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I Am Not Doctor Strangelove
Amoeba Protozoa writes "Here is an amusing and well written interview with Edward Teller, atomic science history's own real-life Dr. Strangelove." It's in Scientific American. And at one point, Teller threatens to throw the interviewer out of his office if he mentions Dr. Strangelove "three more times."
Er, the point of Scientific American is to be for non-scientists. It isn't a journal and doesn't try to be. Personally, of the "science for the masses" magazines, I think the British New Scientist is the best written.
It's true that most of their articles are harmless, but a couple of stinkers like that per issue makes me wonder about the articles I'm not qualified to judge.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
How crazy was Project Chariot? Consider the fact that Bikini Atoll is now one of the best sites for skin diving and sport fishing on the planet. (Read that as "lots of shipwrecks in pristine condition" and a nearly-undisturbed environment for the past 40 years.) The most serious radiological contaminant on Bikini is Cs-137, and the main reason it's a problem is because the local vegetation picks it up in place of potassium. It's a land problem, not a sea problem. Since a putative Alaskan harbor isn't a likely site for crop-growing, and since it would have been excavated with high-yielding thermonuclear devices designed to maximize explosive yield and minimize heavy radionuclide production, the residual radiation levels around the site would have dropped to habitable levels relatively quickly. (Of course, whether it would have cooled off in time to be economically viable compared to conventional construction, or even whether or not a harbor would have benefited the Alaskan economy is a question for economists, not physicists :)
IMHO the best use for nuclear explosions would have been Project Orion; a nuclear pulse engine. Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear.
Teller has every right to be bitter. It appears from the article that many people are unable to separate the man from the device he helped build. In an age in which the public is so frightened of the word "nuclear" that they argue to ban space probes like Cassini due to their RTGs, and in which people prefer the cyanide in apricot pits to chemotherapy "because it's the natural way to fight caner", it's not surprising that Teller's vision of the application of technology to build a better world is viewed as hubris, and his contributions are held in low esteem.
Back to nukes. Anyone interested in the history of atomic weaponry should consider a visit to the National Atomic Museum in New Mexico. The timing is great - the first weekend of October also marks the date on which White Sands Missile Range opens up the Trinity Site to the general public, allowing tours of the site of the first fission explosion.
Finally - whatever your opinions on the horror of the bomb's use - the physics behind it was still beautiful. Anyone wanting more detailed information on the design is highly encouraged to read Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ - a 14-part document also available at the FAS High Energy Weapons archive.
I would suggest that Dr. Strangelove used a number of Cold War figures, including Teller, Herman Kahn (the author of Mutual Assured Destruction, aka "MAD"), and a few of the other "nuke 'em back to the stone age" folk). Remember, it was made shortly after the Cuban missile crisis and in the very initial stages of the Viet Nam war. Another "ancestor" of Dr. Strangelove is the scientist in the 1926 film, Metropolis
This is from a page of anecdotes by a friend of his, you can find it here
"A while back I was invited to a strange, but nevertheless interesting party. At this party there were all sorts of people from various professions. During the course of the evening, one very buxom woman came up to me and introduced herself. It turns out that she was a well-known stripper and actress in adult movies by the name of Candi Samples. When she found out that I studied physics she asked whether I knew a guy by the name of Dick Feynman. "Yes," I replied,. I must admit I was rather astonished to hear his name in this connection. "He is one of my biggest fans..." she said.
A few days later I am in Feynman's office and we are talking when I say to him, "Hey, I ran into an interesting acquaintance of yours at a party the other night. Her name is Candi Samples."
Feynman immediately smiled and said, "Hey, Al, look at this!" He went over to his file cabinet, which I thought contained all of his most important and intellectual works. It didn't take him long to pull out a black and white autographed nude shot of Candi Samples, inscribed, "To Big Dick, Love from Candi!" "
+&x
little stories like that were the reason why i like "surely, you must be joking ..." very much.
now i'm hunting some more books about R.P.F.
hany
My, you're probably the first person ever to think of that question! Have you considered taking your stunning originality to some place where it will be appreciated, like Microsoft?
Next time you get an opportunity to interview a famous person, do a little homework, like check out past interviews so you avoid repeating topics that have been covered endlessly. Otherwise, you will end up looking like you aren't really interested in asking questions, just in scoring points.
If you got a chance to interview Clinton, would you just ask questions about Monica, and then complain when he gets peeved?
Well, if he didn't pull a Jim Rome-esque move and intentionally piss off the subject of his interview after he's been warned ("Strangelove! Strangelove! Strangelove!"), he probably decided to scurry off to write his mediocre prose as filler for his subpar interview. I'm sorry, but, as far as I'm concerned, Teller's views are infinitely more important than phallic towers and the writer's hackneyed view of today as less black-and-white than ever before (which is every generation's delusion about itself) and the world being without evils (in an oh-so-US-centric viewpoint; then again, the name of the magazine is Scientific American ) to blow up or maim. Teller is interesting on so many levels so it's rather sad that the interviewer wobbled through the thing like Dr. Strangelove taking those first steps after a triumphant, "Mein Fuhrer!" I'm afraid I don't see the parallel with Strangelove and Teller, anyway, and I think Teller deserves much more credit (if not for fame, for infamy) than perpetual association with a Peter Sellers's caricature.
Still, I can't say I expected much more than what we got. Teller has so much to offer and is such a strong personality that a rather meek bookworm is bound to come away with little substance in a broad interview. I could see an entire series of interviews focusing on various aspects of Teller the ideas and Teller the man. There's certainly something worth probing in his rather extreme opposition to Communism and Fascism. I get the impression that he would quite honestly drop an atomic bomb on the "Reds" if he was given the chance to. Of course, then again, his fervent love for nuclear physics seems to have drawn him into the inane idealogy that its the catch-all, cure-all. Need a harbor in Alaska? Blow it up! To be fair to him, however, one must acknowledge that he didn't explicitly express agreement with the method he suggested for Project Chariot, and only backed the idea of a way to trade more easily with Alaska.
Teller, anyway you look at him, is special. Perhaps most so because he is the one man who can garner an equal amount of contempt from nearly every segment of the population. That's something that not even our friend Gates has accomplished, yet. However, if MS drops more bombs on us like Win98 and Win98 SE, I may find myself begging for the mercy of a good, ol' nuke.
