The words "atom laser" appearing in a science fiction magazine conjure up visions of death rays and space battles. The real device is rather different in its implications and ultimately is much less likely to be a weapon than a tool for probing the innermost secrets of Nature. Therefore, let's begin by reviewing some basic facts about quantum statistics and the ground rules for the operation of lasers.

After his father passed away, James Nolan's mother gave him a box of materials that his dad had kept private. To Nolan's complete surprise, the contents revealed the role his grandfather had played as a doctor in the Manhattan Project. Dr. Nolan, it turned out, had been a significant figure. A talented radiologist, he cared for the scientists on the Project, helped organize the safety and evacuation plans for the Trinity Test at Alamogordo, escorted the "Little Boy" bomb from Los (...) Alamos to Japan, and was one of the first Americans to enter the irradiated ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documents set Nolan on a hunt for more information about his grandfather and more generally about the conflicted role that medical personnel played in the early years of atomic testing. The result is a compelling history of the dawn of the atomic age as seen through the eyes of men and women torn between their duty and desire to win the war and their oath to protect life. Nolan follows his grandfather and medical colleagues as they seek to maximize safety while serving leaders determined to minimize delays, and as they consider the ethics of ending the deadliest of all wars with the most lethal of all weapons. The result, Nolan shows, was a very human pattern of caution, co-optation, and complicity. A vital and vivid account of a largely unknown chapter in atomic history, Delivering Little Boy is also a profound meditation on the professional and moral dilemmas that ordinary people face in extraordinary times. (shrink)

This essay introduces a special collection of papers by Angela Creager, Soraya de Chadarevian, Karen Rader, Jean-Paul Gaudillière, and María Jesús Santesmases on the theme "Radiobiology in the Atomic Age.".

After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, both nations experienced a profound need for a new and encompassing story of what it meant to be Japanese, and to be American, in the permanent nuclear age. This article is a thought experiment to juxtapose the writings and personas of two people who helped their respective societies answer those needs and questions during the early Cold War: Takashi Nagai—medical radiologist, and survivor of the American (...) atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and Albert Wohlstetter—leading American civilian nuclear strategist for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. Using a combination of mythopeic analysis, biography and illuminative juxtaposition, the study discovers surprising similarities and analogies between the two cases. They each enact and propose interesting variations of sacrificial causalities—claims that human nuclear sacrifices past or promised can bring peace by deterrence now or peace by abolition soon enough. This is an important study now, as both Japan’s nuclear pacifism and the American nuclear umbrella in Northeast Asia are coming under more severe questioning than perhaps ever before. (shrink)

Just wars are supposed to be proportional responses to aggression: the costs of war must not greatly exceed the benefits. This proportionality principle raises a corresponding ‘interpretation problem’: what are the costs and benefits of war, how are they to be determined, and a ‘measurement problem’: how are costs and benefits to be balanced? And it raises a problem about scope: how far into the future do the states of affairs to be measured stretch? It is argued here that (...) class='Hi'>weapons innovation always introduces costs, and that these costs cannot be determined in advance of going to war. Three examples, the atomic bomb, the AK-47 and the ancient Greek catapult, are given as examples. It is therefore argued that the proportionality principle is inapplicable prospectively. Some replies to the argument are discussed and rejected. Some more general defences of the proportionality principle are considered and also rejected. Finally, the significance of the argument for Just War Theory as a whole is discussed. (shrink)

This paper questions claims that the Japanese may have succeeded in testing an atomic weapon shortly before the end of World War II. Historical and empirical evidence is examined which suggests that the lack of scientific expertise in nuclear physics hampered the development of an atomic bomb, the most qualified scientists generally being unwilling to become actively involved in the Japanese project. The paper looks at the wartime mobilization of Japanese scientists; outlines the Japanese atomic bomb project; (...) examines claims that Japan succeeded in completing an atomic weapon; and concludes with a look at the ramifications of the historiography. (shrink)

This book deals with the problem of dual-use science research and technology. It first explains the concept of dual use and then offers analyses of collective knowledge and collective ignorance. It goes on to present a theory of collective responsibility, followed by four chapters focusing on a particular scientific field or industry of dual use concern: the chemical industry, the nuclear industry, cyber-technology and the biological sciences. The problem of dual-use science research and technology arises because such research and technology (...) has the potential to be used for great evil as well as for great good. On the one hand, knowledge is a necessary condition, and perhaps a constitutive feature, of technologies that contribute greatly to individual and collective well-being. Consider, for example, nuclear technology that enables the generation of low cost electricity in populations without obvious alternative energy sources. So technological knowledge is a good thing and ignorance of it a bad thing. On the other hand, these same technologies can be extremely harmful to individuals and collectives, as with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So, at least with respect to some technologies evidently knowledge is a bad thing and ignorance a good thing. Accordingly, the question arises as to whether we ought to limit scientific research and/or the development of technology and, if so, which research or technology, in what manner and to what extent. This book examines the answer to that question. (shrink)

Physics, History, and the German Atomic Bomb. This paper examines the German concept of a nuclear weapon during National Socialism and the Second World War. Zusammenfassung: Physik, Geschichte und die deutsche Atombombe. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die deutsche Vorstellung einer nuklearen Waffe während des Nationalsozialismus und des Zweiten Weltkrieges.

