Did Einstein play a part in the atomic bomb?

[spookyruthy]

Coming across this article, the concept of e=mc2 was, to me, an equation in relation to the conversion of mass into energy, and I never really gave it a second thought. I was kicking myself after having a read, as it seems slightly obvious that the key element of the development of the atomic bomb was the concept of transforming uranium atoms into a larger, desturctive force.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4434806.stm

Einstein, however, was a pacifist towards the end of his life and veermently opposed the use of nuclear weaponry in WW2. I dread to think the guilt he must have felt if he had in any way believed that his equation had an effect on the creation of the most destuctive bomb known to man, the bomb that now hinders nearly every foreign movement on the globe.

[spookyruthy]

Typical me, I linked you all to the wrong website. Here's the right one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/program ... mary.shtml

Terribly sorry.

[Ace Pace]

Coming across this article, the concept of e=mc2 was, to me, an equation in relation to the conversion of mass into energy, and I never really gave it a second thought. I was kicking myself after having a read, as it seems slightly obvious that the key element of the development of the atomic bomb was the concept of transforming uranium atoms into a larger, desturctive force.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4434806.stm

Einstein, however, was a pacifist towards the end of his life and veermently opposed the use of nuclear weaponry in WW2. I dread to think the guilt he must have felt if he had in any way believed that his equation had an effect on the creation of the most destuctive bomb known to man, the bomb that now hinders nearly every foreign movement on the globe.

Einstein sent several letters to Roosevelt, the the first few advocating research into the atomic area of physics, first as something to just match the Germans, then as something to aquire an atomic bomb(again, Germany was the driver). He later sent a dissentating letter urging caution. You can look at it both ways.

[spookyruthy]

It's rather hypocritical of him, really. His look into atomic physics was bound to end in tears for someone, Einstein should have really realised that. Too bad it had to be the thousands of civilian people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Darth Wong]

It's rather hypocritical of him, really. His look into atomic physics was bound to end in tears for someone, Einstein should have really realised that. Too bad it had to be the thousands of civilian people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Are you one of those morons who thinks that scientists should avoid researching anything that someone might someday find a way to turn into a weapon? Do you have any idea how primitive we'd be today if everyone followed this line of thought?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Einstein wasn't entirely sure the first atom bomb wouldn't destroy the whole world, but he knew what would happen if America wasn't the first nation to master the atom.

[Ninja of the North]

This reminds me of a quote of Einstein:

"I know not with which weapons WW3 will be fought with, but I do know that WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones".

[Sea Skimmer]

It's rather hypocritical of him, really. His look into atomic physics was bound to end in tears for someone, Einstein should have really realised that. Too bad it had to be the thousands of civilian people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yeah, killing 120,000 with two big bad evil nukes was much worse then killing millions, perhapes even tens of millions, with a blockade and invasion employing purely conventional weapons (assuming the Japanese didn't hit the invasion with gas, bringing US retaliation, something Japan planned to do).

[Plushie]

It's rather hypocritical of him, really. His look into atomic physics was bound to end in tears for someone, Einstein should have really realised that. Too bad it had to be the thousands of civilian people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yeah, killing 120,000 with two big bad evil nukes was much worse then killing millions, perhapes even tens of millions, with a blockade and invasion employing purely conventional weapons (assuming the Japanese didn't hit the invasion with gas, bringing US retaliation, something Japan planned to do).

Stop with the damned justifications and defensiveness. Whether or not the two drops were actually justified, it still is a damned shame that 120,000 civilians had to die.

[Ace Pace]

Stop with the damned justifications and defensiveness. Whether or not the two drops were actually justified, it still is a damned shame that 120,000 civilians had to die.

It was a war, a war in which the Japanese had refused all offers of surrender, the U.S had no other fucking choice. Civilians die in wars, esspecially wars in which civilians are trained with sharp bamboo sticks to suicide upon invaders.

Its a damned shame anyone has to die in wars. But it dons't change the fact that there was no other choice.

