Re: Where is Invariant Mass?

From: Paul Draper (pdraper_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/12/04 

Date: 12 Oct 2004 08:52:33 -0700

lvlus@hotmail.com (TomGee) wrote in message news:<cc2dde17.0410111310.16afd64d@posting.google.com>...
> I understand your concern, but it was not theoretical physicists who
> made the A-bomb. Theoretical physicists don't "make" things; they
> just imagine them. I regret the loss of so many Japanese lives in the
> war, but a victory by them would have eventually destroyed the world
> much sooner than will our current "democratic society". Our victory
> in that war saved many more lives than would have been lost if we had
> not used wmd. Those who built the A-bombs worked diligently to show
> the world it was a weapon not to be put into irresponsible hands
> because the consequence of that is world destruction.

As to your first point, let me remind you:
J. Robert Oppenheimer - theorist and head of the project
Leo Szilard - theorist
Hans Bethe - theorist
Eugene Wigner - theorist
Robert Serber - theorist
Otto Frisch - theorist
Edward Teller - theorist and head of the H-bomb project
Felix Block - theorist
Richard Feynman - theorist
Emil Konopinski - theorist
Enrico Fermi - theorist and experimentalist

If you do a little research, you'll find that the powerhouse
experimentalists were given tactical roles:
E. Lawrence - refinement of U235 by one of three methods used
E. Fermi - demonstration of a controlled chain reaction
A. Compton - plutonium isolation
G. Kistiakowsy - shaped charges of chemical high explosive
V. Bush - mobilization management

>
> In defense of all Japanese who died in WWII, they did not start the
> war either. It was their generals - it's always the generals - who in
> their response to Hitler's mad rush to conquer the world sought only
> to save their people from abject slavery by carving up a slice of the
> world for themselves from which to ward off the German aggressor.
> They proved to be oppressive conquerors no less than the Aryan races,
> but because the A-bombs (and the fall of Germany) convinced them that
> their initial purpose for their entry into the war could never be
> realized and their only hope for survival was surrender.
>

The moral anguish (indeed the spectrum of moral anguish) has been
documented in a number of books. Oppenheimer suffered as much as
anyone over the creation of this object with the tools of science.

The justification for the development of the bomb was that the
theoretical groundwork had been exposed publicly before secrecy was
imposed, enough to suggest that any reasonably competent scientific
community could produce a bomb given enough time. And so there was a
question of whether the war would last long enough for the bomb to be
developed. As it turned out, the war with Germany did not last long
enough to warrant the final push of the Manhattan project, though
Germany's effort (under Heisenberg) was far enough along to be plenty
scared, and probably would have succeeded if it were not for some
delicate sabotage operations that the U.S. did not suffer. Japan had a
rudimentary program, but unlike the U.S., unsupported by the Japanese
government and military; Japan was never a nuclear threat. The
decision to drop bombs on Japan was based on a concern for the number
of lives lost on both sides in a conventional war if the war with
Japan were to run to completion. Hiroshima easily killed 140,000;
Nagasaki, 70,000. But the losses estimated in a conventional war were
estimated to be five times that. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen
partially because they had not yet been burned to the ground in
conventional incendiary bombing -- it was literally a "shock and awe"
strategy. Note that Russia managed no viable nuclear program until
they were able to acquire detailed plans from the US through a spy.
Their first bomb was literally a carbon copy of the Fat Man bomb, down
to the casing bolts.

PD

Relevant Pages

  • Lessons From Hiroshima (NDC)
    ... Sixty years after Hiroshima, the damage from those nuclear bombs ... the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on ... These are the only two nuclear bombs ever used in war, ... Japanese and American alike, paint a human picture of how the world was ...
    (rec.music.gdead)
  • The Japanese offered to surrender before America dropped Atomic Bombs on them!
    ... and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. ... The Japanese were almost defeated and ready to surrender...in being the ... Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II ... The US wouldn't even talk to them - the bomb ...
    (soc.culture.japan)
  • Re: Off Topic: Sixty Years
    ... cities they planned to bomb, or just bomb places that were purely ... and that innocent Japanese civilians would ... If I'm making a decision on how to end the war? ... I wonder if Ike got the same story out of Germany? ...
    (rec.music.beatles)
  • Re: Lessons From Hiroshima (NDC)
    ... > the city of Hiroshima, ... > second bomb on Nagasaki. ... > became a symbol of the atrocity of war. ... we tracked down a Japanese WWII ...
    (rec.music.gdead)
  • Re: ! Today is the 51st anniversary of Hiroshima!!
    ... easy reach of the Island. ... the war and we were about to hold Japen under seige. ... American lives were not saved. ... were saved were Japanese civilians. ...
    (rec.radio.shortwave)