This book review of Lieber and Press's “The myth of the nuclear revolution: Power politics in the atomic age" challenges the authors' position that nuclear weapons essentially have the same properties of conventional weapons. We argue that nuclear weapons alter warfare because they can end human civilization, and they pose a shared risk of mutual destruction.

Los Alamos, New Mexico has an enduring and complicated relationship with its past. During World War II, its residents worked to create the world’s first atomic weapons. The nuclear legacies of the Manhattan Project are global, but in contemporary Los Alamos the Project is often primarily considered a local history before a national or international one. The community’s modern identity is constructed in part through creating its history, and this article studies two children’s performances of the Manhattan Project (...) past. The plots of these performances attempt to sidestep difficult history by avoiding nuclear weapons, which can ironically raise their uncanny specter in the imagination of the audience. The community history created in the performances privileges white scientist perspectives and at times flattens differences between past and present. This performed Manhattan Project is not only domestic – Los Alamos domesticates its complex history through these performances. (shrink)

Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle that works like the board game in the movie “Jumanji”: When you finish, whatever the puzzle portrays becomes real. The children playing “Jumanji” learn to prepare for the reality that emerges from the next throw of the dice. But how would this work for the puzzle of scientific research? How do you prepare for unlocking the secrets of the atom, or assembling from the bottom-up nanotechnologies with unforeseen properties – especially when completion of such (...) puzzles lies decades after the first scattered pieces are tentatively assembled? In the inaugural issue of this journal, Michael Polanyi argued that because the progress of science is unpredictable, society must only move forward with solving the puzzle until the picture completes itself. Decades earlier, Frederick Soddy argued that once the potential for danger reveals itself, one must reorient the whole of one’s work to avoid it. While both scientists stake out extreme positions, Soddy’s approach – together with the action taken by the like-minded Leo Szilard – provides a foundation for the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. This paper narrates the intertwining stories of Polanyi, Soddy and Szilard, revealing how anticipation influenced governance in the case of atomic weapons and how Polanyi’s claim in “The Republic of Science” of an unpredictable and hence ungovernable science is faulty on multiple levels. (shrink)

As world leaders strengthen their nuclear arsenals, and fears of global nuclear proliferation increase, social studies teachers must be prepared to help learners investigate the devastating consequences on human life and property associated with their use. This manuscript presents an ethnological study of six atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Participants completed a qualitative questionnaire describing their experiences during World War II, and making recommendations to U.S. social studies teachers when teaching about the dropping (...) of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Data was analyzed to identify patterns and themes, and two categories emerged related to our research question. Findings suggest participants support U.S. teachers imparting global perspectives that speak directly to the destructive power of the atomic bomb and its impact on humans and the environment for years to come. This includes a movement away from using the social studies curriculum to point fingers of historic blame in the use of atomic weapons, and towards empowering learners to become agents of change in actualizing a nuclear free and peaceful world. We discuss the implications of this study's findings in social studies and global education. (shrink)

A history of the Atomic Bomb from Marie Curie to Hiroshima. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” — Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the successful demonstration of the atom bomb. The bomb, which killed an estimated 140,000 civilians in Hiroshima and destroyed the countryside for miles around, was one of the defining moments in world history. That mushroom cloud cast a terrifying shadow over the contemporary world and continues to do so today. But how could (...) this have happened? What led to the creation of such a weapon of mass destruction? From the moment scientists contemplated the destructive potential of splitting the atom, the role of science changed. Ethical and moral dilemmas faced all those who realized the implications of their research. Before the Fall-Out charts the chain of events from Marie Curie’s scientific breakthrough through the many colourful characters such as Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and Lord Rutherford, whose discoveries contributed to the bomb. The story of the atomic bomb spans 50 years of prolific scientific innovation, turbulent politics, foreign affairs and world-changing history. Through personal stories of exile, indecision and soul-searching, to charges of collaboration, spying and deceit, Diana Preston presents the human side of an unstoppable programme with a lethal outcome. (shrink)

A great deal of attention has been paid by philosophers to the use of computers in the modelling of human cognitive capacities and in the construction of intelligent artifacts. This emphasis has tended to obscure the fact that most of the high-level computing power in science is deployed in what appears to be a much less exciting activity: solving equations. This apparently mundane set of applications reflects the historical origins of modem computing, in the sense that most of the early (...) computers in Britain and the U.S. were devices built to numerically attack mathematical problems that were hard, if not impossible, to solve non-numerically, especially in the areas of ballistics and fluid dynamics. The latter area was especially important for the development of atomic weapons at Los Alamos, and it is still true that a large portion of the supercomputing capacity of the United States is concentrated at weapons development laboratories such as Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. (shrink)

Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, and played an important role in defining the nature of their nuclear expertise. In the (...) USA, the most influential company of the period was DuPont, which assumed responsibility for the first plutonium production reactors at Oak Ridge TN and Hanford WA between 1942-6, and of the postwar production facilities at Savannah River SC 1950-87. This paper explores the transition of authority from so-called “atomic scientists” to nuclear engineers at these sites, and the role played by DuPont in consolidating this new technical profession. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on the history of one of the “atomic patents.” The patent, which described a process to slow down neutrons in nuclear reactions, was the result of experimental research conducted in the 1930s by Enrico Fermi and his group at the Institute of Physics, University of Rome. The value of the patented process became clear during World War II, as it was involved in most of the military and industrial applications of atomic energy. This ignited (...) a controversy between Fermi and U.S. government representatives over royalties to be paid for use of the process during and after the war. The controversy sheds new light on the role that the management of patents played in the context of the Manhattan Project and in the postwar U.S. nuclear program, encompassing issues of power and economic influence in the relationship between scientists, the military, and public administrators. The invention covered by Patent No. 2,206,634 covers the basic process used in the research and development leading up the production of atomic energy and the production of the atomic bomb. Such invention is of continuing importance in the production of fissionable materials and atomic weapons. The Chairman: So Jones might make the greatest invention in the field and be deprived of any award for it? Captain Lavender: If he did not want to accept the award that was offered to him. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:46. HUME AND THE FUTURE OF THE SOCIETY OF NATIONS In the section of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature entitled Of the laws of nations (Section XI of Book III) he says: Political writers tell us, that in every kind of intercourse, a body politic is to be consider 'd as one person; and indeed this assertion is so far just, that different nations, as well as private persons, (...) require mutual assistance; at the same time that their selfishness and ambition are perpetual sources of war and discord.But tho' nations in this particular resemble individuals, yet as they are very different in other respects, no wonder they regulate themselves by different maxims, and give rise to a new set of rules, which we call the laws of nations. 1 He goes on to give examples of such laws:the sacredness of the persons of ambassadors, the declaration of war, the abstaining from poison'd arms, with other duties of that kind, which are evidently calculated for the commerce, that is peculiar to different.societies. (T 567) Hume then tells us in the next paragraph that such laws of nations may be added to the three laws of nature (that possessions should be stable, that possessions should be transferable by consent, and that promises or contracts should be kept) but that these laws of nations do not supersede the laws of nature; that is, they do not make the laws of nature irrelevant to relations among nation-states. In fact, the morality among nation-states involves the same kinds of obligations as morality among private persons, but the obligations are not as binding. The obligations of nation-states to each other can more readily be overridden by concerns of self-interest than would be legitimate in the case of private persons because nation-states are more nearly able to maintain themselves without external assistance than are individual persons. In Hume's words,... tho' the 47. morality of princes has the same extent, yet it has not the same force as that of private persons (T 558) because tho' the intercourse of different states be advantageous, and even sometimes necessary, yet it is not so necessary nor advantageous as that among individuals, without which 'tis utterly impossible for human nature ever to subsist. (T 569) In the last paragraph of this section Hume addresses himself to the question of the proportion these two species of morality bear to each other. (T 569) He says that we can never give any precise answer (T 569) and that the proper proportion is exhibited in the actual practice of the world. He takes this fact as showing that all men recognize that the rules of morality, both among private individuals and among nation-states, arise from human conventions, and from the interest, which we have in the preservation of peace and order. (T 569) When discussing the same issue in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals Hume is more succinct. The observance of justice, though useful among them [nations], is not guarded by so strong a necessity as among individuals; and the moral obligation holds proportion with the usefulness. 2 """ The moral obligations of individuals to each other is thus greater than that of nations to each other because keeping the rules of justice is inore useful in the former case than in the latter. But Hume did not live in an age of atomic weapons, long-range missiles, and precision-guided munitions. Furthermore, the nations of the world are now much more interdependent than in his day, not only with regard to where they get the resources they need but also with regard to what they do with their wastes. There seems to be little roo.? _or dtubt that the utility of following the rules of justice among nations is much greater now than it was in the eighteenth 48. century. Since a nuclear war might mean the end of the human species, the utility of justice among nations seems to be approaching, perhaps even surpassing, the utility which moral rules have at the level of private persons. In view of this changed situation, I intend to review what Hume has... (shrink)

