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The Men Who Made the Atomic Bomb THIS COULD HAVE BEEN a BIBLICAL STORY

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The Men Who Made the Atomic Bomb THIS COULD HAVE BEEN a BIBLICAL STORY The Men Who Made The Atomic Bomb THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A BIBLICAL STORY “Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur — nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger.” - Deuteronomy 29:22-23 THE REAL STORY IS ABOUT JEWISH SCIENTISTS MAKING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION Albert Einstein Leo Szilard Robert Oppenheimer Definition From Wikipedia - A weapon of mass destruction (WMD or WoMD) is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures (e.g. buildings), natural structures (e.g. mountains), or the biosphere. Early WMDs – Chemical weapons, such as Greek Fire, were in use as early as 673 CE. Even earlier legend says that Archimedes had developed a “heat ray” using mirrors circa 250 BCE. H. G. Wells – Science Fiction • Heat Ray – War of the Worlds (1898) • Tanks – The Ironclads (1903) • Aerial Combat – The War in the Air (1907) • Poison Gas (Black Smoke) – War of the Worlds (1898) • Biological Weapons – War of the Worlds (1898) • Atomic Bomb – The World Set Free (1914) WMD - World War I Fritz Haber had won the 1918 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his invention of the Haber-Bosch process, a means of synthesizing fertilizer that is credited with saving Europe from famine caused by depleted soil. During the First World War, Haber turned his genius in a different direction – the development and production of poison gases, most notably chlorine gas. He is considered the “father of chemical warfare.” After the war, Haber continued his research and teaching at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. One of his students would develop the Zyklon-B gas, originally intended as an insecticide, that would be used so infamously in the concentration camps. Most ironically, Haber had been born into a Jewish family from Breslau, Poland. Einstein At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Haber would share the podium with another brilliant Jewish scientist – Albert Einstein. Born in Germany to non-observant Jewish parents, Einstein had traveled with his family to Italy. He would later attend school in Switzerland and, after a time spent working in the patent office, would himself become a professor of physics. In 1905, the so-called “miracle year” Einstein would publish four papers, each considered to be ground-breaking. In 1914, he would return to Germany, where he would be appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and a professor of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Because of his stature in the field, Einstein was freed from teaching duties, but he both attended and gave lectures. The Germans Max Planck, one of the original founders of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (which would be renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics after the war) Planck was the originator of quantum theory and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Max von Laue had won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his work on the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. He would succeed Einstein in the position of Director of the Institute. He was also a staunch opponent of National Socialism. Werner Karl Heisenberg also worked on quantum mechanics and also served as the Director of the Institute in the years after the war. The degree to which Heisenberg willingly participated in Germany’s war-time atomic research and his relationship with Danish physicist Niels Bohr are matters that are debated even today. The Students – Leo Szilard Brilliant teachers attract brilliant students. People came from all over Europe to study physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute; perhaps none was more brilliant than Leo Szilard, a young man from Hungary. First an engineering student at the Palatine Joseph Technical University in Budapest, his studies were interrupted by military service during World War I. After the war, in 1919, he left Hungary to attend the Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Berlin. He grew bored with engineering and in 1920 transferred over to study physics. Leo was not only a student of Einstein‘s, but also a collaborator. By 1926, the two of them had filed a patent for the Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator (also known as the Einstein Refrigerator) which has no moving parts, operated at constant pressure, and required only a heat source to operate. Szilard was known for his dry sense of humor and his abrasive personality. Because he was Leo Szilard at age 18 not well-liked (although he was respected by his colleagues) he often did not receive the credit that he was due. It was said of him that he “was the most brilliant scientist never to have won a Nobel Prize.” But he was not only brilliant, he was a man that changed the course of history. The Hungarian Quartet Eugene Paul Wigner – Four years younger then Leo Szilard, Wigner followed an almost identical path in his early years. Also born in Budapest, Wigner attended first the Technical University and then the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Not only a brilliant physicist, Wigner was also a brilliant mathematician. Wigner’s theorem is considered instrumental in the mathematical analysis of quantum physics. As an aside, Wigner’s younger sister Margit married physicist Paul Dirac. John von Neumann was born Neumann János Lajos in Budapest, although his parents used his Hebrew name of Yonah. Not only was he a brilliant physicist, he also distinguished himself in mathematics, economics, computer science and statistics. He published over 150 papers during his life. His last work, written while he was in the hospital, would be published as a book entitled The Computer and the Brain. Edward Teller was the youngest of the group but brilliant in his own right. He made numerous contributions in several areas of physics, including nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy and surface physics. He is also considered one of the inspirations for Stanley Kubrick’s character Dr. Strangelove. WMD Science Chemistry of the Physics Atom Academics Roentgen and X-Rays Why Germany and what was so interesting about atomic physics at this particular time? In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen was conducting a particular experiment to determine the effects of passing an electrical discharge though a vacuum tube covered in aluminum with only a thin window to allow the cathode rays to escape. Roentgen had added a protective covering of cardboard to protect the aluminum; this should have blocked all light from coming out. But he noticed a fluorescent effect on a small cardboard screen painted with barium platinocyanide when it was placed close to the aluminum window. He had discovered X-Rays also known as Roentgen Rays, an achievement that would earn him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. The discovery of these X-Rays would not only change medicine, but would greatly help in the understanding of the structure of the atom. France – the Curies Marie Skłodowska Curie was born in Poland, part of a family known for its illustrious academic accomplishments. In 1891, partially due to a failed romantic relationship, she moved to France to study at the Sorbonne. In 1893, she earned a degree in physics. In 1894 she would add a degree in mathematics. That same year she met her future husband and research partner, Pierre Curie. She began to study the problem of how a specific chemical, uranium, was producing energy similar to X-rays, without interaction from outside sources. The energy appeared to come from the uranium atoms themselves. But how could this be when the atom had been defined as the smallest part of matter and indivisible? Curie’s research would result in the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium and of the theory of radioactivity, a term that she would coin. Her work required a reconsideration of how we thought of the atom. Denmark - Niels Bohr Niels was born Denmark, in 1885. Son of Christian Bohr, a devout Lutheran and Ellen Adler Bohr, who came from a wealthy Jewish family. Working with New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, the two would develop the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom: • A “planetary” style model, electrons were in orbits around the nucleus. • Electrons can only orbit stably, without giving off energy or radiating, in certain orbits, called by Bohr “stationary orbits.”. • Electrons can only gain or lose energy by moving from one of these stationary orbits to another. Bohr’s work was based on Planck’s theory of radiation, and was more evolutionary than revolutionary. Bohr’s model had several errors and has since been refined; however it provided a framework for what came next. Italy- Enrico Fermi Born in Rome in 1901, Fermi was interested in electrical and mechanical toys from a very young age. Perhaps this was only natural as his father held a senior position in the Ministry of Railways while his mother was a teacher. As a physicist he would distinguish himself by exceling both theoretically and experimentally. Although Fermi was baptized in accordance with the wishes of his grandparents, his immediate family was not religious and he would consider himself an agnostic. In 1928, he would marry Laura Capon, a science student that he met at university. Laura was Jewish. They would have two children. In 1928, Fermi published Introduction to Atomic Physics. As a teacher, Fermi liked to gather colleagues and graduate students together to go over problems.
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