[spookyruthy]

Its a damned shame anyone has to die in wars. But it dons't change the fact that there was no other choice.

I agree with you entirely. The only other outcome of it all was Germany developing the atom bomb first, then we would all pretty much be screwed, living under the first 100 years of the Reich. I'd know Nazi patriotism better than I know my own hand.

But then again, war is undoubtedly inevitable, but such a tragedy. It's sad that we, as humans, can't look past our differences. We are the only specie on earth that kills its own so mercilessly.

[kheegster]

To say that E=mc^2 had anything to do with the development of the A-bomb is like saying that the Wright's brother's 1903 flight resulted in the B-29 Superfortress and successive generations of nuclear bombers.

His equation showed the link between energy and mass, but many discoveries and fundamental physics had to be discovered before nuclear bomb even became a possibility.

Richard Rhodes' excellent The Making of the Atomic Bomb starts not with Einstein, but with Rutherford's discoveries of the atomic structure in the early 20th century.

[Jadeite]

Its a damned shame anyone has to die in wars. But it dons't change the fact that there was no other choice.

I agree with you entirely. The only other outcome of it all was Germany developing the atom bomb first, then we would all pretty much be screwed, living under the first 100 years of the Reich. I'd know Nazi patriotism better than I know my own hand.

Or we'd just smother every German city under a cloud of mustard gas in retaliation...

[Surlethe]

We are the only specie on earth that kills its own so mercilessly.

Perhaps these links will disabuse you of that notion.

[Sea Skimmer]

Stop with the damned justifications and defensiveness. Whether or not the two drops were actually justified, it still is a damned shame that 120,000 civilians had to die.

And it’s damn fucking annoying that on a VERY regular basis we have to hear about the ‘tragedy’ of the atomic bombings when no one can take even a moment to remember for example, Manila, bombed by the Japanese even after it had been evacuated of military personal and declared an open city as prescribed down by international law.

[Kuroneko]

To say that E=mc^2 had anything to do with the development of the A-bomb is like saying that the Wright's brother's 1903 flight resulted in the B-29 Superfortress and successive generations of nuclear bombers.

True. But even if it did, it's not clear that Einstein would be to blame. He was not the first to either discover or publish the equation E = mc². It is derivable from Maxwell (not surprising, since relativity itself is derivable from Maxwell under the assumption that only relative motion is physically meaningful) and has been published, for example, by de Pretto in 1903, two years before Einstein's first paper on relativity. It might have been to some extent known even in the late 19th century, but I'm not certain of that.

[Enigma]

Stop with the damned justifications and defensiveness. Whether or not the two drops were actually justified, it still is a damned shame that 120,000 civilians had to die.

It is a damned shame that ANYONE had to die!! War is war! You honestly think that no one would be killed in one? In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, do you think it would have been preferred that the U.S. troops invade and end up forcing to kill a hell of a lot more people than what the two bombs killed?

It might sound twisted but dropping the nukes was the best thing the U.S. could have done at the time. Do you really want to end up buying american made inferior goods?

I do not condone war and I'd never take part in one but in this situation I can't see how invading would be better than nuking.

[Kamakazie Sith]

But then again, war is undoubtedly inevitable, but such a tragedy. It's sad that we, as humans, can't look past our differences. We are the only specie on earth that kills its own so mercilessly.

Actually, that's not true either. There are several animal species that kill their own without mercy.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Einstein, however, was a pacifist towards the end of his life and veermently opposed the use of nuclear weaponry in WW2. I dread to think the guilt he must have felt if he had in any way believed that his equation had an effect on the creation of the most destuctive bomb known to man, the bomb that now hinders nearly every foreign movement on the globe.

I'm sorry how does the bomb hinder foreign movement on the globe? If you mean some foreign governments are hindering their own development by diverting all their resources away for their people to develop it then yes I would agree, but I doubt that's what you meant.