In each decade of the nuclear age, philosophers have provided critical reflections on the nature, use, and consequences of nuclear weapons. Frequently, these reflections have addressed the morality of producing, testing, deploying, and using nuclear weapons. Already, these philosophical reflections have passed through four phases and are now entering a fifth phase. The first phase stretches from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the above ground nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. From the initial use of atomic (...) weapons in 1945 to the testing of the hydrogen bomb in 1952, the United States held a virtual monopoly. (The Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon in 1949, and the United States progressed not only to the development of the hydrogen bomb, but also to a miniaturization of nuclear weapons that spawned even more tactical nuclear weapons than the eventual strategic arsenals of the superpowers.) During the 1950s and 1960s, the second phase shifts to a focus on the above ground testing of the hydrogen bomb, as well as the post war tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The third phase addresses increasing shifts during the 1970s and 1980s to counterforce weapons and nuclear war fighting strategies. The fourth phase responds to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and to the problems of nuclear proliferation and nuclear deterrence in the post Cold War world, culminating with a critique of the renewal of Star Wars in 2001 under the guise of ballistic missile defense. The first decade of the twenty first century ushers in not only the purported “war against terrorism” by the United States, but also a broader and deeper philosophical response to the interconnections among violence, terrorism, and war. (shrink)

Just like atomic physics seventy years ago, when it was realized that chain reaction could lead to medical applications as well as to the creation of atomic weapons, the life sciences have entered a grey zone. “Advances in biotechnology […]” a 2003 CIA document stated, “have the potential to create a much more dangerous biological warfare threat […] Engineered biological agents could be much worse than any disease known to man”. As sociologists of science have noted, contemporary (...) life sciences have dual use potential as they can be used to foster beneficial applications, for instance in health care, or generate harm, either intentionally or not, and possibly on an unprecedented.. (shrink)

Physics in Oxford, 1839-1939 offers a challenging new interpretation of pre-war physics at the University of Oxford, which was far more dynamic than most historians and physicists have been prepared to believe. It explains, on the one hand, how attempts to develop the University's Clarendon Laboratory by Robert Clifton, Professor of Experimental Philosophy from 1865 to 1915, were thwarted by academic politics and funding problems, and latterly by Clifton's idiosyncratic concern with precision instrumentation. Conversely, by examining in detail the work (...) of college fellows and their laboratories, the book reconstructs the decentralized environment that allowed physics to enter on a period of conspicuous vigour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially at the characteristically Oxonian intersections between physics, physical chemistry, mechanics, and mathematics. Whereas histories of Cambridge physics have tended to focus on the self-sustaining culture of the Cavendish Laboratory, it was Oxford's college-trained physicists who enabled the discipline to flourish in due course in university as well as college facilities, notably under the newly appointed professors, J. S. E. Townsend from 1900 and F. A. Lindemann from 1919. This broader perspective allows us to understand better the vitality with which physicists in Oxford responded to the demands of wartime research on radar and techniques relevant to atomic weapons and laid the foundations for the dramatic post-war expansion in teaching and research that has endowed Oxford with one of the largest and most dynamic schools of physics in the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Russell's leviathan by Mark S. Lippincott 1. INTRODUCTION BERTRAND RUSSELL'S POLITICAL thought underwent several metamorphoses in his nearly seventy years of political activism and writing. Indeed, many commentators on Russell take this as the overarching attribute ofhis politics. Alan Ryan writes that "Russell's career defies summary analysis; his life was much too long and his activities too various. His philosophical allegiances were no more stable than his emotional allegiances, (...) and his political allegiances no more stable than either."1 Likewise, Benjamin Barber suggests that "Russell had to contend with staying alive; and by the time he was ninety, consistency must have seemed to him less like the hobgoblin of little minds than the hallmark Of a short life."2 Ryan, Barber and others come to different conclusions about Russell's engagements with pacifism, anarcho-syndicalism, socialism and liberalism, but their efforts, taken collectively, signal a growing appreciation for the fluidity of Russell's politics. This essay treats the diversity of Russell's "political allegiances" as a first step 1 Alan Ryan, Bertrand Russell: a Political Life (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1988), p. l. 2 Benjamin R. Barber, "Solipsistic Politics: Bertrand Russell and Empiricist Liberalism", in his The Conquest ofPolitics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1988), p. 25. Russell's leviathan 7 toward a new understanding of his political thought. Yet, unlike so much commentary on Russell, the search for the overarching concept or unifying theme is eschewed. The core premise of the argument is that to understand the political Russell, it is necessary to suspend the urge to unify. What is crucial is an openness to the extraordinary variety and range of his political interests and reflections. Once this step is taken, it becomes possible to uncover the degree to which Russell's eclectic activism is reflected in his approach to political theory. It becomes possible to see that his statements on a particular political issue are embedded with concepts selected from various sources within the western tradition ofpolitical discourse. In addition, this approach highlights the conceptual background of some of Russell's more contentious political statements which seem so characteristically out of character. The issue selected for this essay arises from one of the most controversial and least understood acts in Russell's life. It concerns his public statements following World War II that the United States might do well to use its monopoly of atomic bombs to force the Soviet Union into abandoning the development of its own atomic weapons. Past attempts to explain this episode range from cursory denials and dismissals of its importance, to assertions that it was the step-child of Russell's Russophobia.3 If one examines these state3 The argument for threatening the Soviet Union into renouncing nuclear weapons is advanced by Russell in several public statements: "The Bomb and Civilization", Forward, 29 Sept. 1945; "Humanity's Last Chance", Cavalcade, 20 Oct. 1945; speech in the House of Lords, Hansard,_'2,~Nov. 1945; "The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War", Polemic, July-Aug. 1946; speech in the House of Lords, Hansard, 30 April 1947; "Still Time for Good Sense", '47 Magazine ofthe Year, Nov. 1947; "International Government", The New Commonwealth, Jan. 1948. Ronald Clark provides an important guide to Russell's statements during this period in Vie Life of Bertrand Russell (London : CapelWeidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975), but he does not examine the philosophical background. Alan Ryan comes closest to seeing Russell's theoretical link with Hobbes, but he leaves it as a passing remark about Russell's attitude towards world government during the First World War: "It is as if Russell had read Hobbes's Leviathan and been carried away by Hobbes's argument that the state of nature and the war of all against all was so dreadful that any rational man would fly to absolute monarchy for protection. Russell generalizes Hobbes's argument to the international sphere, but it fails to ask how men who get themselves into a 'war of all against all' can be expected to get themselves out again, and fails to show how they have done 8 Russell summer 1990 ments with an eye to Russell's... (shrink)

