Einstein feared what humans would do with an atomic bomb
WITH tensions rising in Asia, and considering the qualities of the leaders of the potential adversaries, it is perhaps instructive to remember how we got to this apparent impasse.
From the time Eisenhower advocated “peace through strength,” that policy has governed the actions of the growing number of world powers without regard to its inevitable consequences.
By 1986, just three nations had tens of thousands of armed nuclear missiles. Subsequent agreements to lower stockpiles may have reduced this huge overkill capacity, but any decrease would have been offset by improvements in deadliness.
Einstein is often referred to as the “father of the atomic bomb”. He was not.
The sobriquet derives from one of his 1905 papers in which he produced, almost as an afterthought, the elegant little equation equating mass and energy.
When a young scientist pointed out to him potential military implications, Einstein brushed him off. Years later, when Hitler’s intentions became clear, Einstein received news from his homeland that a heavy isotope of Uranium had been split.
The terrible implications became clear to him. He knew of brilliant young physicists, such as Heisenberg, in the Reich, and fearing that Germany would be the first to develop nuclear weapons he persuaded FDR to take the course he subsequently did to ensure that the US stayed ahead in the race.
Einstein loathed the idea of atomic weapons. He refused to have anything to do with their construction with the exception of advising on ways to isolate unstable isotopes of heavy elements.
When news of a successful testing at Los Alamos reached him, his only comment was “Oh my God”.
In an interview at his Princeton home shortly before in death, he was asked whether he thought there might be a nuclear war in the future.
His answer was that knowing the nature of man, a third world war in which nuclear weapons would be deployed was inevitable.
When pressed for his forecast as to how it would play out, he replied that he had no idea.
But he added that he was certain that World War IV would be fought with rocks. Arthur Fuller Somerset West