But what sort of a mind could conceive it? Can anyone justify the invention?
Richard
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The science is compelling in its own right, because it contributes to understanding the very make up of matter itself.
As a physicist it doesn’t seem so bad to me.
Far worse from my perspective is the work on chemical and biological weapons because the focus is directly upon effects on the human body.
Humans seem to have a fascination with explosions as testified by the worldwide use of fireworks for entertainment. I sometimes wonder at the attraction of all this noise and smoke.
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I am sorry but even scientists must understand the consequences of their work. Can you really be that detached?
And I fail to see the difference between chemical destruction and radiating destruction. The result is, well, destruction.
Richard
You are probably right.
People can be fascinated by very different things. And it seems likely that a biologist or chemist could say something similar for these other weapons. I think there is some degree of detachment inherent in all the work of science. But the human side of us does intrude eventually and we look at the human cost. Such was the case of Oppenheimer even though Truman told him face to face that the decision to kill those people in Japan was his not Oppenheimer’s (one of the interesting scenes in the film).
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i thought that was a key scene as well. Truman pulling out his handkerchief for effect. One might conclude that Truman as well must have agonized over it but due to his position and also for his own sanity could not dwell on it or even face it directly, thus his harsh dismissal of Oppy. You have to have a bit of a sociopathic streak to be president and make those decisions, and it strikes me that Truman was a bit light in the sociopathic scale, thus he relied on denial and rationalization to survive. Oppenheimer did as well, as in his speech to the staff after the bombing, he spoke hard words but had nightmarish visions.
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It would be useful to remember that no one had a real idea of how much damage the first atomic bomb would do. The plan was to drop the first one on August 3 or 4 and the second on August 10. But, a typhoon intervened and the first drop was delayed to August 6. Think about information. Planes flew over Hiroshima all day and took photos on Aug 6. The photos were developed there, then flown to Hawaii, flown to San Francisco, flown to Washington. Three days of flights. Another typhoon was coming, so the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki before the leadership in Washington had any idea of the damage. After seeing the damage, President Truman halted the plan for a third bomb that was starting to make its way from Los Alamos to the Pacific. Remember, Truman was an artillery captain in WWI and had seen war first hand.
Time for another story about Kyoto. When the targeting committee was working on possible cities on which to drop the bomb, about half dozen were listed and conventional bombing stopped. The idea ws to be able to clearly observe the damage done by the atomic bomb. Secretary of War, Henry Stimson…whose great grandmother had recounted to him her conversations with George Washington…asked for the list. Only with great reluctance was that list provided. Stimson then ordered Kyoto removed from the list. His point was that in the reconstruction of Japanese society their shrines and history would be important, and should not be destroyed. This is called civilian control of the military. Stimson made it clear that HE was the ultimate authority. Kyoto was not bombed. We visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kyoto within the last decade…and the only comment about the difference was that the public transportation in Kyoto was not as good in the other two. In Hiroshima, we learned that trams were running and power was restored in Hiroshima suburbs within 48 hours of the explosion.
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Ponder another line from the Gondoliers…“when everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody”.
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If I am not mistaken, that scene was in the movie, with his stating to remove it as a target for its cultural value, and also mentioned he and his wife spent their honeymoon there. I was reading in one review that the movie was really a very accurate depiction of events.
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More relevant to many of the conversations here is
“Of that there is no manner of doubt;
No possible, probable shadow of doubt;
No possible doubt whatever.”
“No possible doubt whatever.”
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Neutron bombs. I remember back some years there was quite the debate about the morality of those! There was an interesting idea put forth in a letter to the editor in a news magazine suggesting that once all the dead were cleared out of a city, the housing and shops could all be given to the poor, as though that somehow made the bombs more moral.
And less crap to clean up.
If you study nuclear physics even as limited as it was back then the idea is obvious; if you’re a politician who wants to keep cities intact if you’re going to conquer them, it’s attractive.
And the popularity of the ones that go “Boom!”
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And General Leslie Groves was unhappy with that decision – he wanted to drop another half dozen bombs!