Americans are greatly concerned about the number of our troops killed in battle--100,000 dead in World War I; 300,000 in World War II; 33,000 in the Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam; 4,500 in Iraq; over 1,000 in Afghanistan--and rightly so. But why are we so indifferent, often oblivious, to the far greater number of casualties suffered by those we fight and those we fight for? This is the compelling, largely unasked question John Tirman answers in The Deaths of Others. Between (...) six and seven million people died in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq alone, the majority of them civilians. And yet Americans devote little attention to these deaths. Other countries, however, do pay attention, and Tirman argues that if we want to understand why there is so much anti-Americanism around the world, the first place to look is how we conduct war. We understandably strive to protect our own troops, but our rules of engagement with the enemy are another matter. From atomic weapons and carpet bombing in World War II to napalm and daisy cutters in Vietnam and beyond, we have used our weapons intentionally to kill large numbers of civilians and terrorize our adversaries into surrender. Americans, however, are mostly ignorant of these facts, believing that American wars are essentially just, necessary, and "good." Tirman investigates the history of casualties caused by American forces in order to explain why America remains so unpopular and why US armed forces operate the way they do. Trenchant and passionate, The Deaths of Others forces readers to consider the tragic consequences of American military action not just for Americans, but especially for those we fight. (shrink)

The possibility of a nuclear war that could destroy civilization has influenced the course of international affairs since 1945, suspended like a sword of Damocles above the heads of the world's leaders. The fact that we have escaped a third world war involving strategic nuclear weapons—indeed, that no atomic weapon of limited power has yet been used under battlefield conditions—seems nothing short of a miracle. Revisiting debates on the effectiveness and ethics of nuclear deterrence, Jean-Pierre Dupuy is led (...) to reformulate some of the most difficult questions in philosophy. He develops a counterintuitive but powerful theory of apocalyptic prophecy: once a major catastrophe appears to be possible, one must assume that it will in fact occur. Dupuy shows that the contradictions and paradoxes riddling discussions of deterrence arise from the tension between two opposite conceptions of time: one in which the future depends on decisions and strategy, and another in which every occurring event is one that could not have failed to occur. Considering the immense destructive power of nuclear warheads and the almost unimaginable ruin they are bound to cause, Dupuy reaches a provocative conclusion: whether they bring about good or evil does not depend on the present or future intentions of those who are in a position to use them. The mere possession of nuclear weapons is a moral abomination. (shrink)

Science is a matter of facts, not only of objects. (1) This applies to the theory itself and to experimental research as well. Experiments do not confirm hypotheses but are themselves the scientific result because they demonstrate security of action. (2) Thus not only experimental action is to be evaluated ethically but science itself. The development of atomic weapons has shown that there is no segregation between ,,basic research' and technical application. (3) Ethical criteria for the evaluation of (...) scientific action in laboratory research and beyond are love, adequacy, and embedding (conservation knowledge). (4) A moral order of scientific action could be developed along these orientations in justice and freedom if they were granted to the connatural world as they are in human society. German Die moderne Naturwissenschaft handelt von Tat-Sachen, nicht nur von den Sachen. (1) Handlungsförmig ist bereits der theoretische Entwurf, nicht erst das Experiment. Das letztere dient in der Regel nicht der Bestätigung von Hypothesen, sondern ist selbst das wissenschaftliche Ergebnis, denn es zeigt die Sicherheit im Handeln. (2) Das ethisch zu bewertende Handeln umfaßt also über die Laborforschung hinaus die ganze Wissenschaft. Die Entwicklung der Atombombe hat die grundsätzliche Untrennbarkeit von ,,Grundlagenforschung' und technischer Anwendung bewiesen. (3) Ethische Kriterien für das Erkenntnishandeln in der Laborforschung und darüber hinaus sind Liebe, Angemessenheit und Einbettung (Erhaltungswissen). (4) Eine sittliche Ordnung dieses Handelns kann sich nach den drei Kriterien in Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit ergeben, wenn diese über die menschlichen Gesellschaften hinaus auch der natürlichen Mitwelt zuteil werden sollen. (shrink)