P.S., Was it Chris or Jim Everret (?!) that threw the table at Jim Rome and grabbed him after Rome intentionally crossed the line? I think it was Jim Ev., since I'm pretty sure Rome dug his own grave by persisting in calling Jim, "Chris" (intentionally). O lithe sports reporter, do not tempt the wrath of a much bigger man with your childish taunts...
I thought most launch sites were near the Equator. Norway is rather closer to the North Pole...
Wether you hit a civilian target due to poor aiming or poor recon is quite uninteresting for the civilian casualties in question. And on the accuracy of bombs I distinctly recollect that there were several incidents where bombs whent off in a non-military area during the bombings in Bosnia. Don't believe all the news you are fed from CNN etc, some of those reports seemed to be sponsored by NATO. (And some I saw where apparently sponsored by Milosovech, so I'm not saying NATO are the bad guys here.)
However I seem to have wondered OT a bit here, what I was really trying say was that you can't fight a war without civilian casualties. If you believe that you are even more stupid than people that think communism work. Particularly when you throw thermo-nuclear weapons into the mix.
Furthermore I just loathe the (generally) American attitude that communism is the devil and root of all evil. Communism in itself isn't too be blamed more than christianity or democrazy for the bad things that have been done in their respective "names". Nazism is a different issue since it is based on anti-semetism. And for the record I personally use to debunk communists and "new-liberalist" in my surroundings for their naïve thinking, so it's not like I agree with communism.
It does however seem as if we can agree on that Teller is a crazy old man. And that we should all be happy that his kind didn't get all of their ideas through. I just get so tired of all the "you would all be speaking Russian if it weren't for us!" attitudes that are predominant amongst them. Playing on people's fears should be a capital punishment when the entire world is at stake in your little game.
The H-bomb, however, is an altogether different issue. It was developped after WW2 was won. It uses an atomic bomb as a trigger. The H-bomb never needed to exist other than a show of paranoia and power during the Cold War.
There's a large margin between Openheimer and Teller. Openheimer opposed the H-bomb's development, and Teller denounced him as a Communist. This goes to show what kind of man Teller is.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Someone makes an overly-pessistic conclusion that would discourage someone to "press the button" and you find them to be idiots? I'd rather say that they used the same means as their opponents to counterbalance people like Teller. I agree with you that this isn't "good science" but perhaps sometimes "bad science" is better than global disaster? (Or more local as in the case of nuking Alaska.) This is also more of a political issue, and then lying is a way of life, sadly.
And when Sagan is on the topic I think most people will agree that he has certainly ended up on positive karma. Or do you think it was because of faked results or poor predictions (Global weather is something we still can't simulate very accurately.) that the thouchdown spot for Sojourner was named after him?
What's sick about making thermo-nuclear weapons? What do you think? No matter which country "won" that war humanity would most likely be better off speaking Russian. And considering the mentality of many politicians I don't doubt that some would be capable of launching even if they knew the situation was hopeless "Just because the other guys shouldn't win!" That may be appropriate behaviour in a sandbox. But hardly so on this scale.
Finally, all nations have done atrocities in name of what they thought to be the truth. Do you think that the Soviet thought of themselves as the bad guys? Don't you think they also had some "save the world" motive? Or perhaps the US government patented that? All countries and societies have done horrible things, but when you are actually *proud* of it it get's really sad.
It does however seem as if we can agree on that Teller is a crazy old man.
Nope. Old, yes. Crazy? Not hardly.
And that we should all be happy that his kind didn't get all of their ideas through. I just get so tired of all the "you would all be speaking Russian if it weren't for us!" attitudes that are predominant amongst them.
Tough. If it weren't for people like us,you would be speaking Russian. For you, it
would have no doubt been a very educational, if somewhat lethal, experience.
Playing on people's fears should be a capital punishment when the entire world is at stake in your little game.
It's only a game when you get to sit on the sidelines and let other people carry the burden.
This will no doubt be moderated down as flamebait,but the fact is that the Western
democracies and their authoritarian allies won, and the Soviets lost bigtime. No thanks to you,
and people like you who can't seem to recognize evil when you see it.
Stix put together some nice links for his piece, but his concept of hubristic belief in science was too much.
Obviously, Torvalds and Stallman must suffer from the same thing. Hubristic belief of scientists, as reported by journalists - baaahhh!
Go, Prometheus, Go!
>There were accounts in the media of how George >Bush once left behind the man carrying the >"football" and how he had to catch up with the >president. Actually, it was president Clinton. It happened in 1993, I believe. I used to have the link to the story, but I lost it. You can probably find it in the New York or LA Times archives.
If it is part of nature we should try to understand it.
You mean to tell me that if you see a drop of water, you can't imagine an ocean. Socratic exploration of science is irresponsible.
Are you going to tell me that if I measure 1 cm and 1 more cm and I find I get 2 cm and 1 more for 3 cm, I'm going to have to check 3cm + 1cm = 4 cm.
How is it people can't abstract? I'm amazed.
We already knew what was possible before it was built.
How shallow can you get?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Teller is a brilliant and insightful person. But his insistence that scientists should not care about the consequences of their work is not a currently popular view. Personally I think he's half right -- you can't do science and worry whether you should know what you might find out. Too often science is serendipitous anyway, even if you tried not to, you could still discover the next horror weapon.
But scientists have a very real obligation to help politicians wisely evaluate the consequences of scientific and technological breakthroughs. You can't make the H-bomb go away, but you can help control its use and production intelligently.
When I hear of plans of h-bombing a new harbor into Alaska, to "mainline" it's economy, I have to think Teller is speaking as an expert in fields he knows next to nothing about. Bad advocacy -- creates two sorts of idiot -- those who are frightened of any use of nuclear energy, and those who really think it's a good idea to H-Bomb Alaska.
Once we get into space, nuclear energy is likely to become much more useful. Without the high concentrations of people around reactors, risks are far less in comparison to benefits. Easy disposal of waste in the Sun makes it more attractive yet. Even bombs may well be truly useful tools for excavating or moving asteroids.
Teller is nothing new in science. Someone who has truly contributed a lot to a difficult field, but whose opinions outside his field are somewhat inflammatory, if not arrogant. His work will be greatly appreciated next century, but his abrasive personality has cost him acceptance in his own lifetime.
Carl Sagan mentions Teller in his book "The demon haunted world" and his view of the guy isn't very positive. From that book I got the feeling that Teller was mainly interested in making it seem as if he was _not_ "Dr. Strangelove" and that was why he thought up all of these little projects.
And not only did he partake in the development of the thermo-nuclear bomb, he was one of the major forces behind it. Using the everpopular "If we don't they will" mentality. Basically I think the world would be better off without any people like that, it's just a sick attitute.