[Ace Pace]

I agree with you entirely. The only other outcome of it all was Germany developing the atom bomb first, then we would all pretty much be screwed, living under the first 100 years of the Reich. I'd know Nazi patriotism better than I know my own hand.

But then again, war is undoubtedly inevitable, but such a tragedy. It's sad that we, as humans, can't look past our differences. We are the only specie on earth that kills its own so mercilessly.

BWAHAHAHAHA! Please, for your own sake, read the following post which I will quote below.

Every so often, the proposition that Nazi Germany was on the verge of deploying a workable nuclear device comes up (recently we had the rather risible suggestion here that the Germans could have had a nuclear device in 1946 - why that was so daft will become obvious in due course). Usually, these claims are in the context of how if the Nazis had only done this or that they would have won the Second World War. I thought it would be interesting to look at the reality of the German nuclear weapons program since not only does it show that German scientists in WW2 couldn't find their ass with both hands and a roadmap but the story itself has a low humor that is quite irresistible.

A word on where all this comes from. The primary source was an operation called Alsos. Alsos was an intelligence operation run between 1942 and 1946 that attempted to discover who else was working on nuclear devices and how their work was progressing. Hence the name, looking at who also were developing nuclear technology. Alsos-A looked at Germany, Alsos-B at Japan and Alsos-C at the USSR. A putative Alsos-D would have looked at other possibilities. The joke is that the name itself also became a significant security breech since General Groves got to hear of the name and immediately noted that Alsos is Greek for Groves. He threw a fit but changing the name would have drawn attention to it so it stayed put. The other source is the Farm Hall transcripts - the German nuclear scientists were held at a place called Farm Hall between July 3, 1945 and January 3 1946 for interrogation. Their rooms were wired of course so their private conversations were recorded as well as their formal interrogations. The results can basically be summed up by the succinct comments of one of the Manhattan District engineers "Who are these clowns?"

The German nuclear weapons development program started in 1938 with a program to develop nuclear physics being started under the Heereswaffenamt (Army Ordnance Research Department). On September 26th 1939, Werner Heisenberg was conscripted into this department which now had the unofficial nickname of Uranverein (Uranium Club). Although Heisenberg was a brilliant theoretician he was a very poor experimentalist and an even worse administrator - a combination of traits that was to have dire effects on the program. Through 1940 and 1941, German scientists focused on two lines of research - how to make a chain-reacting pile and how to separate U-235. These were carried out at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin (under Heisenberg) and the Army Research Laboratory at Gottow (under Kurt Deibner).

The second of these research aims failed completely. German scientists were unable to devise a means of separating U-235 from U-238 and were thus unable to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium. Thus, any German nuclear device would have to use plutonium, produced by bombarding U-238 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Thus, the Deibner group was terminated in June 1942 and all the efforts concentrated on Heisenbergs group. The task was now defined; first make a reactor that could produce plutonium from U-238, then design and build a device from that Pu-239.

In order to make a reactor, it was first necessary to design it. Reactors require a moderator to slow down the neutrons so they can then be captured by the target nucleus. The most suitable moderators are very pure graphite or heavy water (deuterium oxide). Enter Walther Bothe, the scientist assigned to select the most suitable moderator. Bothe was incredibly careless and/or stupid (he was hopelessly in love with Ingeborg Moershner at the time and described his days in a letter to her as "speaking physics and thinking of you"). He failed to notice that his graphite samples were heavily contaminated with boron and cadmium, both ravenous neutron absorbers. As a result, he concluded that graphite was useless as a moderator and he opted for the use of heavy water. The next year was spent in a dance over heavy water supplies.