This note examines the decision of the Court of Appeal in Tabernacle v Secretary of State for Defence (2009). The court held that byelaws prohibiting camping on Ministry of Defence land adjacent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire violated the human rights of women peace protestors under Articles 10 and 11 European Convention on Human Rights. The note argues that this decision calls into question arguments recently made, that the association of women with peace should be (...) abandoned. It also reveals the potential of law to facilitate the performative and transformative production of subject positions, as ‘woman’, which do not depend on or connect with debilitating patriarchal constructions of women as weak or vulnerable. (shrink)

Invited media scholars and journalists examine the general issue of nuclear waste, risk and the sicentific promises that were made, but not kept, about safe disposal. The mass media uncovered and reported on nuclear waste problems at Rocky Flats in Colorado and Hanford in Washington. Two environmental journalists review efforts to expose problems at these sites, how secrecy hampered reporting, and the effects of media coverage on nearby residents. An environmental communications scholar evaluates media coverage, the role of the U.S. (...) Department of Energy, and the impact of secrecy on public risk perceptions and attitudes toward government nuclear waste policies. (shrink)

On September 23, 1949, President Harry Truman announced that the Soviet Union had successfully detonated an atomic bomb. The news that the Soviet Union had done this came as little surprise to a number of American scientists and to some members of the intelligence community who had predicted that the Soviets would quickly acquire this advanced weapons technology. But for many Americans this news was disturbing. Truman’s announcement was taken up by, among others, a young Baptist evangelist named (...) Billy Graham. Opening a tent revival in Los Angeles just two days after the President’s report, Graham preached how the news of the Soviet bomb test had “startled the world” and launched an “arms race unprecedented in the history of the world.” President Truman, he informed his listeners, said that we “must be prepared for any eventuality at any hour….” Perhaps even more ominously he asked the crowd, “Do you know the area that is marked out for the enemy’s first atomic bomb? New York! Secondly, Chicago; and thirdly, the city of Los Angeles!” It was not only evangelical preachers who foresaw catastrophic implications from a growing arsenal of atomic weapons. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 202-218, June 2022.

This paper discusses the critical necessity of teaching students about the social and ethical responsibilities of scientists. Both a university scientist and a middle school science teacher reflect on the value of teaching the ethical issues that confront scientists. In the development of the atomic bomb in the US-led Manhattan Project, scientists faced the growing threat of atomic bombs by the Germans and Japanese and the ethical issues involved in successfully completing such a destructive weapon. The Manhattan Project (...) is a prime example of the types of ethical dilemmas and social responsibilities that scientists may confront. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Physicists and the Bomb Thermonuclear Weapons and the Cold War Atoms for Peace Deterrence, Détente, 9/11 and Dirty Bombs Nuclear Waste Climate Crisis Conclusion References and Further Reading.

This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as “science diplomacy.” Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post‐WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non‐proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (...) (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries’ posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong‐arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of “soft power” as critical to the re‐definition of international affairs. (shrink)

Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat was one of the most distinguished scientists and peace campaigners of the post second world war period. He made significant contributions to nuclear physics and worked on the development of the atomic bomb. He then became one of the world’s leading researchers into the biological effects of radiation. His life from the early 1950s until his death in August 2005 was devoted to the abolition of nuclear weapons and peace. For this he was awarded (...) the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (that he helped found) in 1995. His work in this area ranked with that of Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell and this article is an attempt to summarise his life, achievements, but in particular outline his views on the moral responsibilities of the scientist. He is a towering intellectual figure and his contributions to mankind should be better known and more widely understood. (shrink)

The development of atomic bombs under the auspices of the U.S. Army's Manhattan Project during World War II is considered to be the outstanding news story of the twentieth century. In this book, a physicist and expert on the history of the Project presents a comprehensive overview of this momentous achievement. The first three chapters cover the history of nuclear physics from the discovery of radioactivity to the discovery of fission, and would be ideal for instructors of a sophomore-level (...) "Modern Physics" course. Student-level exercises at the ends of the chapters are accompanied by answers. Chapter 7 covers the physics of first-generation fission weapons at a similar level, again accompanied by exercises and answers. For the interested layman and for non-science students and instructors, the book includes extensive qualitative material on the history, organization, implementation, and results of the Manhattan Project and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. The reader also learns about the legacy of the Project as reflected in the current world stockpiles of nuclear weapons. This second edition contains important revisions and additions, including a new chapter on the German atomic bomb program and new sections on British and Canadian contributions to the Manhattan project and on feed materials. Several other sections have been expanded; reader feedback has been helpful in introducing minor corrections and improved explanations; and, last but not least, the second edition includes a detailed index. (shrink)