And when you say that "...Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear...." I think it should be pointed out that many other leading scientists have a very justified fear of nuclear weapons, irregardless of their uses. It's not only the "ignorant masses". If that was the case then you would have your nice glowing bay in Alaska today. (And hey, you would get a tan on both sides of your body when you lie at the beach there, that would be geat, wouldn't it?)
I trust people that say "It's perfectly safe" about as much as people that claim "This will hurt me more than you".
Moderator note: I consider this article to be at least a bit about scientific journalism, so I believe this to be an on-topic question.
When I was 5, my parents bought me a subscription to ScienceX, where X is the set of current years, and contained at least 76, 77, 78. It was a great magazine, and sufficiently beyond my understanding (hey, I was 5!) that it made me want to learn about all of the new ideas I was exposed to.
I currently subscribe to Wired and SIGACTNews, but barely have time to read them - let alone many other magazines. So, as much as I dislike it, I haven't had a good science magazine in about 10 years.
What's out there now? I'm getting ready (well, s/I'm/Mywifeis/, actually) to have a child, and I'd like to get something nice and meaty to dig into, but which preferably doesn't require a postgrad degree in math or physics. To clarify, I'm a computer science guy. I have at least a basic understanding of higher math and physics, but don't find it relaxing or enjoyable to dig through the minutae. Plus, I'd like something for my kid to read that could have the same effect that ScienceX had on me.
Any suggestions, Gentle Reader?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You'll also notice that Teller isn't quoted all that frequently. The author contributes a great deal. He claims that microcomputers won the cold war, but he doesn't back his statement up with any specifics. Apparently, all that talk about bomb shelters in the 50's had a deep impact on him that lasts up to today. As for all these wacky applications for the H-bomb, there's an anecdote in Feynman's famous memoir about some of off the cuff ideas he came up with for using atomic power in just about everything, ideas which got patented a few days later. The best part of this article, though, is where the author mentions that the building he interviewed Dr. Teller was a "phallic" structure. No doubt that's why Teller decided to set up an office there, perhaps to make up for his inadequacies or something. Very profound.
Sounds like Scientific American had a an axe to grind against Teller, Teller knew it, but he got duped into giving Scientific American a chance to gloat over him, after all that controvery in the 50's had blown over. The article speaks volumes about just how political the scientific community really is, despite all those claims to the contrary.
"We probably have bombs now that have such diminised radioactive effects that you couldn't tell if it was nuclear or conventional the next day."
I doubt this very much.
Nuclear excavating may actually have been a good idea. However, I have never read any numerical reports of how much fallout there would be from the cleanest H-bomb. If it is really low enough that humans could live on the new shore line immediatly afterwards with only modestly higher background radiation, then the only thing stopping us is fear of misuse. (Note that i am defining modestly higher as an increase that could be found by moving to an area with natural sources of increased background radiation.)
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In addition, it was quite possible to fight communism effectively without 'killing children'. For example, the MX missile could find a target to an accuracy of 100 yards. This made it easy to choose specifically military targets.
Yes, it worked real well in both Saudi-arabia and now lately in Bosnia, didn't it? I'm not proposing that you should believe everything that was blamed on NATO bombs, but some reports where apparently accurate. ("Err, sorry China.") And furthermore what do you do when you have a hospital or school on top of a bunker? Bit of a tricky situation woudn't you say? Don't think that will happen? Think again, war is war, if you don't do everything to win, you will lose.
And if you do fight a nuclear war there will be tons of civilian casualties. (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) It's some bloody big bombs you are talking about here, designed to wipe out cities, keep that in mind would you? (And if you feel that nuclear weapons shouldn't be used then I don't see how it can work in defence of Mr. Teller.)
And second, you seem horrified that "cummunism killed a lot of people". Does the fact that indians were killed during the US's early history make democrazy a bad idea? Or perhaps we should kill off all religious people, Christianity did after all torture more people to death than the total number of casualties during WWI and WWII. And that's just one religion.
Finally there is nothing inherently wrong with communism, it's just too optimistic about human nature. The fact that Stalin was a crazy bastard isn't really something you can blame on communism.
Russian also looked at something like project chariot. They were planning to use multiple nuclear bombs to build a canal that would be used to reroute one of their rivers from running through Siberia and have it u-turn and go someplace useful for them.
The US also had plans to use nukes to make a sea level canal through Nicaragua, and I've seen late 50's pro nuclear educational videos that discussed using a nuclear blast to blow a new ground level, i.e.. flat, pass through the Rocky Mountains for a highway.
Kubrick directed Strangelove. He didn't write it. I like Kubrick, but please check out http://terrysouthern.com ...and don't forget Terry Southern, may he rest in peace.
Here's a link with more speculation on who Dr. Strangelove might have been, from the
alt.movies.kubrick FAQ
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. Light. -WSB
Scientific American seems to be one of the best written magazines to date. Always have quality stuff. Good interview too.
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you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
Teller was in it all wasn't he. It might have been a better world without him for awhile like someone has said near the end of the article, but someone would have come up with what he did sooner or later. Even with having a stroke this 91-year old man seems like he knows his stuff and what's going on. Rock On Teller!!!
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
Ouch. We need some clarity here. Making sure people understand that both sides were doing terrible things is important but you had better be careful when making blanket statements like For every 'provocation' the Soviets put forward, I can name one that we did right before or after on the same scale geopolitically. . Have you ever heard of the "Gulag archipelago"? or better yet seen it? Say what you will, even the slaughter in Vietnam compares favourably (if such a comparison is possible) to what the Soviets were doing to inhabitants of their own country as well as others.
How odd. This man seems more concerned about the issues he championed than himself. He seemed determined not to promote himself. That's a very rare quality in today's world, and it shows through vividly in this interview.
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Notice NONE of his ideas for peacetime use of the hydrogen bomb were remotely useful.
The Soviets built a hydrogen bomb only because they knew the US was doing the same. While it's possible that building up a vast arsenal to wipe out all life may indeed have been the reason for the USSR's collapse, "vindicating" Teller's observation that we would all be speaking Russian and he would be in a concentration camp, it still seems that there could have been a more effective way to win the cold war then build up a vast arsenal capable of wiping us all out many times over.
And the threat isn't over yet.
Personally, I got the impression Teller was suffering in part from cognitive dissonance in an attempt to justify that his life wasn't completely wasted.
"The bomb WAS good."