The only source of heavy water in Europe was the Norsk Hydro plant in the Rjukan Valley, about 75 miles west of Oslo. This has been built in 1934 and was seized by the Germans in 1940. By 1942, it was shipping approximately one ton of heavy water per year to Germany for use in reactor experiments. News of this quickly reached the Allies who took it as proof positive that the Germans were working on a reactor that could produce Pu-239. The plant would have to go. The British tried a commando raid on November 20 1942. Both the gliders used to deliver the commandos crashed in bad weather, many commandos being killed and most of the rest badly wounded. They surrendered without a fight expecting medical treatment for their wounded. Instead General von Falkenhorst had them all summarily murdered (he was sentenced to death for this after the war but, sadly, was reprieved in 1953). However, a second commando raid in February 1943 was much more successful; nine commandos infiltrated the plant and blew up the heavy water cells and six months production of heavy water. The plant was out of action until August 1943 but had barely resumed work when 174 B-17s plastered the factory with bombs. Although damage was slight, the Germans decided to dismantle the plant and rebuild it in Germany. In effect, heavy water production ended in Europe with this decision.

This left 14 tons of heavy water in Norway. The Germans loaded it into 49 drums, took them by train to Mael where they were to be loaded onto a rail ferry across the lake. The Norwegian resistance placed a mine on the ferry and sank it half way over the lake; 45 drums went to the bottom, only four partially-filled drums were salvaged. One of the saboteurs discovered that his (cantankerous) mother in law planned to take this ferry. On the pleas of his wife, he stopped her by mixing business with pleasure and feeding the old lady a huge dose of laxative (she had to be really, really ill because the Germans would look with great interest at everybody who was supposed to be on the ferry and wasn't). Sure enough, the gestapo arrived and interviewed the family. The mother in law spent the whole time being obnoxious, foul-tempered and accusing her son in law of poisoning her. The investigator was much touched by the devotion of this young couple in looking after a sickly but horrendous old harridan and, as he left, put his arm around the young husband's shoulder and said confidentially "you know, I would have quite understood if you had poisoned her"

Almost all the precious heavy water was irretrievably lost. That left just the supplies already in Germany. Or, rather, had. Heisenberg was a dreadful administrator; the work schedules he organized frequently left the laboratory in the charge of unqualified staff - or completely unattended. On June 23, 1942, the heavy water in an experimental reactor leaked into the uranium, liberated hydrogen and the reactor exploded. The laboratory, all the heavy water and the research documentation was all destroyed. German research was set back two years at least.

In fact it was much worse than that. It quickly became obvious that there were years of research work and engineering needed before a reactor could be built. A year later so little progress had bene made that the German atomic bomb program was canceled in July 1943. All the Uranium supplies in Germany were transferred to a German Army program aimed at using the material in armor-piercing shells for tanks (note; the natural uranium including the precious U-235, not the depleted uranium used now by the US). At that time the allies were plotting various means of stealing said uranium and/or destroying the source of supply. Little did they know the Germans literally intended to throw the stuff at them gratis. Thus, from mid-1943 onwards the German nuclear weapons development program was dead. No work on weaponizing nuclear research continued past this point. Hence the idiocy of claiming the Germans could have had a nuclear device in 1946.

However, some research on reactors did continue. A small atomic pile was built in a place called Haigerloch (near Hechingen) for neutron-multiplication calculations. This facility used all the remaining heavy water supplies in Europe (1.5 tons). This work showed that the reactor would have to be doubled in size before a sustained chain reaction could be maintained - and, of course, there was no more heavy water to moderate it. So that work to was abandoned. The pile, the scientists, the heavy water and all the uranium ore (still sitting in Army sheds waiting to be turned into tank ammunition) was captured by the US Army by February 24th 1945 and shipped to the USA.

And that was it. The Germans hadn't even begun to produce the tools needed to produce the equipment needed to produce the material needed for experiments in designing a workable device. The Germans didn't have the resources to follow all the possible routes to a workable device so they had to pick one and go with it. They picked the wrong one. Then, their poor scientific method and base incompetence meant that they blew that (in the case of their laboratory pile, quite literally).

[kheegster]

I agree with you entirely. The only other outcome of it all was Germany developing the atom bomb first, then we would all pretty much be screwed, living under the first 100 years of the Reich. I'd know Nazi patriotism better than I know my own hand.