Since the atomic era began in 1945, there have been three waves of moral criticism directed at American nuclear weapons policies. The first wave, which began around 1957 and ended in 1962 with McNamara’s announcement of Flexible Response, focused on Dulles’s policy of Massive Retaliation. The second wave, which began in the early 70’s and ended in 1974 with Schlesinger’s announcement of Countervailing Response, focused on the Assured Destruction policy developed in McNamara’s later reports to Congress. The third (...) wave began in the 80’s with Weinberger’s remarks about “prevailing” in nuclear conflicts and may or may not end with the next MX vote or next strategic arms agreement. (shrink)

The Second World War put an end to America's historical isolationism. Three American thinkers -- Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, and Kenneth Waltz -- developed a modern strategic framework that sought to introduce Americans to the harsher realities of international politics. Yet even as the United States began to embrace this new Realism, atomic weaponry threatened to make it absurd. This engrossing story of how the three chief architects of a powerful ideology struggled with the implications of their own creation (...) offers crucial context for contemporary debates about the resort to war and weapons of mass destruction. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is permissible for computer scientists and engineers—working with advanced militaries that are making good faith efforts to follow the laws of war—to engage in the research and development of lethal autonomous weapons systems. Research and development into a new weapons system is permissible if and only if the new weapons system can plausibly generate a superior risk profile for all morally relevant classes and it is not intrinsically wrong. The paper then suggests (...) that these conditions are satisfied by at least some potential LAWS development programs. More specifically, since LAWS will lead to greater force protection, warfighters are free to become more risk-acceptant in protecting civilian lives and property. Further, various malicious motivations that lead to war crimes will not apply to LAWS or will apply to no greater extent than with human warfighters. Finally, intrinsic objections—such as the claims that LAWS violate human dignity or that it creates ‘responsibility gaps’—are rejected on the basis that they rely upon implausibly idealized and atomized understandings of human decision-making in combat. (shrink)

This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Leo Szilard conceived of the possibility of nuclear fission sustained by a chain reaction years before it was achieved in the laboratory. He was also one of the initiators of the atomic bomb project in the United States. Yet (...) he dedicated his final years to the causes of understanding and sustaining life. The eminent physicist became a biologist and a vital force calling, for the control of nuclear and other weapons. This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Many of the issues Szilard deals with in this valuable record of the years 1947-1963 are still crucial today. His opposition to antiballistic missile systems, his proposal for a Washington-Moscow "hot line," his work on the Pugwash conferences that brought together scientists from the East and the West, his pivotal role in the creation of the Council for a Livable World, his advocacy of a nuclear policy of no-first-use and restricted retaliation, and his support of "minimum deterrence" in place of an overwhelming counterforce capability - all these matters are as important in the 1980s as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. (shrink)

As we approach the 21st century, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has lessened somewhat, but a new threat has emerged: biological warfare. The splitting of the atom eventually led to the detonation of atomic bombs, and the discovery of DNA may soon lead to the use of genetic weapons. This article argues that the scientific community has a responsibility to help protect the world against the threat of biological weapons.

The article analyzes the ethical studies of Hannah Arendt on the origin of totalitarianism. The author considers the conditions for the formation of a “total state” and the role in these processes of both society as a whole and an individual. Based on the works of Hannah Arendt, the author analyzes the features of the totalitarian transformations of the individual and society, as well as their interaction with the regime at different stages of the functioning of the “total state”. According (...) to Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is a system of mass terror, which is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. Totalitarianism is realized in the conditions of the destruction of political space and human interaction. It is the result of the alienation of a person from political life, that is, the “atomization” of society against the background of a deformation of basic ethical standards and established ideas about morality in general. Considering the problem of the emergence of totalitarianism, Arendt turns to the anthropological plane, where she explores the way in which violence enters the public sphere, and politics turns into an instrument for achieving certain goals and serving private interests. Hannah Arendt also analyzes the phenomenon of the “banality of evil,” which lies at the base of the so-called “respectable society”. Such a society easily becomes a weapon of totalitarianism along with “grassroots executors of orders”, as the example of Adolf Eichmann demonstrates. Hannah Arendt believes that the actions of such “executors of orders” should always be assessed as the actions of a person, and not just a “social tool”, from which responsibility for crimes is thus removed. Hannah Arendt identifies various areas of ethical, where there is a division into personal and political responsibility, and also studies the problems of preventing a possible repetition of totalitarianism. The “means” for such prevention, according to Hannah Arendt, are on an ethical plane. This is, firstly, the possibility of independent judgment and critical thinking, which create personal principles. And secondly, the presence of a public sphere, which provides the possibility of free action in a common social space. This is what actualizes moral issues and ensures the formation of moral principles. (shrink)

