Can anything in the world be right or wrong in the absolute sense of the word? Other than stuff like 2+2 = 4, everything is open to interpretation especially political actions. Its rightly said that there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics; what is permanent is the desire to protect one's interests. Einstein famously said that a scientist belongs to the world in time of peace but to his/her country in times of war.
I had the pleasure of watching the play "Copenhagen" at Ranga Shankara in Bangalore that highlighted this fact of life. It is a celebrated play that has been performed all over the world and telecast on BBC with Daniel Craig playing one of the lead roles. It is based on an encounter between Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941 who shared a father-son and teacher-protege relationship.
Heisenberg comes to visit Bohr with Germany at the height of its powers and ruling over half of Europe including Denmark. The meeting ends abruptly when Heisenberg asks Bohr if the fission research that scientists have been working on around the world could be put to "other uses". Bohr interprets this as an intention on Heisenberg's part to put atomic energy to military use and sends him away. Heisenberg goes away thinking that the task of building a reactor to generate enough quantity of enriched uranium is futile.
Considering the times, Bohr's suspicion of Heisenberg's motives were justified but look at how history panned out. Bohr, the avowed pacifist, went to the US soon after the meeting and worked on Project Manhattan. Einstein, another man of peace, wrote to the US govt to fund Manhattan. The Americans drop the bomb not once but twice. One can only speculate why they did it as the war was nearly won. Was it to teach the Japanese a lesson, end the war soon or just prompted by a feeling of superiority? And why drop the second bomb? Was it to test a plutonium bomb in addition to a uranium one? Weren't the horrors of the Hiroshima bomb enough?
There is a chilling "it might have been" twist in the story. If Bohr had asked Heisenberg to work out the amount of enriched uranium required for the bomb, he may have figured out the answer. Thank God he didn't...
I had the pleasure of watching the play "Copenhagen" at Ranga Shankara in Bangalore that highlighted this fact of life. It is a celebrated play that has been performed all over the world and telecast on BBC with Daniel Craig playing one of the lead roles. It is based on an encounter between Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941 who shared a father-son and teacher-protege relationship.
Heisenberg comes to visit Bohr with Germany at the height of its powers and ruling over half of Europe including Denmark. The meeting ends abruptly when Heisenberg asks Bohr if the fission research that scientists have been working on around the world could be put to "other uses". Bohr interprets this as an intention on Heisenberg's part to put atomic energy to military use and sends him away. Heisenberg goes away thinking that the task of building a reactor to generate enough quantity of enriched uranium is futile.
Considering the times, Bohr's suspicion of Heisenberg's motives were justified but look at how history panned out. Bohr, the avowed pacifist, went to the US soon after the meeting and worked on Project Manhattan. Einstein, another man of peace, wrote to the US govt to fund Manhattan. The Americans drop the bomb not once but twice. One can only speculate why they did it as the war was nearly won. Was it to teach the Japanese a lesson, end the war soon or just prompted by a feeling of superiority? And why drop the second bomb? Was it to test a plutonium bomb in addition to a uranium one? Weren't the horrors of the Hiroshima bomb enough?
There is a chilling "it might have been" twist in the story. If Bohr had asked Heisenberg to work out the amount of enriched uranium required for the bomb, he may have figured out the answer. Thank God he didn't...
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