into that, but I got distracted away from the computer by stuff. Part of the problem is that each side more or less viewed the other as uncivlized barbarians. At the very least, I don't think the Allies would have accepted the somewhat-less-than-unconditional surrender they got until after they saw first-hand how strong Japanese convictions were on the matter.
On the other side of the lines, I don't think the Japanese could trust the gaijins to keep their word on those conditions to surrender until after they saw the Allied willingness not to destroy them outright with impunity. After all, they surrender so easily, how much honor could they have?
"If the US had listened to the advice of its
own anthrolopologists employed at the time to
study japanese culture (see, for example The Chrysanthemum and the Sword), surrender
could have been obtained with no further bloodshed at all."
If the Japanese military listened to their own experts, they would have seen that Pearl Harbor was a Bad Idea (tm), and that the Americans wouldn't be so soft as to be willing to roll over and surrender the Pacific after an initial, crippling blow.
(Aside: Kinda makes me wonder if bin Laden had similar such people voicing concerns like these, or if he just had yes-men like in recently-released videoes.)
It seems like there was a general lack of respect on both sides of the conflict that only a climatic battle for the islands could solve. It could have been some big meat-grinder of a campaign, churning out some unknown number of military and civillian casualties until (or if) one both sides lost the stomach to carry on, or it could have involved the unveiling of some new super-weapon that has enough destructive potential to give both sides a reason to take a step back and look at what's happening. In our history, the latter happened.
... and it still took a month for the formal signing of the surrender...
A general mistrust and misunderstanding of both sides leading to some pretty ugly conflicts. It happened to the US and the USSR in the 1920's, it happened here in WWII, it seems to have happened between the US and the Muslim world, and it may even be happening between the US and the PRC.
Re:NYT article for those that arent registered.. (Score:2)
1: Germany DIDN'T get the bomb. We defeated Germany without the use of atomic weapons. The bomb was totally irrelevant, in the end, to the course of the Eurpoean war.
2: Japan was in negotiation to surrender when we dropped the bomb. We were holding out for the removal of the Emperor. In the end, we decided to let them keep the Emperor, so they would surrender to us and not the USSR.
3: The projected casualties number for a land invasion of Japan was created after the fact. See previous posts. We dropped the bomb to get a one-up over the USSR, not to defeat Japan.
Re:Slashdot policies on copyright violations (Score:3, Insightful)
Also note that
Proof was fantastic. (Score:3, Interesting)
'hagen was definitely more cerebral & technical, and used physics as a metophor for ethical struggles.
Proof was a much more personal play about a woman's relationship with her father (and indeed, the world around her.) The math is simply part of the plot, not interwoven with the primary thrust. I saw both original casts, and both were phenominal, but the interaction between Mary Louise Parker and the cast was one of the most thrilling dramatic performances I've ever witnessed. She was incredible.
As a coincidence, the young male lead in Proof was played by Ben Shenkman, who was the young rabinical guy in "Pi."
While I loved Copenhagen, and I love Robert Westenburg (one of the male leads) I felt Proof was the far superior play.
Re:Proof was fantastic. (Score:3)
A Briton looks back at the nuclear race of WWII and thinks, "Boy, it's a good thing Hitler never got the bomb, otherwise I would have been toast." Therefore, the question in the play - did Heisenberg really "forget" to try out that one calculation, or was it intentional? - is a major one for the British, because it's the question of why they didn't get destroyed.
To an American (especially one of Japanese descent), it's a less relevant question. Our nuclear researchers (Oppenheimer, Bohr, etc.) DID produce a bomb, and with it they produced all the nuclear questions of the last 60 years. Nuclear warfare is a reality to us, whereas it's a scary fantasy to the British.
So in Frayn's play, when Heisenberg decides to plug in the numbers off the top of his head, and the stage is flooded in the light and sound of a nuclear holocaust, that's the British nightmare. Once I looked at that as the crux of the play, I appreciated it a lot more.
That said, it would be a better play if the director would snip a little bit of the physics out, especially the parts that are repeated several times.
Re:What was wrong with "Proof"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a degree in Math and have done many years of semi-professional acting (i.e. I get paid, but not so much that I don't need my CS job to live)
Copenhagen was a better written play, but I pity and respect the man who tries to perform it. Long difficult monologues where the audience will often want to stand up and say, "Could you repeat that, I only half got it." But when you're reading it and can appreciate the nuance. Copenhagen was by far a superior piece of writing in the history, the math, and especially in the interpersonal relationship between the two men. First as teacher-student, then nearly to father-son, then suddenly to bitter enemies. It is practically shakespere-ian in how dynamic their relationship was and those aspects were very strongly and humanely played out.
To talk about Proof, it would be easy to produce, easy to get an audience, and easy to make people feel smart because they were watching a play that had math in it. The actors have plenty of opportunity to showboat and draw an audience in, but fundamentally, the play is about smart men who are too pig-headed to trust a girl. (*gasp!* it's a GIRL! Not a big shocker any more) As soon as the play uses up its 90 minutes, the boyfriend pulls the stick from his bum and then everything is fine. He shouldn't have mistrusted her in the first place, but then the play would be about 15 minutes long.
To sum up: Proof is fun to watch chickies who do math and physicist who drink heavily. Copenhagen is an excellent play to expand your scope and see a truly powerful piece of writing.
genetic weapon? (Score:2)