--- In [email protected], "Cliff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The reason so many of the physicists who collaborated on the > first atomic bomb (and later developments of the hydrogen bomb) > were Polish, Hungarian, German, etc., is that many of them were > Jewish and would have been very dead had they remained in > their homelands in the 1933 to 1945 period. Without Nazi > anti-Semitism, Hitler would most likely have been the first > to produce (and undoubtedly to use) the atom bomb. England > literaly might well not be an inhabitable island currently if > Hitler hadn't hated Jews, and the US might well be a colony of > Germany. One conclusion is that 6 million Jews died in exchange > for the Western world not being a German-occupied territory. > > And if that doesn't stir up some discussion, I haven't had nearly > enough tequila tonight... :-)
There are *many* reasons why one can blame the Germans for (or credit them with, depending on how you think) the development of the bomb. If they hadn't started their own project to develop an atom bomb, it is doubtful that the US would have done so. But when the German researchers took a wrong turn in their project and went down a blind alley and gave up on the project, the US authorities knew about it and did NOT tell the US scientists that the "race for the bomb" was over. They allowed them to continue thinking that the nation's survival was dependent on what they were doing. Also, speaking as the grandson of a person who worked on the Manhattan project, your characterization of most of the principals as being Jewish and European is not quite true. *Most* of the physicists in America at that time were working, in one form or another, on the bomb. My grandfather did all his work from the East Coast, working with Einstein at Princeton and from his own offices at Swarthmore College. Hundreds of other physicists did exactly the same thing, each of them work- ing on their own small portion of the overall problem. The *impression* that the Manhattan Project was the work of a small number of people -- Oppenheimer and his crew of technicians in New Mexico, and a few European theorists -- was carefully cultivated after the fact, *by* the people whom we now think of as the "fathers of the bomb." The rest of the physicists were rather astounded by these people trying to claim all the credit. Many long-term friendships were broken forever, as a few people tried to use the publicity that surrounded the development of the bomb to further their own careers and reputations. It was really a weird scene, according to tales my grandfather told. Very petty, driven by ego, nothing to do with science or actual achievement. In his view, a few of the people who credited themselves with being fundamental to the project were actually low-level technicians who didn't really contribute much to the project. Their "contribution" was more in the realm of skillful self-promotion after the fact rather than actual science during the project itself. But if you want to speculate what life in America after Germany won the war might be like, I recommend Phillip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle." It goes well with tequila. :-) To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