(I learned about that from educational materials they used to have at the Hanford nuke plant).
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Thanks for the extra information, William. I learned something new from you.
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A little information about neutron bombs. They are just normal weapons without the outlet layer used to reflect the neutrons back to the fissionable material. This allows the neutrons to escape. The idea was to use then in the event of a massive Russian tank invasion across the Iron Curtain in Germany. The neutrons would penetrate the steel of the tank and fry the tank drivers. The defense was to simply put a layer of water over the tank that would thermalize the neutrons and lower their damage to living things. The whole thing about killing people and leaving building intact was pure 'anti-nuke" fantasy.
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I recall it being something that pro-nuke politicians propagated. There was a big problem with the neutron bomb because development never got it to be as efficient in neutron production as theory indicated, so to get the effect desires in terms of killing Warsaw Pact soldiers it ended up with a blast zone radius larger than the mean distance between population centers in the area where it was expected to be used. And that in turn meant that while it could kill enemy soldiers quickly in about a square kilometer’s area it would kill anyone else in the vicinity in about four additional square kilometers, except slowly and agonizingly. So the killing of everyone in the blast area was played up and the collateral damage in civilian lives was ignored.
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It is possible that Oppenheimer was very worried that Hitler would have a nuclear bomb before the U.S. and that was his motivation over all other concerns. When the project began, there was no way to predict how the war in Europe would unfold, or how it would eventually affect this country or the rest of the world. As it turned out, the war went awry for Germany and Hitler committed suicide a few months before the weapon was successfully tested. At this point, the Government took over and used two of the inventions to end the war with Japan. Oppenheimer hoped that the tremendous power unleashed by the bomb would be a deterrent to the scourge of war around the world, but the images of suffering and death coming out of Japan haunted him for the rest of his life.
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I guess it worked to a greater or lesser extent. It is hard to justify the cruelty of Hiroshima but perhaps this is the rare occasion where the end did justify the means? If the world had never seen the results of the bomb would it not be tempted to use it now?
I think we all hate the cold calculation of 1 for a thousand. Perhaps there are times when we have to just bite the bullet, literally.
Richard
Or even one to ten. Humans have the innate impulse to want to rescue individuals, so we tend to recoil when the choice is between a hundred thousand casualties from one bomb versus a million otherwise.
That was actually something included in lifeguard training: given a family whose boat has overturned, with two adults and three children, and you only have the energy to save either two adults or three children, who do you save? (Thank God I never faced such a choice!)
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The Germans getting the weapon first was the entire motivation behind the Manhattan project. It was known that they were working on it, and feared at the time that they were farther along than the US towards making it happen. To your point about Oppenheimer specifically, there’s a line in the film, where he’s recruiting one of the scientists to join the project. Oppenheimer says something to the effect of, “I don’t know if we can be trusted with this weapon, but I know the Nazi’s cannot be.” Whether he actually ever said this specifically or not, I have no way of knowing, of course, but it aligns with what I’ve previously read about the mindset of many of those involved with the project at the time.
Back to the movie itself…I cannot recommend it more highly. I think Mr. Nolan is perhaps the most interesting director working in Hollywood today, and he doesn’t disappoint here. To my way of thinking, most movies are just that…movies. Some are entertaining enough, and that’s fine. Some are awful. Some are pretentious nonsense. But some are truly art, and belong there alongside other art forms. IMO, Oppenheimer is just that. Cillian Murphy is perfect in the title role, and Emily Blunt is great as Oppenheimer’s wife. But of course, I’ve liked her work in everything I’ve ever seen her do.
I think @jpm mentioned this earlier, but to point out again - there are a couple sex scenes involving Oppenheimer and his former girlfriend, and a few times where her breasts are exposed. I didn’t find it over-the-top personally, but since this is a forum mostly frequented by Christian believers, I think that disclaimer is worth mentioning. I’m sure some here usually find such things in movies to be in poor taste, or at minimum it would impact whether you’d let your kids see it.
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