"I thought of it, not Ulam."
"Alaska would be much improved if we blew up half a dozen hydrogen bombs just off shore."
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Given that he had invested his entire life in defending them against most of the scientific community.
In some way, the ideas could be said to be Teller.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
The article seems to make him sound like a crackpot obsessed with the power of the nuclear weapons he worked with, trying to use them for everything from geographical engineering to defense. The project chariot thing really disturbed me, though. If the account at the link above is true, then I worry that maybe he is a crazy scientist.
On the other hand, maybe this was his way of coping with a truly awful weapon that he had a hand in creating. Finding a successful peaceful use might make him feel better.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
The movie showed the late Kubrick's genius and made you laugh but at the same time examine the world on a serious plateau that only someone really special is capable of.
There have been many plans for the use of atomic energy that seem unrealistic or needlessly dangerous today.
The man is 92 years old, in his heyday the Bomb was considered a great way to convert a small amount of matter into a large amount of energy, and it does that pretty well.
Any endeavor requiring large amounts of energy could possibly be converted to nuclear power. So he wanted to use bombs for excavating a bay, it's not all that crazy considering the time and place in which it was suggested (1958).
This man saved the free world, and saying "someone else would have done it sooner or later" is quite probably true -- but it may well have been a russian or german, and we'd all be dead, or at least never born. If you don't believe that, your school tought you some shitty history, go find some WW2 vets and ask them about it before they die.
The next 50 years should be pretty exciting. China has already sated publicly that they are going to take what we have, so let's hope our genetics research accelerates faster than theirs.
There may be a genetic war on the horizon, and if one side has to win while the other loses, it might as well be the West than wins, rather than the commies.
History repeating itself? nah....
Yes, it was Clinton, but no, it was this year.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Stop, everyone, and think about it -- when else in history have two empires close enough together to fight a war refrained from fighting one?
A study of human history and human nature leaves just one conclusion: the only reason there wasn't a third war on the scales of WWI and WWII this century is that nuclear weapons made it impossible. Even the most romantic idiot politician understood that there would be no spoils of victory and no glory -- just atomization for both sides.
The bomb is why the Korean War was not fought on a 2,000-mile front in Europe and East Asia, but on a front of several dozens of miles on a relatively unimportant penninsula.
- When Oppenheimer opposed the "Super" on the grounds that it was an unnecessary weapon of genocide, Teller skewered him. This was a very organized and deliberate maligning of another scientist only because he held an opposing opinion. Teller's words were used to undermine Oppenheimer's veracity in front of the AEC. In an era dominated by HUAC and Senator McCarthy, and in spite of all that Oppie had accomplished for the country, that was enough to destroy a very important person's life, career, etc. The impact of these events is incalculable.
- Teller's version of the Super probably would not have worked--it was a likely dud. So say the other physicists surrounding the project, including Hans Bethe.
- Teller wanted control of the Super project at Los Alamos, but nobody wanted to work with him. Norris Bradbury, the lab's director, had a choice. It was either Teller or two-thirds of his division leaders. Teller had to go. He refused to work under anybody and resigned in a huff in Sept., 1951 when Norris appointed Marshall Holloway to direct the project. This was right when the project got going. Teller wasn't even directly involved in development of the Super from that point on.
- In March, 1951, Ulam saved Teller's design with his staged implosion design. In spite of these facts, Teller continues to take sole credit. How many people have heard of Stanislaw Ulam?
- The Russians had a more advanced A-bomb on the drawing boards when they exploded their first A-bomb, a copy of the Nagasaki device. If spies hadn't turned over the design to the Russians they would have soon had an A-bomb anyway. They were working on the Super soon after their first atomic test in 1949.
Teller is almost totally driven by his hatred of the Russians. This is a hideous concept on which to base one's existence. In my opinion, Edward Teller deserves his reputation as the much maligned enfant terrible of science. Dr. Stranglove, indeed.References:
Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. 1995. Simon and Schuster.
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. 1986. Simon and Schuster. Pulitzer Prize winner. A great book.
Goodchild, Peter. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds. 1985. Fromm International Publishing Corp.
>> "We probably have bombs now that have such
>> diminised radioactive effects that you couldn't
>> tell if it was nuclear or conventional the next
>> day."
>
> I doubt this very much.
This is exactly what a neutron bomb does. It has be explosive power to blow up a car, at best. Instead it releases most of its energy in a burst of neutron radiation that kills living organisms but leaves mechanical structures undamaged. The best part is the very short half-life of the radiation - the day after the bomb the radiation has all but gone.
Anyone who lived under communism can tell you :
you hear your neighbor's door crash down, you know they did nothing, you've known them for years, but they are dragged kicking and screaming to a gulag, never to be seen again. If you say anything, or even look out your door, you go too.
This is a documented method of communist control -- mnipulating populations into sheep through fear, picking families at random for prosecution and imprisonment.
China uses "Block Captains" everywhere, they "monitor" the "cells" for "unusual behavior", which is reported back to the police. The suspects are rounded up and placed in hospitals for "reeducation".
Many posters are ragging on Teller. They have no clue what fear is, having been coddled their entire lives by western liberalism, and politically correct history books edited by some wacko history professor in the mid-seventies.
I grew up with people from Rumania, they told me of their friends who were killed in the name of control.
Note that the right-wing ultra conservatives are more than capable of the same behavior. Central America, anyone? Guatamala?
The history books are getting oh-so-clean nowadays, and many of the posters here lapped it up like a kitten drinks a saucer of cream.
Notice how quickly Russia has "detained" 11,000 people in the wake of the terrorist bombings? Seems rather efficient, old habits die hard, I guess.
For those interested in the ethics of science, I would strongly recommend finding anything written or presented by the late Jacob Brownowski.
He was a leading military mathematician who visitied Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombs to study aftermath. He returned as a profoundly changed man, and pioneered a new field of ethics in science. His television series _The Ascent of Man_ is an amazing account of our history encompassing science, art and the human condition; and builds strong case for ethics in the practice of science. If you get the chance, see it. It will probably change your life.
You can find out about the companion book at amazon.
He was a great man. It would have been interesting to see what Brownowski and Teller would have said to each other if they were in the same room.
- James.
The thing is that just about any immoral/self-destructing/bad-for-the-world scheme can be justified when there's fear involved. Ideas like Project Chariot (or draining the Mediterranean to make farmland, or... the list goes on) all have one thing in common: they're boldly outlandish, potentially helpful to humans, but we don't fear what might happen if we don't do them.
