WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.443 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:01.443 --> 00:00:02.886 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:02.886 --> 00:00:11.560 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:13.730 align:middle line:90% DAVID KAISER: Welcome, everyone. 00:00:13.730 --> 00:00:21.730 align:middle line:84% This optional informal discussion for 8.225 STS.042, 00:00:21.730 --> 00:00:25.330 align:middle line:84% as hopefully you all know, we're just going to take our time, 00:00:25.330 --> 00:00:29.260 align:middle line:84% just very informally chat about really anything that's 00:00:29.260 --> 00:00:31.240 align:middle line:84% on your mind around the most recent material, 00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:32.698 align:middle line:84% but in particular things that might 00:00:32.698 --> 00:00:37.900 align:middle line:84% have been curious, or puzzling, or disturbing, or whatever. 00:00:37.900 --> 00:00:42.490 align:middle line:84% Any of the above that might have been elicited in your mind 00:00:42.490 --> 00:00:46.300 align:middle line:84% upon watching the documentary film, The Day After Trinity. 00:00:46.300 --> 00:00:48.340 align:middle line:84% I actually just watched the YouTube version 00:00:48.340 --> 00:00:50.500 align:middle line:84% with some of my family over the weekend. 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:52.690 align:middle line:84% I didn't realize how poor the video quality was. 00:00:52.690 --> 00:00:53.790 align:middle line:90% I apologize for that. 00:00:53.790 --> 00:00:55.540 align:middle line:84% If you were watching it on a small device, 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:56.540 align:middle line:90% maybe you didn't notice. 00:00:56.540 --> 00:00:59.260 align:middle line:84% But if you were watching it on a super big crazy large TV, 00:00:59.260 --> 00:01:01.690 align:middle line:84% you would have seen it was very blotchy visually. 00:01:01.690 --> 00:01:03.357 align:middle line:84% But anyway, hopefully it was nonetheless 00:01:03.357 --> 00:01:05.379 align:middle line:90% clear enough to get the gist. 00:01:05.379 --> 00:01:08.080 align:middle line:84% And I have no agenda for today, I'm 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:11.292 align:middle line:84% really just happy to go whatever questions, 00:01:11.292 --> 00:01:13.250 align:middle line:84% or comments, or thoughts are on people's minds. 00:01:13.250 --> 00:01:15.762 align:middle line:84% So anyone should feel free to jump in. 00:01:15.762 --> 00:01:17.470 align:middle line:84% I expect we'll have a small enough group, 00:01:17.470 --> 00:01:19.303 align:middle line:84% we don't have to worry about breakout rooms. 00:01:19.303 --> 00:01:21.110 align:middle line:84% We can just manage the discussion hopefully 00:01:21.110 --> 00:01:24.140 align:middle line:84% pretty informally with the group this way. 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:25.100 align:middle line:90% So I'm curious. 00:01:25.100 --> 00:01:26.810 align:middle line:90% I mean just the floor is open. 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:30.200 align:middle line:84% Were there things that surprised you 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.570 align:middle line:84% from the film things, that surprised you the film didn't 00:01:32.570 --> 00:01:35.509 align:middle line:90% broach or cover, anything? 00:01:35.509 --> 00:01:36.815 align:middle line:90% The whole topic is open. 00:01:36.815 --> 00:01:42.940 align:middle line:90% 00:01:42.940 --> 00:01:44.200 align:middle line:90% Really interesting question. 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:46.350 align:middle line:90% That's a juicy one. 00:01:46.350 --> 00:01:49.840 align:middle line:84% And I should also say, by the way, even more than usual, 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:52.539 align:middle line:84% I invite the TAs to jump in as well. 00:01:52.539 --> 00:01:54.390 align:middle line:90% Please don't be shy. 00:01:54.390 --> 00:01:56.650 align:middle line:84% But let me give you my first crack at that. 00:01:56.650 --> 00:01:59.590 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.590 --> 00:02:02.125 align:middle line:84% I think a lot of people who were convinced to work 00:02:02.125 --> 00:02:04.500 align:middle line:84% on the project, and the film gives a little hint of that, 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:08.340 align:middle line:84% they really were not given very much in advance to go on. 