Philosophy after Hiroshima offers a philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding war and peace, and their challenges to ethics. It reminds us that the threat posed to civilization by nuclear weapons persists, as does the need for continuing philosophical reflection on the nature of war, the problem of violence, and the need for a workable ethics in the nuclear age. The book recalls the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the beginning of the nuclear age, the Cold (...) War, and subsequently of the hegemonic unilateralism of the sole superpower. Reviewing early critical responses to the first atomic bombings by such figures as Camus, Sartre, Russell, Heidegger, Jaspers and others, the authors themselves respond to contemporary threats to peace, including the US "global war on terrorism," the recrudescence of militarism, and the continuation of imperial power politics by other means. In the nuclear age, the use of military force as a political instrument threatens the future of humanity. This poses formidable challenges to philosophy and calls for its transformation. In using memories of the atomic bombings to help us to grasp the moral implications of the current escalation of global violence, the authors hope to show the urgent relevance of nonviolence in the contemporary context. Drawing on a range of philosophical traditions Taoist and Western the contributors take up a welter of philosophical and political concerns of topical interest, including human rights, toleration, the politics of memory, intercultural dialogue, the ethics of co-responsibility, and the possibility of a cosmopolitan order of law and peace. Going beyond postmodernism and deconstruction, several of the authors develop a post-critical, constructive paradigm of thinking a philosophy of the possible and a new methodology for the realization of the creative potential of the humanities. Philosophy is viewed as a peace-promoting global dialogue. (shrink)

In its reaction on the terroristic attacks of September 9th, 2001, the US-government threatened Afghanistan's Taleban with war in order to force them to extradite terrorist leader Bin Laden; the Taleban said that they would not surrender to this kind of blackmail – and so, they were removed from Kabul by means of military force. The rivalling versions of this story depend crucially on notions such as "terrorism" and "blackmail". Obviously you'll gain public support for your preferrend version of the (...) story if you are able to determine how those notions are to be used. So we had better reflect about their very meaning and about the moral implications of their proper usage. To gain a deeper understanding of our notions of "blackmail" and "terrorism" I shall propose an extreme thought experiment: Cassandra's plan. Cassandra foresees that sooner or later one of the nuclear powers might take the liberty to use atomic bombs. From fright she founds an NGO for blackmailing the statesmen who are in charge of nuclear weapons; she announces in public that all ministers and leaders of any government shall be hunted down, and executed, whose soldiers drop but one atomic bomb. (Cassandra's NGO keeps killer teams in constant training so as to increase the effect of the threat; this is being financiated from private donations). In my paper I shall raise two questions (without claiming to provide definite answers). First, would we have to say that Cassandra's NGO was a terrorist organisation? Second, would it be morally wrong if Cassandra blackmailed statesmen in the way indicated? (shrink)

John Canaday, The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. Pp. xviii+310. ISBN 0-299-16854-9. £19.50.Septimus H. Paul, Nuclear Rivals: Anglo-American Atomic Relations 1941–1952. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. Pp. ix+266. ISBN 0-8142-0852-5. £31.95.Peter Bacon Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Pp. 448. ISBN 0-252-02296-3. £22.00.A decade after the end of the Cold War, the culture and technology of nuclear (...) weapons had lost much of the overt sense of dread they once inspired. The decline in international tension following the end of the communist regimes of the Soviet bloc produced a massive shift in the ideology of the nuclear in the 1990s. The de-targeting and dismantling of large numbers of nuclear weapons and the demise of the threat of nuclear annihilation created new conditions both for international security and for the writing of nuclear history. With the declassification and release of large quantities of official documentation from the former adversaries, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1995, a burst of histories of various aspects of the nuclear age have appeared over the last ten years, exploring not just the technopolitics, strategy and operational logistics of the Cold War and the arms race, but the cultural history of the nuclear age, its imagery, its architecture, its oppositional politics and its effects on the landscape, national and regional economies and cultures and indeed everyday life. At a time of global economic and political uncertainty and the emergent threat of capricious international terrorism and new nuclear proliferation, the apparent certainties of the Cold War now even evoke a certain nostalgia, and its artefacts and structures are being recast as ‘heritage’. (shrink)

Few aspects of American military history have been as vigorously debated as Harry Truman's decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. In this carefully crafted volume, Michael Kort describes the wartime circumstances and thinking that form the context for the decision to use these weapons, surveys the major debates related to that decision, and provides a comprehensive collection of key primary source documents that illuminate the behavior of the United States and Japan during the closing days of World (...) War II. Kort opens with a summary of the debate over Hiroshima as it has evolved since 1945. He then provides a historical overview of thye events in question, beginning with the decision and program to build the atomic bomb. Detailing the sequence of events leading to Japan's surrender, he revisits the decisive battles of the Pacific War and the motivations of American and Japanese leaders. Finally, Kort examines ten key issues in the discussion of Hiroshima and guides readers to relevant primary source documents, scholarly books, and articles. (shrink)