The H-bomb was invented because of our fear of Communism. If the thought of fusion never occurred (which is unlikely), then it might just as well have been a giant A-bomb on giant rockets. Think of all the other outlandish ideas which failed. H-bombs just happened to work.
Disclaimer: I don't agree with Teller's politics at all; I'm just trying to make some observations of the world in general.
there were a lot of ideas
for example richard p. feynman comes with nuclear airplane.
while talking about richard p. faynman: there is a book with his memories. it is very good while it is funny and it teach something at the same time.
hany
My father was a bomber pilot over Japan. He's tired of telling people of the terrble death toll the West would have suffered if an invasion of Japan was necessary.
Japanese culture demands death before surrender. Ever heard of Iwo Jima? Not even japanese soil, and they would not surrender until the very end. Japan is just a bit larger than Iwo, wouldn't you say?
Enjoy your fake history all you want, there was no serious blackade plan. It was "Surrender, or be invaded", and the bomb let the Japanese surrender in the face of its might.
Even the Japanese leadership admitted they would not have surrendered, thus forcing a terrible land invasion, were it not for the Bomb.
Teller is a hero of the free world. He saved countless Japanese, American and allied citizens from a terrible death fighting on Japanese soil.
Truman made the right decision, there was no other choice but a massive death toll on all sides.
That article makes me proud that I've only bought 4 or 5 SA magazines this decade. I used to by 9 or 10 a year, but they started filling the front and back of the mag with left-wing Globalist-Socialist editorial rants. Occasional reviews at the grociery store reveal that it has only gotten worse. They've ruined a once-great American Intitution.
Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out.
...thanks to the ever-lovable gnulix guy!
The evil antithesis of Teller is fortunately counter-balanced by the moral purity of the humanity-loving, gourmet-cooking, slashdot-reading, linux-loving, ever-lovable gnulix guy!
Sleep soundly, young Rose. I have built your humanity strong and true.
...signed, the ever-lovable gnulix guy!
That was the atom bomb. The H bomb is different and came later.
It's an interesting point, though: how much must scientists predict the morality or immorality of what they're doing?
I mean, in the case of nuclear research in general, the long term moral worth of nuclear power, for example, is a lot harder to qualify than nuclear weapons research. Should people have researched nuclear power? If not, how far back would you stunt the research, given a chance? Would you deny any nuclear research at all, including such things as Positron Emission Tomography, an occasionally vital medical tool?
I hope I'm not drifting too far off-topic with this -- although I don't think general scientists' morality (as opposed to scientific morality, of which Teller might be justified in getting huffy about the suggestion) can be off-topic when you're talking about the Father of the Bomb -- but surely any scientist is, at the same time as being a scientist, a human being and must therefore be responsive to the morality of his situation?
Possibly not: many jobs require the employee to withhold e.g. compassion, or pity. Or does morality stand apart from that, as a fundamental way in which we can ever be part of a race, not merely a society?
(Of course, I have chosen a DPhil on the cooling of ions in quantum computers, which at least for now holds no ethical problems unless you're against the wilful confinement of innocent calcium ions...)
Its because of articles like this that I stopped reading Scientific American. I got tired of hearing about the authors opinion as opposed to facts (or the best approximations at the time) about the subject. Sure, despite their best efforts people will remain somewhat biased and their opinions will shine through, but I wish they'd at least try to be objective.
you don't happen to know Feynmans opinion of Teller? My HS physics teacher showed us some interviews of the guy (F) and I read a couple of his books, by far one of the coolest geeks of the century. I would respect his opinion. (that reporter was way too biased, especially after being intellectually bested by a 91-year old stroke survivor with one foot)
+&x
The author, Gary Stix, seems to have an all-too-common bias to his writing: peace-loving hippies good, hard-headed scientist bad. This can be entertaining, even endearing, when applied to relatively trivial subjects, but here it comes off as biased, naive, and peevish.
The Cold War was the conflict of the century, and Teller played a pivotal role. The world was at stake, literally. Stix is either innocent about whether the world would be better off with Soviet domination or Edward Teller, or he is outright wrong in his preference.
In his remarks about hubris, Stix shows himself to be one of the small-is-beautiful gang, opposed to any plan that might mean digging a big hole or generating a lot of energy. Apart from being narrow-minded, this point of view is ignorant of history. It is likely that our grandchilderen will have machines that make our industry look as if we are hauling coal out of mines with donkeys. Unless we consider things that appear on the surface as "hubristic," we will miss opportunities to give succeeding generations better lives.
Overall, the article is a huge missed chance to create a significant historic document.
I wrote parts of this stuff
I didn't realize how much of a *bastard* that guy from Penn and Teller really is!
...I hadn't heard that one proposed before.
*grin* Just poking fun..
There's no such thing as a spiral orbit; barring perturbations from third bodies, all orbits follow conic sections (ellipses, circles, parabolas, hyperbolas) around the center of mass of the system. To send something into the sun, you need to put it into an elliptical orbit whose perihelion will be inside the sun's radius... which basically means killing most of it's initial velocity.
If you figure you're already in orbit around a planet, you can probably get a free couple miles per second by boosting on the right half of your orbit, and maybe you can do a gravity assist or two... but most of the 25 miles per second delta V you'd need to send something into the sun would have to come from your own engines.
But who wants to send nuclear waste into the sun anyway? If you've got cheap spaceflight, pick a spot on the moon, dump or bury it all there, and forget about it. It won't hurt anybody, and it'll be useful someday.
I believe that this is because of competition from other scientific magazines that catered to the mass populace.
Scientists still read Scientific American. However, there is a whole lot more fluff now than in the past. Anyway, it hasn't been the same since Martin Gardner stopped writing for them.
(Of course, I have chosen a DPhil on the cooling of ions in quantum computers, which at least for now holds no ethical problems unless you're against the wilful confinement of innocent calcium ions...)
Actually, I can think of one definite problem. Quantum computers can be used to factor numbers much more quickly that normal computers. If I remember correctly, the time to factor a number using Shor's aloroithm is O(n) with respect to the number of bits in the number. By comparison, I think the fastest current method using a classical computer (i.e, the one in front of you) is O(2^n^(1/3)). The complexities might be wrong, but the point is that a quantum computer is faster by orders of magnitude.
The point of all of this is that a working quantum computer could be used to used to factor a large number relatively quickly. Since many modern public-key (and probably others; I'm a bit ignorant at some of this) encryption methods use prime numbers, privacy would take a bigger hit that any of the recent moves against it.