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:11.460 align:middle line:84% They had to make a fairly snap decision in the middle 00:02:11.460 --> 00:02:14.880 align:middle line:90% of very dislocated times. 00:02:14.880 --> 00:02:16.477 align:middle line:84% And often because of secrecy, they 00:02:16.477 --> 00:02:18.810 align:middle line:84% couldn't be given a kind of full briefing ahead of time. 00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:22.170 align:middle line:84% Some of them didn't have much idea of what was coming. 00:02:22.170 --> 00:02:25.230 align:middle line:84% And my sense of it, there was a lot of the folks who 00:02:25.230 --> 00:02:29.770 align:middle line:84% did volunteer then to join the project, 00:02:29.770 --> 00:02:34.160 align:middle line:84% really were deeply concerned about developments in Europe, 00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:37.450 align:middle line:84% especially around what looked like the kind of unchecked 00:02:37.450 --> 00:02:40.660 align:middle line:90% military progress of the Nazis. 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:45.490 align:middle line:84% So I think there was a sense that they wanted 00:02:45.490 --> 00:02:49.570 align:middle line:84% to find some way to contribute to the defense effort, 00:02:49.570 --> 00:02:51.770 align:middle line:90% to the war effort. 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:53.380 align:middle line:84% Now, that raises other questions, 00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:55.930 align:middle line:84% which are broached at least briefly in the film. 00:02:55.930 --> 00:02:59.079 align:middle line:84% If many people's principal motivation 00:02:59.079 --> 00:03:03.130 align:middle line:84% had to do with Nazi Germany, what 00:03:03.130 --> 00:03:06.520 align:middle line:84% happened between so-called V-E Day, the ultimate defeat 00:03:06.520 --> 00:03:12.405 align:middle line:84% of the Nazis in April of 1945, and the remainder 00:03:12.405 --> 00:03:13.780 align:middle line:84% of the project, let alone the use 00:03:13.780 --> 00:03:16.448 align:middle line:90% of the weapons against Japan? 00:03:16.448 --> 00:03:17.740 align:middle line:90% So we should come back to that. 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:19.660 align:middle line:84% But nonetheless, I think people felt strongly 00:03:19.660 --> 00:03:21.340 align:middle line:90% they wanted to do something. 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:23.890 align:middle line:84% Many people did, even very young people. 00:03:23.890 --> 00:03:28.600 align:middle line:84% And this was a decision formed without full information, 00:03:28.600 --> 00:03:30.820 align:middle line:84% because often they literally couldn't be briefed. 00:03:30.820 --> 00:03:34.567 align:middle line:84% We talked last time about these, the so-called indoctrination 00:03:34.567 --> 00:03:36.650 align:middle line:84% course, that Robert Serber gave once they actually 00:03:36.650 --> 00:03:38.630 align:middle line:90% arrived at Los Alamos. 00:03:38.630 --> 00:03:41.475 align:middle line:84% For some of them, he had to tell them, oh, we gathered you 00:03:41.475 --> 00:03:42.350 align:middle line:90% here to build a bomb. 00:03:42.350 --> 00:03:44.630 align:middle line:84% Like he first had to say that, because it might not 00:03:44.630 --> 00:03:47.060 align:middle line:84% have been obvious to everyone yet when they gathered. 00:03:47.060 --> 00:03:49.520 align:middle line:90% I just find that extraordinary. 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:51.567 align:middle line:84% There's a larger question though, a larger thing 00:03:51.567 --> 00:03:53.900 align:middle line:84% that actually a good friend of mine, a historian Michael 00:03:53.900 --> 00:03:57.050 align:middle line:84% Gordin has written a really interesting short book about. 