Dan+M+Week+11

= How Scientists React to their Own Creation =




In July of 1944 Niels Bohr, one of the leading physicists in the upcoming atomic technology, sent a memorandum to President Roosevelt about the political conflicts which introducing a super weapon brought about. While Roosevelt was communicating with Churchill on how they would control this new and powerful technology, Bohr tried to present a different solution.

Niels Bohr was under the impression (and ended up being right) that the secret of something so great could not be kept my one nation. Instead, he proposed in his memorandum that the technology that was being discovered by the Americans should be //given// to all of the other nations in exchange for their cooperation and responsible control of the advanced technology. Bohr’s policy of “openness” towards other countries (as we know from the historical record) was not meet with the same openness in the white house.

In the Science Panel’s Report to the Interim Committee, many scientists working on the Manhattan Project expressed their views on their usage of their newly created weapon. Fermi, Compton, Lawrence, and Oppenheimer all signed this document. It stated that although the scientists had no “propriety rights”, they thought that the weapon should be used as a “ purely technical demonstration to that of the military application best designed to induce surrender”, and then the usage of atomic weapons should be outlawed.

With this information from the people who designed the atomic technology, and were on the forefront, why did we still make the decisions that we did? Understandably, (as the scientists on the panel agree) the”  opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use” arose. But was it possible for us to bring about surrender and save the lives of not just Americans, but also innocent Japanese? The weight of these questions are troubling not just today, but to the scientist who came to the sudden realization of the destruction that they had enabled.