If that's not an ethical issue, I don't know what is...
-ElJefe
But the big one is Andre Sakharov who played a very major role in the development of the Soviet H-bomb. Sakharov was a leading voice for nuclear disarmament and for more democratic freedom in the USSR. This got him a free rent in Gorky.
Compared to Sakharov, Teller does look like Dr. Strangelove.
Finally there is nothing inherently wrong with communism, it's just too optimistic about human nature.
Communism is WAY too optimistic about human nature, IMHO. Which actually does make it inherently wrong, at least as a form of government. Maybe "wrong" isn't the correct word, "useless" fits better.
+&x
This post seems to be an example of a common misconception. This misconception is the same one that the "No Nukes" proponents in Vancouver (and elsewhere in the US and Canada) were so fond of stating in the 80's. This is the misconception that the Russians would not have invaded whether or not the US had its atomic arsenal. The Russian people did not want a war with the West (what ordinary working person wants war?). But the men in power in the politburo knew what was the greatest risk to their uncontested power, and would have taken what steps they saw as necessary to maintain that power if the price had not been so high.
In spite of the revisionist history in the Sci Am article, the Cold War was won by Star Wars. The Russian economy was not capable of sustaining an equivalent program and that is what caused the downfall of the Soviet Union - they knew that they could not match the US in such a development. The Apollo lunar program is what gave the US the credible possibility of achieving such a program (assuming it was technically feasible).
Now, it's true that what made the work on Star Wars possible was the US' free market economy and the electronic industry in California and elsewhere. But it's possible to argue that the US economy would not have been capable of that development if it were not for the 40 (mostly) peaceful years they were blessed with since the end of WWII. Although I don't want to belittle the war experiences of anybody in Vietnam or Korea, let's face it, 50 thousand US casualties in Vietnam are minor compared to the millions in WWI, WWII or the deaths that would have occurred in a confrontation between the free West and the Soviets.
So the question is "Would just the atomic bomb have been sufficient as a deterrent to keep the Cold War cold for as long as it did, or was the orders of magnitude greater power of the hydrogen bomb necessary?". Either way, the Star Wars program, advocated by Teller and the President's Advisory Council on Science and Technology (including Jerry Pournelle, and many members of the scientific and military communities), is what delivered the final uppercut to Soviet Communism.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
When it comes to weapons, there are three groups of people:
1. Those who want weapons to control other people.
2. Those who want weapons to defend themselves against the first group.
3. Those who want nothing to do with weapons.
I despise the first group, respect the rights of the second group, and try to ignore the whining of the third group.
The fact that you are in the third group does not make the first group go away. It just makes you dependent on the second group.
There are people in the world who want what you have. They are willing to hurt or kill you. Saying that they don't exist does not make them go away. Wishful thinking is a poor defense strategy.
It is interesting that nearly all comments (positive or negative) on the quality of Scientific American have been moderated down to 0 as Offtopic.
This article makes some definite value judgments about Edward Teller and his acomplishments. If the article was objective, then I could understand the moderation as offtopic. However, since the article does make value judgments, is it offtopic to submit it (and by extension the magazine that elected to publish it) to similar value judgments? I think not.
Perhaps one of the permanent moderators is concerned about the legal liability of slashdot. I don't think it applies in this case since it is possible to establish a history of articles in SA articles that make similar value judgments or ad-hominem attacks. This is a legitimate assessment of a magazine which purports to present objective scientific information, or objective reporting on the history of science.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
How many lines were quotes from the interview, and
how many were ramblings of the author? I used to
find Scientific American interesting, but this is
just another example of fluff wrapped around the
barest hint of an interview.
A dingo ate my sig...
Well, considering that the entire Manhattan Project was at least as much a matter of advances in Numerical Analysis and computational techniques as it was of advances in fundamental physics, and also that currently one of the largest uses of raw computational force is for nuclear weapons simulation, perhaps you want to rethink how inherently innocent your chosen field of research is.
You bet! Us analysists were predicting that we would have to kill around 30% of the Japenese population before they would surrender, thats millions of their lives alone, plus millions of Allied lives would be lost in that process. So the use of those two bombs saved over 100x as many lives as they cost, 50x the number of japenese lives that were lost.
The Japenese were training their civilans to man the beaches with spears and axes for gods sake! Which would have been better, to mow down millions 'armed' civilians with artilary and machine guns, or the nuclear weapons?
Regardless, in terms of raw total damage, the firebombing of Tokyo did much more damage than the nuclear fireballs did.
russia's dead hand system is scary, especially with the state of their economy. the deadhand system is set up so if a nuclear blast is detected a full barrage of nukes would be launched, survivablitiy is what makes MAD work, the goal is even if we're all dead you die to, i ask you what happens if something happens to that system... we'd all die. read bruce blair's global zero alert. he was a missileer during the cold war and the capabilities freaked him out, now he champians the something called de-alerting, basicly you do something that makes it so the missles c/n be launched immediatly, be it removing the guidence chips, storing the warheads off site, removing the launch pin, you still have the nukes but there is a cool down period. read jonathon schell's the gift of time for a more extreme but incredible well research proposal of nuclear abolotion. we are very lucky nothing has happened yet with how close we've been to the brink
If you want to see a really good nuclear weapon museum, then I strongly recommend the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It shows what happens after the big boom. After I visited that one, I couldn't eat lunch. The only museum that matches the one in Hiroshima for impact is the Holocaust Museum in DC.
BTW, other ppl that worked on the A- and H-bombs have afterwards done okay in the eyes of the public. Bethe, Fermi, Ulam, Sakharov, and von Neumann to name a few. However, Teller blinded by his immense hatred and mistrust of the Ruskies has used his position to espouse a philosphy of fear and loathing. There is a fairly old book, The Legacy of Hiroshima, that Teller wrote about 40 yrs ago. Worth reading if you can find it. It is a cold war classic.
Or perhaps you are too selective in your recollections of history.
And if it were up to ME, I'd pull something similar to what John Galt
pulled in Atlas Shrugged, only instead moving into a MAGICAL SPACE COLONY
and blowing up this blasted junk of dirt.
Jonathan P.S. I live in the U.S. and I can tell
you of my relatives and friends of my family who
died so you can have your own whacked-out
political views. Also, British people can.
Idiot.
When I submitted this article, I made no claim as to the "scientific" content or accuracy of this article or the magazine it was published in. The article just happend to make me read, and read some more, laugh, feel a little empathy (both for the interviewer and the interviewee), and then I got on with life. Sure I do feel that the author was using the magazine as a platform for his personal dislike of Teller, but that is American media. Accept it, or actively promote to change it.
