Karina+Week+10

​ I find it very ironic that Einstein, who so abhorred war, “ Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” would write to President Roosevelt in 1939 that it would be possible to create a bomb, a weapon, which would contribute to the war. “This new phenomenon [a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium] would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable--though much less certain--that extremely powerful bombs of this type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.” While he was only relaying this information to Roosevelt, there is no mention or suggestion that using this weapon, could it actually be made, was not a good idea. It seems utterly backwards to me that this letter, containing knowledge of such a powerful bomb, would have been written in a formal way and not containing any of Einstein’s famous pacifist attitude. It could be argued that the two things Einstein is most famous for are his physics and his pacifism, “ My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is abhorrent. My attitude is not derived from intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred. ”  So why was this such a lapse in bravery, if you will? This bravery against war is seen in his signing of a peace manifesto…one of only a few who did. Why then, was Einstein not condemning experimentation in an area that could create an “extremely powerful bomb”?    I think that a related question to my argument about Einstein (and one that proves me wrong in a way) is; **to what extent are scientists responsible for the uses and applications of their creations?** Would Fritz Haber have been such an infamous figure if his experiments on chemicals for fertilizers had been all he did, or would even his development of chlorine gas (and others) been so bad if he had not worked on the field to deploy it? Would he be at fault for creating a weapon that was used to kills thousands upon thousands of people, or are scientific discoveries neutral in their own right and it is only the application of them by other people that makes those discoveries bad? What about the deliberate creation of tanks and machine guns and explosives? Certainly the people who invented those knew what their creations would be used for…but can blame still be assigned to those scientists and engineers for the lives that they would indirectly take? Or, more related to the previous discussion; was it Einstein’s fault that when he warned Roosevelt of the potential of a very powerful weapon that the Germans could create, it led to the U.S. creating and using such a weapon?