as a result of the atomic bomb, technology became frightening
technology has the power to make our lives better and the
power to wipe us out
this shift is the end of "modern"
Lienhard sees "modern" as something that has ended (we are now
postmodern or something new that comes after postmodern)
WWII made people more conservative, or at least more
cautious, but at first it was "modern" that they wanted to
keep unchanged
the Beat movement was the beginning of the questioning of
"modern"
1960s--young people criticized science and technology
(along with the Vietnam war, etc.)
the idea that research can lead to technologies to win a
war led to technologies that many people were uncomfortable
with during the Vietnam war, such as napalm (firebombing
agent) and agent orange (herbicide uses to reduce shelter for
the enemy)
Through the 20th century,
people figure out how to use science to give us new powers more
effectively. When does this become something
different? With the atomic bomb?
frighteningly powerful--just one bomb can do
that much damage
reaction: our technology has become so
powerful, how can you trust people to use it wisely
The nice neat scientific world that had seemed possible in the
19th century was replaced in the 20th with quantum mechanics,
relativity, and nuclear physics
atoms no longer were nice neat little particles
space and time were relative
one element could be made into another--it was
possible but not practical to make lead into gold (the goal of
medieval alchemists)
matter could be made into energy (e=m * c squared)
German scientists many of the key discoveries in
nuclear physics that made nuclear weapons possible, leading to
fear in the U.S. that the Germans would build an atomic bomb.
some elements are unstable and will naturally change to
something else and release radioactivity
Henri
Becquerel discovered radioactivity as a property of
uranium in 1896, Marie
Curie discovered other radioactive elements, but they didn't know what was happening
Otto
Hahn , Lise
Meitner, and O.R.
Frisch worked in the 1930s to understand the results of
bombarding uranium with neutrons--realized that the uranium
fissioned, broke roughly in half (photo is Hahn and Meitner in
1909)
by 1939 it was obvious and widely know that a
chain reaction might be possible because each atom that
fissioned released neutrons that could hit other atoms and
cause them to fission
Refugee scientists in the U.S. feared a German
bomb. Leo
Szilard composed two letters for Einstein to sign
warning President Roosevelt of the dangers of a German atomic
bomb, one in August
1939 and the other in March
1940. Fear was widespread enough that U.S. and
British journals voluntarily censored related scientific
papers.
Germans were indeed working on a bomb, but got
stuck in a dead end. Supporters of Werner
Heisenberg say he did this on purpose.
Difficulties setting up such a big, uncertain
research and development project: the Manhattan Project
First organized under National Defense
Research Committee (approval for project Oct. 1941) then
turned over to the army in June 1942. The army put
General Leslie
Groves in charge.
The first thing to do was prove a chain
reaction was possible. That effort was led by Enrico
Fermi, first at Columbia then at the University of
Chicago. The first
successful chain reaction took place Dec. 2, 1942 in a
small reactor built in a squash court at the Univ. of Chicago.
Providing fuel for the bomb was a tremendous
technical challenge--must separate uranium-235, which is less
than 1% of the uranium mined and differs in weight by only
.13%. Two methods of separation: a cyclotron and gaseous
diffusion of uranium hexaflouride (the only gaseous compound,
but one that is both poisonous and corrosive) were set up at Oak
Ridge, Tenn., using power from the dams built by the
federal government as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority
project that was part of the New Deal. The other
alternative is to make plutonium by chain reactions--reactors
to do this were built in Hanford, Washington.
gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, photo from fas.org
Robert
Oppenheimer led the effort to design the bomb and said
he needed to bring scientists together at a single
laboratory. Los Alamos opened in March 1943.
Developed two bomb designs, one using uranium and one using
plutonium. The plutonium design was tested in the Trinity
test near Alamogordo NM on July 16, 1945. Exploded with
the force of 20,000 tons of TNT.
Germany was clearly defeated and the Japanese
were retreating--was it necessary to use the bomb?
Could there have been a demonstration and
warning instead? Would it have been used in Europe or
was racism a factor?
After spending $2 billion would the government
have been accused of wasting money if it wasn't used?
when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, the
bomb project was so secret that Vice President Harry Truman
didn't even know about it. The bomb was used because
having built it everyone assumed that having built it they
would use it. The target committee said the target
should be the center of a large city to cause maximum
destruction, not a military target that would be harder to hit
three B-29 bombers set out for Hiroshima,
Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. The city had been excluded from
conventional bombing to save it as a target
that would show clearly the effects of the bomb.
Japanese sounded the all-clear when they saw only 3
planes. The Enola Gay dropped the 5 ton bomb and it
exploded with the force of 15,000 tons of TNT. 130,000
people died within 3 months, 68% of the buildings of the city
were destroyed.
A plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki
on Aug. 9, 1945. Exploded with the force of 22,000 tons
of TNT. Kyoto had been ruled out as a target because it was an
important cultural center and the initial target was the
smaller city of Kokura (which had a large military arsenal)
but it was too cloudy--Nagasaki
was the backup target. The bomb exploded over a
residential area between two weapons factories which it also
destroyed.
Why use a second bomb before the Japanese had
time to decide whether to surrender? To see the impact
of the different technology? US military planners expected
other bombs to follow, though they weren't going to be ready
for several weeks.
Truman ordered that no more bombs be dropped
without his authorization
bomb damage in Hiroshima, photo from fas.org
Does it fit the theory of just war?
The scientists tried to prevent an arms race from
developing. Why did they feel so strongly, and did they have
any hope of success?
people were shocked by the power of technology to do harm
it only took six years to turn uncertain science into a
devastating weapon
the advance of science leads to more power
the government has figured out how to organize scientists
to effectively produce new technologies
the same kind of organization sent a man to the moon
science gives us power--is it going to be used for good
or harm?
fear of the side effects of new technologies--key example
radioactivity from bombs in human milk
technology comes to be seen as both helpful and dangerous
There were also positive
technologies that came out of WWII:
Penicillin:
doctors didn't understand that many diseases were caused
by microorganisms until the late 19th century
sulfa drugs developed in 1932 were the first
antibiotics, but effective only against one class of bacteria
Penicillin was discovered by Alexander
Fleming in 1929 but no one could figure out how to
produce it
in 1939 two British scientists, Howard
Florey and Ernest Chain, figured out how to produce a
stable preparation and showed its value (treating 6 patients)
Fleming transferred his patents to the US and
UK governments so it could be used for the public good rather
than for profit
the US was asked in the summer of 1941 to
develop mass
production because the necessary resources weren't
available in England during a wartime emergency
government partnered with several drug
companies, the successful plant was designed by chemical
engineer
Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau (photo to right)