Besides, on the whole, it was just an entertaining article: worth the read just to be able to quote Teller as saying, "'I am not Dr. Strangelove!'"
I would hope for most people that they don't care if Scientific American is read by, "real scientists," but that they get all the entertainment and content out of it to justify the cover-price or their subscription rate. Why let peer pressure influence your decision? It is your mind: fill it with whatever you want.
-AP
I haven't read the article yet. Don't too inorder to comment on Teller, the Easst europian mad scientist who builts toys of destruction for the USA. He's a mad man, and should have been locked up fo ryears now if you ask me. However, the one kewl thing he was involved with in his life would have to be the StarWars program president Regan started or the alternative power stuff he was working on at Los ALimos. There is a great documentary on Teller that airs on PBS. YOu guys should check it out.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
After watching the interviews with Teller in the Atomic Bomb Movie and reading about him in Dark Sun...I really got the impression that he was quite mad.
I never thought of him as Dr. Stranglove...but now I will always think of him like that.
Of course Teller wasn't Dr. Strangelove. Strangelove was a parody of a combination of Werner von Braun (the ex-Nazi missile designer) and John von Neumann, who besides being one of the fathers of modern computers, was a rabid anti-Communist who believed that nuclear war was not only inevitable but winnable for the nation doing the first strike.
This is not an interview with Teller... it is a use of Teller's name to attract attention to the journalist's own bloody pulpit. Such is that state of journalism in 1999 America. If you want to hear Teller's own views, watch out for a TLC documentary from some years ago. Teller is an interesting person, whose views deserve much more attention than the few paragraphs given by the self-promoting writer of this shabby Scientific American article.
It seems Teller was lucky to have had such strong formative experiences in Hungary, seeing that fascist and communist regimes were so abhorrent and morally indistinguishable that they must both be fought at all costs.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
So, no, Teller hasn't brought the world anything worthwhile except fear, paranoia and a god complex. It would indeed have been a better place without him.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Japan was almost at the end.
Even some of their generals wanted to give up.
But the tenno prohibited this.
And also _American_ historians agree TODAY
that the bombs weren't necessary.
The manhattan project was _so_ expensive
that they threw them in order to justiy the cost
after the war.
Frank
The concept of screwing up our environment in order to fix the fact that we've already screwed up our environment is pretty stupid. About as stupid as the idea of building a harbor in alaska with hydrogen bombs. I'm not even going to go into the insanity of building massively destructive weapons and calling it an effort at defense, deterrence and peace.
It sounds to me like Teller's socio-political world view was totally defined by a couple of events relating to the Fascists, the Communists, and both of them mistreating his father. Which just goes to show that people whose world views are formed by catastrophic circumstances become either inherently conservative (if the circumstances they are in are OK... like Isreal right now) or revolutionary (if the circumstances they are in suck... like Lebanon for the past 20 years).
I am the king... of No Pants! www.penny-arcade.com
I can't find my copy of the book (yes, I do have a copy here somewhere), but my favorite one was the proposed "new Canal," to replace the Panama Canal. The idea was to evacuate a few hundred thousand people from a hundred-mile wide stretch of Nicaragua, then set off a couple of hundred thermonuclear bombs, digging a hundred-yard wide trench across Central America.
Not to mention, of course, "make a new pass in the mountains near Needles, California, to cut thirty miles off of the route of Interstate 40." This one almost got adopted. The Mojave Indians might have objected, but what the hey...
Teller has been treated extremely poorly by history and by the press. Just look at this interview for crying out loud! The fact of the matter is that he is a brilliant man. A lot of his proposals would work, and could really help our society if it wasn't for the fact that the general public is too afraid of something they don't understand to take advantage of it.
And if you're so concerned about nuclear weapons, here's a thought: nuclear weapons have saved far, far, more lives than they have taken. The only time they were actually used in combat was at the end of WWII, and while it is true that many were killed, and actual invasion would have cost many more lives on BOTH sides. And the conflict between the US and the Soviet Union were caused by political differences, not nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the reason it was a COLD war, if it wasn't for nuclear weapons it may very well have been WWIII between the two most powerful nations in the world. The death toll would have made WWII look like a day in the park.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
Blow up Alaska to bring it into the economy. While I agree nuclear physics will in one way or another get us off this rock and maybe you'll really see what Alpha Centuari looks like- people used to think Venus was full of plant life and marvelous landscapes- I'm appalled that sensationalism is what still convinces some people that an item is useful. This inability to come with an elegant simple solution to a problem is disturbing. But of course that explains why there are more sub atomic particles than elements. Why we spend billions of dollars to find the tiniest thing that will confuse people enough to accept a theory for the next thousand years. Anybody who has ever studied complexity, sociology, and chaos theory would see a certain arbitrary man-made quality to the new zoology we know as particle physics. Or that other crackpot science: Genetics. It isn't the technology that bothers me as much as the people involved. From some of the things I hear them say, I can't help comparing geneticists to script-kiddies. I mean what is the Human Genome Project, but a worldwide port scan of human DNA? Reminds me of the "I just wanna make some money with puters without learning a whole lot" sysadmins I run into sometimes. In fact, it is the same high-technology enchantment that convinces him of salvation that is also the enchantment of those who would rather blow up people. It's sad people can be so blinded by hype. So many believe that enrichment of the sciences means enrichment of people. Now some people might say, "Let them read textbooks." I'm not talking talk-show addicted morons who can't bother to take a walk to the library. Nor am I saying that some minority is disadvantaged when it comes to computers. There was an article on that a few weeks ago. However, you can't empower people with science until you give them the access. Invention is only half of it. Science, technology, computers, the Internet, space... all these things are put out of reach of the average person. One day Reno's going to ban encryption. Another some newscaster is going to report on "virtual gangs" as if the Internet were the embodiment of evil. The closest anyone ever gets to technology is becoming dependent on a product that their boss tells them to use because they won't ever search the net in fear that the word root bio in biotechnology will bring up some porn star's career profile. And worst of all Reno, the media, and Co. will tell you that technology is making the world a better place. Reminds me of, "There were probably millions of shoes produced while half of Oceania went barefoot."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
During the cold war, a system evolved to prevent a nuclear holocaust. Basically, either the US president or the Russian President could "push the button".
