----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 1:10 AM Subject: Re: A clue to understand USA
JM - 1. Albert Einstein did not work on the Manhattan Project. At the prompting of his fellow scientists (the key figure was Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard), he wrote a letter to FDR in the late 1930s about the possibility of a fusion bomb, and this was the start of the project. MM - Exactly (except fusion instead of fission). I meant his letter pushed the US government to start the project in 1939 and, in that sense, he is considered a part of the project. (According to a Wikipedia article, Albert Einstein in particular wrote several letters to Franklin Roosevelt urging him to establish nuclear capability before the Germans.[4] These letters, especially one called the Einstein-Szilard letter (written in August 1939, but not personally received by Roosevelt until October 1939), were also factors in the acceleration of the project.) 2. The Manhattan Project did in fact involve many scientists who were refugees from fascism in Europe. But these were not the only people who worked on it, and the head of the project was an American, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Whether the bomb could have been built with the involvement of refugee scientists is a good question. The answer is probably yes, but it would have taken much longer to complete. MM - Exactly. I didn't say only the refugees worked on the project. In fact, I mentioned only two of them, who are most conspicuous (for my argument purpose). 3. <snip> It is true that the A-bomb did not win the war, but many people would argue that it shortened the war, and had the bombs not been dropped and the war continued into 1946 far more people (mostly Japanese civilians) would have died as a result, and mostly from starvation given Japan's desperate situation. MM - I agree that more US soldiers would have died if A-bomb was not used and I only said nuclear bombs did not win the war. 4. <snip> MM - No comment. JM: I also do not understand what any of this has to do with the financial crisis afflicting the US and the world now. I meant the application of so-called "financial engineering," an application of mathematics to speculative financial activities. Minoru --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
