Related papers: Between Pacifism and Nuclear Energy (1930-1955)
In 1943 fear that the German war machine might use atomic bombs was abating and among physicists another fear was taking its place - that of a postwar nuclear arms race with worldwide proliferation of nuclear weapons. Manhattan Project…
In this article, I trace the early historical developments that ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Even after the completion of weapons, many scientists continued to argue that nuclear armaments were indispensable for…
Though the majority of physicists would probably not support preemptive wars, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction would not exist without their contributions. Einstein's anti-militaristic position has been well-documented and the…
The results of a careful analysis of all the available information on the activities of Heisenberg and of his talks during the years 1939 to 1945 can be summarized in the following way. Like several other German physicists Heisenberg was…
Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard worked together at Columbia in 1939-40, just after nuclear fission was discovered, to ascertain the feasibility of a nuclear chain reaction, and then on the construction of the first nuclear reactor. Szilard…
Nuclear physics advances in the US and Britain, from 1939-1945, are described. The Manhattan Project's work led to an explosion in our knowledge of nuclear science. A conference in April 1943 at Los Alamos provided a simple formula used to…
Einstein's theoretical analysis of mass-energy equivalence, already, at the time, experimentally evident in radioactive decays, in two papers published in 1905, as well as Planck's introduction, in 1906, of the concepts of relativistic…
The Trinity test of July 16, 1945 marked the scientific apex of the Manhattan Project. Often recognized as the symbolic birth of the nuclear age, Trinity's multifaceted legacy remains just as captivating and complex as it did 75 years ago.…
From its very beginning, Quantum Theory developed contrary to the intentions of its creators. For Max Planck it marks the failure of a long-term research program, in which he tried to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics…
A personal account of work on the Manhattan Project in Chicago by one of the few remaining survivors of the war-time project is given, illustrating, among other things, how absurd things can happen at a time of great stress and concern.. As…
Einstein regarded as one of the triumphs of his 1915 theory of gravity --- the general theory of relativity --- that it vindicated the action--reaction principle, while Newtonian mechanics as well as his 1905 special theory of relativity…
Western thinking underwent a turning point between 1885 and 1925. Einstein in 1905 symbolizes the emblematic hinge of this change of direction. To find an equivalent phenomenon in the past we need to go back to the period from the XV…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
Albert Einstein's practice in physics and his philosophical positions gradually reoriented themselves from more empiricist towards rationalist viewpoints. This change accompanied his turn towards unified field theory and different…
In Europe (e.g., in Italy), and in the States, the opinion is widely spreading that the negative consequences of modern progress are the fault of "Science". A lively debate on this topic took place among the famous writer Leonardo Sciascia…
I combine the effects of Planck length, general relativity and Newtonian gravity in one equation, to come up with a semi-classical model of gravity in the form of deviation from Newtonian gravity. Einstein explained nuclear forces in terms…
Neither the world nor science came to an end when the gunfire stopped on 11 November 1918 (close to 11 AM in some time zone), but neither would ever be the same again. Part I of this inquiry (Observatory 138, 46-58, April 2018) looked at…
Einstein in 1905, his year of miracles, wrote five papers which mark a watershed between classical physics and modern physics. They dealt with problem of reality of atoms, theory of special relativity which overthrew Newtonian conceptions…
This article discusses new material, published in Volume 12 of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, that addresses Einstein's knowledge of the Michelson-Morley experiment prior to 1905: in a lecture in Chicago in 1921, Einstein referred…
This contribution aims to give an overview of the historical context of neutrino physics. I will present the strong social trends that shaped physics and the way physicists worked, along the 20th century. First, we will see the background…