On the US side, the president carries a briefcase known as "the football", which contains the nuclear trigger. Similarly, there's a briefcase on the Russian side (there was even a documentary on this, with an interview with the Russian engineer who designed the Russian briefcase, no doubt one of the strangest careers on the planet.)
It's really amazing how this system works. There were accounts in the media of how George Bush once left behind the man carrying the "football" and how he had to catch up with the president. And in 1995, a Norwegian space probe launch triggered off a Russian alarm against a missile strike, which was cancelled by Yeltsin, 20 minutes after it was detected.
The whole command/control system is one of the most sophisticated structures ever designed by humans - and it has the planet at stake. It's insightful to read about the scientists behind the system, and how human they are. It's also scary.
It also makes you wonder what might have happened if Yeltsin was drunk.
L.
Blow up Alaska to bring it into the economy. While I agree nuclear physics will in one way or another get us off this rock and maybe you'll really see what Alpha Centuari looks like- people used to think Venus was full of plant life and marvelous landscapes- I'm appalled that sensationalism is what still convinces some people that an item is useful. This inability to come with an elegant simple solution to a problem is disturbing. But of
/.. However, you can't empower people with science until you give them the access.
course that explains why there are more sub atomic particles than elements. Why we spend billions of dollars to find the tiniest thing that will confuse people enough to accept a theory for the next thousand years. Anybody who has ever studied complexity, sociology, and chaos theory would see a certain arbitrary man-made quality to the new zoology we know as particle physics.
Or that other crackpot science: Genetics. It isn't
the technology that bothers me as much as the people involved. From some of the things I hear them say, I can't help comparing geneticists to script-kiddies. I mean what is the Human Genome Project, but a worldwide port scan of human DNA?
Reminds me of the "I just wanna make some money with puters without learning a whole lot" sysadmins I run into sometimes.
In fact, it is the same high-technology enchantment that convinces him of salvation that is also the enchantment of those who would rather blow up people.
It's sad people can be so blinded by hype. So many believe that enrichment of the sciences means enrichment of people.
Now some people might say, "Let them read textbooks."
I'm not talking about talk-show addicted morons who can't bother to take a walk to the library. Nor am I saying that some minority is disadvantaged when it comes to computers. There was an article on that a few weeks ago on
Invention is only half of it. Science, technology, computers, the Internet, space... all these things are put out of reach of the average person. One day Reno's going to ban encryption. Another some newscaster is going to report on "virtual gangs" as if the Internet were the embodiment of evil.
The closest anyone ever gets to technology is becoming dependent on a product that their boss tells them to use because they won't ever search the net in fear that the word root bio in biotechnology will bring up some porn star's career profile. And worst of all Reno, the media, and Co. will tell you that technology is making the world a better place.
Reminds me of, "There were probably millions of shoes produced while half of Oceania went barefoot."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
This article is typical modern solipsistic journalism. We get to hear about the author's own memories of the Cold War, and his musings as he walks down the street (is this why I would read SciAm?). Then there is the obligatory that-building-is-phallic comment about some tower at the Hoover Institute. (I'm glad to see our author took Psych 101 - 'Half-Assed Fruedian Commentary For The Poorly-Educated'. I wish that Isidore I. Rabi had instead mused that 'It would have been a better world without Freud')
The most absurd part of this article is the suggestion that the USSR lost the Cold War because the US makes Macintoshes, biotech, and Pentium computers. The Soviets could never compete with America's electronic weaponry he says, forgetting that a handful of Soviet ICBM's could wipe California off the planet. Teller was working to make that less likely. The Soviets never needed to surpass the US technologically, they just needed sufficient technology, which they happily stole.
This journalist doesn't know his ass from a Nuclear Crater in the ground.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Excellent point. This was nothing like the sort of interview one would want with somebody as interesting as Teller. One gets the impression that he didn't last long in Teller's office.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Amazingly enough, the patent on radiative compression of thermonuclear bomb was filled by Klaus Fuchs (russian spy) and Von Neumann. The name of Teller is not mentioned in patent application. He however immediately saw the benefits of the idea and pushed for it real hard.
I'd recommend book by Richard Rhodes Dark Sun: The making of Hydrogen Bomb to everyone interested.
Japanese culture demands death before surrender. Ever heard of Iwo Jima? Not even japanese soil, and they would not surrender until the very end. Japan is just a bit larger than Iwo, wouldn't you say?
Enjoy your fake history all you want, there was no serious blackade plan. It was "Surrender, or be invaded", and the bomb let the Japanese surrender in the face of its might.
Even the Japanese leadership admitted they would not have surrendered, thus forcing a terrible land invasion, were it not for the Bomb.
Actually the Japanese emperor did attempt peace negotiations via the Russians, just weeks before Hiroshima. The Russians however, turned them down. Had an agreement with the Russians been made however, it is debatable wether the Japanese military (having much informal power, and being the ones who convinced the emperor to start the war in the first place) would have accepted. And the issue of the Japanese people is a totally different matter...
in an pseudo-interview with about 6 other students. I asked him if it ever bothered him to be the "Father of the H-Bomb" since his "baby" could be used for such evil and/or immoral purposes.
;)
I thought he was going to jump out of his chair at me.
He got very upset and angrily announced that a scientist's only responsibility is to science. The possible uses of a discovery should not even be considered by the researchers -- that is someone elses business. And because of this, he did not feel even the slightest bit of remorse for his work on the bomb.
And then he upbraided _me_ (since I was on my way to grad school to become a scientist at the time) for thinking that a scientist _should_ worry about the moral implications of his/her work.
Needless to say, I didn't ask any more questions.
The long long wait has ended! The Glorious MEEPT has returned in triumph!
Seriously, what you have here is a man who spent his entire life in a monomaniacal push to develop devices to wipe out vast portions of the human race. It doesn't suprise me that he is rather cranky about the way his life's work is seen. The Infamous Edward Teller, indeed.
Lotek---
Meept is getting slow in his old age
Understanding of the world can never be `evil'' and I do not believe that his development of the H bomb was a bad thing. Now, perhaps deployment of the H bomb and Teller's incuragement of it as a deterent or Teller's ideas about nuclear excavation are a bit stupid, but the publicashion of the ideas of involved (and maybe a little bit of initial testing) is a good thing. Yes, lots of people could have died, but the potential for nuclear wepons exists wether Teller had done what he did or not and we need to learn to live with them sometime.. the only real issue was wether we would have been better off waiting a few more years and letting a little more sanity creap into the cold-war.
If it is part of nature we should try to understand it.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell