Marc's+10th+Week+Assignment

__Response to "The Day Before Trinity" Articles__

It is shocking how many people knew well enough nearly the full effects of uranium if it were to be used in a bomb, and yet research still went on regarding it. Einstein warns Roosevelt that uranium may indeed be used in a bomb, but then immediately makes it known to him some of the best spots to attain uranium in the world "There is some good ore in Canada and former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is in the Belgian Congo (Einstein's Letter to President Roosevelt - 1939)." He suggests Roosevelt appoint an official to keep him posted on the mining and research of uranium. Einstein //explicitly// says one of the main goals of this official should concern attaining a plentiful source of uranium for the United States.

Part of the subtitle of the Frisch-Peierls Memo is "On the construction of a 'Super-Bomb'." The whole purpose of the article is to make known the "who's, what's, when's, where's, and how's" of making a super-weapon by employing uranium and its atomic tendencies. These physicists knew full well the kind of energy each individual atom would release when fission occurred. Multiply that by as much as they can pack into a bomb and they knew definitively how devastating one of these bombs could be. They were aware of the possible percentages of energy released as nuclear radiation if one of these bombs were to go off. They consulted medical professionals and knew that the radiation and ensuing fallout would be both devastating and virtually undetectable.

Surely we did not think that, as a part of the "Tube Alloys Deal" that silencing Bohr from leaking information about this research would be enough? Other countries were bound to find out the same things on their own. In our blindness and haste we rushed to create a super weapon that would secure the supremacy of our nation. Yes, we were able to employ this weapon to secure a swift victory over Japan in World War II when we foresaw hundreds of thousands more of our soldiers would be killed if we finished the entire war conventionally. But we did so at a grave cost. And while no nuclear weapon has ever been used after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the threat is real.

When we're at DEFCON 1 one day, with all our nukes pointed at all the launch sites and major cities of our enemy, and they're doing the same to us, it only takes one button push to end the world. Everyone will lose. At a certain point in the early 20th century, we crossed a Rubicon which we can never return from. We're not the only country to have nuclear weapons. Sure, fission provides a strong, reliable source of energy, but we knew, as exhibited by all of these articles, that alongside nuclear power would come nuclear weapons.

Having speculative knowledge as to how devastating a nuclear weapon could be, the availability of uranium, and the knowledge that other countries were doing the same research as we, we should have done something to stop that river from being crossed. Remaining forever a "day before trinity" is probably safer than being on the verge of the extermination of all of Earth's life whenever the world is at war.