Jewish Physicists And The Manhattan Project

 Leó Szilárd, evreu ungur. Fabricarea bombei atomice a dovedit, dacă mai era nevoie, ce fizicieni și chimiști geniali au existat de-a lungul timpurilor, de puterea spectaculoasă a unei echipe formată din astfel de genii care au lucrat necontenit pentru a dovedi că sunt mai buni decât germanii și prinși fiind de febra cercetărilor au neglijat aspectul moral al fabricării bombei atomice. Să fii fost un imbold faptul că aceste genii aceau origine evreiască și nemții erau porniți pe exterminarea acestei rase inferioare sau doar spiritele geniale au primat? Sau ambele variante? Personal, înclin să cred în ambele variante. Majoritatea participanților la proiect, cel puțin în primele momente de după lansarea bombelor, nu au regretat tragedia nucleară din august 1945 considerând că cele două atacuri nucleare de la Hiroshima şi Nagasaki au grăbit capitularea Japoniei, au scurtat cel de-al Doilea Război Mondial şi au salvat milioane de vieţi. Mai mulți din cei implicați în proiectul Manhattan au avut mustrări de conștiință toată viața pentru implicarea în acest proiect, chiar dacă au admis că a fost mai mult decât necesar. Se știe astăzi că Robert Oppenheimer i-ar fi spus președintelui Truman că are mâinile pătate de sânge. Ceea ce este mai grav, așa cum mai mulți elevi din clasa a XII-a au observat după studierea capitolului de Fizică nucleară, este că s-a deschis cutia Pandorei prin proiectul Manhattan și s-a mers mai departe cu fabricarea altor arme nucleare astfel că este o continuă întrecere între puteri mai mari sau mai mici, la nivel mondial, de a deține cât mai multe și mai distrugătoare arme nucleare. Întrebarea rămasă fără un răspuns din partea savanților demult decedați este dacă ar mai fi lucrat la o astfel de armă dacă ar fi știut despre viitoarea cursă a înarmării.

Bibliografie Cynthia C. Kelly, Richard Rhodes – The Manhattan project, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009

Prof. Violeta Telescu, Costești-Argeș Technological High School

Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Stern, Leo Szilard are the best known names of famous physicists who share Jewish origins. There are names that students hear in physics classes but also in the case of history classes where the end of the Second World War is talked about, the common denominator being the Manhattan project. In physics classes, students can learn about this project using materials (for example: "A Sense of Place," a video about the Hiroshima explosion) and can understand the scientific basis that led to the atomic bomb. with other scientific achievements but they can also make correlations with

what they studied in history so that they remember the historical significance of the Manhattan project. For interested students, a Socratic dialogue can be proposed about the decision to drop bombs in an extracurricular / extracurricular activity completed with the writing of an essay about the Manhattan project. The Manhattan Project began on October 21, 1940, and was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (also known as the atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Renowned physicists worked on this project and its success materialized in the development and detonation of the test (Trinity test) of a plutonium implosion bomb on July 16, 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico, of an enriched uranium bomb called "Little Boy" on August 6, 1945 over the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and a second plutonium bomb, named "Fat Man" on August 9, 1945 over the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The Manhattan Project was a controversial project, and the controversy began with the deaths of so many innocent civilians, given that if the bombing had been delayed a little, it would not have been used. It is said that great scientists called for the creation of the atomic bomb, although logic says that the government should have asked for it to end the destructive war. The brilliant scientists, some of whom were Nobel laureates, who contributed to the creation of this weapon were: • J. Robert Oppenheimer, American Jew, director of the Manhattan Project, nicknamed "the father of the atomic bomb" • Albert Einstein, a Jew arrived in America who is said to have convinced US President Roosevelt and Leo Szilard of the need to make the bomb • Niels Bohr, a Danish Jew, • Enrico Fermi (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938) • Hans Albrecht Bethe, German of Jewish origin • Isidor Isaac Rabi, a Jew from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Oppenheimer's first consultant • Victor Frederick Weisskopf, a Jew from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, • David Joseph Bohm, American Jew, • Nicholas Kurti, Hungarian Jew, physicist, • Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, a German Jew, also played a major role in the British nuclear program, • Otto Robert Frisch, an Austrian Jew, • Edward Teller, Hungarian Jew, "father" of the hydrogen bomb, • Leo Szilárd, Hungarian Jew. The manufacture of the atomic bomb proved, if need be, what brilliant physicists and chemists have existed over time, the spectacular power of a team of such geniuses who worked tirelessly to prove that they are better than the Germans and being trapped by the research fever they neglected the moral aspect of making the atomic bomb. Was it an impulse that these geniuses of Jewish origin and the Germans were set on exterminating this inferior race or only the genius spirits prevailed? Or both? Personally, I tend to believe in both.