But then again, war is undoubtedly inevitable, but such a tragedy. It's sad that we, as humans, can't look past our differences. We are the only specie on earth that kills its own so mercilessly.

BWAHAHAHAHA! Please, for your own sake, read the following post which I will quote below.

*snip*

We now know that the Nazi atomic programme was a farce, but as far as the US-British alliance was concerned in the earlier part of the war, there was a very strong perception that the Nazis were working towards the bomb. The first laboratory fission of U-238, after all, was achieved in Germany 1938 by Hahn and Strassman. That was one of the things that gave the Allies the wake-up call regarding (perceived) Nazi atomic ambitions.

[Ace Pace]

We now know that the Nazi atomic programme was a farce, but as far as the US-British alliance was concerned in the earlier part of the war, there was a very strong perception that the Nazis were working towards the bomb. The first laboratory fission of U-238, after all, was achieved in Germany 1938 by Hahn and Strassman. That was one of the things that gave the Allies the wake-up call regarding (perceived) Nazi atomic ambitions.

Mutilation of quote tags is bad mmkay?

Around the half point of the war, I belive the US-UK teams realised that they, the Germans, had no hope of building a nuke, but by then their own work was advance.

[CaptJodan]

It was a war, a war in which the Japanese had refused all offers of surrender, the U.S had no other fucking choice.

This isn't entirely true either. Japan offered to surrender on several occasions, but those occasions were not UNCONDITIONAL. The US wanted...demanded nothing short of unconditional surrender. If one wants to make the case, one could say that the war could have ended sooner had the US accepted their conditions.

Stop with the damned justifications and defensiveness. Whether or not the two drops were actually justified, it still is a damned shame that 120,000 civilians had to die.

It's well known anyway that the firebombing of Tokyo was far more devastating in civilian losses than both of the two bombs combined. In addition, over the course of the war, you had civilian losses which put the A-bomb numbers to shame. Roughly 350,000 civilians over the course of the entire war died in Japan. Compare that to Germany's loss of 2 million, China's loss of 9 million, or the USSR's loss of over 19 million civilian dead. 1.5 million died for the battle of Leningrad alone (though that could be combined military and civilian losses).

Civilians die in all wars, whether using sticks and stones, knives, guns, bombs or super bombs. And it's a damn shame. Holding up the A-Bomb as being MORE horrific than the daily grinding of killing off 1.5 million people over two years doesn't make sense. It's just a slower death (some of which was by starvation, a pretty nasty way to go, really).

[CaptJodan]

Edit:

In addition to the 350,000 for Japan, there is another 1.75 or so million missing/presumed dead numbers. The numbers for the same category are higher in other said countries (up to 9 million in USSR).

[Civil War Man]

This isn't entirely true either. Japan offered to surrender on several occasions, but those occasions were not UNCONDITIONAL. The US wanted...demanded nothing short of unconditional surrender. If one wants to make the case, one could say that the war could have ended sooner had the US accepted their conditions.

The US has a history of demanding unconditional surrender, and there is a very good reason why. After a war, you oftentimes get people on the losing side who believe that they weren't really losing and that they were betrayed by the high command (Hell, you still get people going on like this about the Civil War). If something less than unconditional surrender is accepted, groups like that are more likely to be a) bigger, and b) more mainstream.

Some examples:
Grant was big on unconditional surrender. With the help of generals like Sherman and Sheridan, the South was effectively ground into dust. Most of the South accepted the surrender. Those individuals who felt that they shouldn't have surrendered, though their influence has waxed and waned with time, have largely remained in the fringes of society.

AFAIK, you don't get people in Japan who feel like they should have continued fighting World War II (for more reason than the nukes, too).

OTOH, take Germany after World War I. They were losing, but they had not lost. Add to that the punitive measures the Allied nations dumped on Germany, and it doesn't take long before someone who says that Germany could and should retake everything they lost looks pretty electable.