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Edward Teller: Father of the Hydrogen Bomb
pigrabbitbear writes "Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, had a thing for nuclear bombs. He wanted them bigger, smaller, faster, used in ways that no one had thought of before or since, and always more of them. He suffered no fools, and though he would be more vilified than any other American scientist in the 20th century, he always dismissed his critics as lacking in common sense or patriotism. Amid Cold War paranoia and fears of the Soviet nuclear program, the stakes were simply too high: for the free world, building the most powerful weapon in history was a matter of life and horrible death."
Bomb them.
Teller destroyed the career of Robert Oppenheimer for no damn good reason, after which his own graduate students shunned him.
I have no interest in anything to do about him.
If Iran ever dared to use such a weapon against anyone, it would be the last thing it ever did. China and Russia will tolerate the Ayatollahs to a point, but to actually launch an attack against anyone else, that would be intolerable even by their standards. All support would end instantly and Israel and the United States would be given carte blanche to deal with Iran as they chose. The Iranian airforce and navy would be wiped out, most of its military installations of any size would be destroyed, it would be left with an army and a bunch of poorly armed Basij who are only useful as cannon fodder, except the cannons would be bombing from 40,000 feet. I suspect the Ayatollahs' regime wouldn't last a month. The regular army, who has no great love for the Basij or the Revolutionary Guard, would probably arrest or just simply start shooting them, because the very few nuclear weapons that Iran would have would be useless, or worse than useless, once the necessary infrastructure to launch attacks was crippled or turned to slag.
The fact is that as nasty as an attack by a second rate power like Iran would be, it's not something that could be repeated. Places like North Korea and Iran do not have the resources to build vast stockpiles of nukes. Once the oil dries up, they won't even be able to afford to maintain what they've built by that point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It served two purposes:
1. It demonstrated to the Soviets, who had massive forces amassed in Eastern and Central Europe that the West now possessed a weapon deliverable by high altitude bomber that could kill thousands.
2. It prevented the Soviets from seizing large parts of Japan by forcing a quick surrender to the Americans. An invasion of the main islands would most certainly have taken long enough that the Soviets could have moved to occupy Japan themselves. As it was, the Russians seized the northernmost parts of the Empire proper and hold them to this very day.
3. It stopped the war very quickly and forced an unconditional surrender. There was even less game-playing that the fragments of the Third Reich had tried to play.
As to the larger point you try to make, the Japanese leadership's actions even after the first H bomb were hardly singular in wanting to surrender.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...Paul Teller taught at UC Davis in the 80's and 90's(maybe still does). When I took his philosophy of science course(PHI 108), on the first meeting with the TA, he said "Don't ask him about his father".
They bomb them.
Yes, we think Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs are that stupid. Plainly.
Next question.