00:03:57.050 --> 00:03:59.460 align:middle line:84% The book is called Five Days in August, 00:03:59.460 --> 00:04:01.730 align:middle line:84% which comes to another aspect of your question, which 00:04:01.730 --> 00:04:04.790 align:middle line:84% is how did many people, scientists on the project, 00:04:04.790 --> 00:04:08.640 align:middle line:84% military officials, political leaders, journalists, 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:10.910 align:middle line:90% and other policymakers-- 00:04:10.910 --> 00:04:13.070 align:middle line:84% how did many different kinds of people 00:04:13.070 --> 00:04:16.850 align:middle line:84% come to think about the bomb once they learned about it? 00:04:16.850 --> 00:04:18.527 align:middle line:84% And Michael's argument in brief, let's 00:04:18.527 --> 00:04:19.610 align:middle line:90% see if I do justice to it. 00:04:19.610 --> 00:04:21.529 align:middle line:84% Again, some of the TAs know this book very, very well. 00:04:21.529 --> 00:04:22.612 align:middle line:90% So they should correct me. 00:04:22.612 --> 00:04:25.310 align:middle line:84% But my recollection of my friend's book 00:04:25.310 --> 00:04:27.500 align:middle line:90% is more or less the following. 00:04:27.500 --> 00:04:31.070 align:middle line:84% That the bomb was treated by many, many of these folks 00:04:31.070 --> 00:04:35.950 align:middle line:84% as not particularly unusual or special prior to its use. 00:04:35.950 --> 00:04:38.480 align:middle line:84% And my favorite parts of Michael's book 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:41.780 align:middle line:84% actually have to do with the mechanics of how 00:04:41.780 --> 00:04:44.570 align:middle line:84% the weapons were literally put together, and then 00:04:44.570 --> 00:04:49.909 align:middle line:84% armed for use against targets in Japan. 00:04:49.909 --> 00:04:51.860 align:middle line:84% So on the island of Tinian, there's 00:04:51.860 --> 00:04:56.960 align:middle line:84% some footage in the film of the staging grounds on Tinian. 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:59.990 align:middle line:84% And my understanding is it's not that President Truman, the US 00:04:59.990 --> 00:05:03.020 align:middle line:84% President Truman, gave direct orders every time 00:05:03.020 --> 00:05:05.450 align:middle line:84% to say drop a bomb now on Hiroshima, 00:05:05.450 --> 00:05:07.040 align:middle line:90% drop a bomb now on Nagasaki. 00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:09.890 align:middle line:84% There was no such order given, not that specific. 00:05:09.890 --> 00:05:13.400 align:middle line:84% The decision was made to use the weapons when 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:16.010 align:middle line:84% they were available up to the discretion of the field 00:05:16.010 --> 00:05:18.570 align:middle line:84% commanders, just like every other kind of weapons, 00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:20.450 align:middle line:90% every other kind of bombing. 00:05:20.450 --> 00:05:23.000 align:middle line:84% Again, as there was some footage in the film, and others, 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.100 align:middle line:84% you might already have known, there 00:05:25.100 --> 00:05:30.710 align:middle line:84% had been campaigns of what was called incendiary bombing, 00:05:30.710 --> 00:05:32.720 align:middle line:84% using certain kinds of conventional explosives 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:34.220 align:middle line:84% that were especially likely to cause 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:38.480 align:middle line:84% ground fires against some cities in Europe, 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:41.750 align:middle line:84% but many cities in Japan by the Allied air forces, US 00:05:41.750 --> 00:05:43.490 align:middle line:90% in particular. 00:05:43.490 --> 00:05:47.000 align:middle line:84% And those weren't separately ordered from on high. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:48.870 align:middle line:84% There was a chain of command in the field, 00:05:48.870 --> 00:05:52.310 align:middle line:84% so to speak, and up to their expert judgment-- 00:05:52.310 --> 00:05:55.100 align:middle line:84% were the conditions right, is there a storm coming, 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:58.580 align:middle line:84% should they launch a series of bombing raids or not. 00:05:58.580 --> 00:06:01.305 align:middle line:84% That was not a presidential level decision, or even 00:06:01.305 --> 00:06:02.930 align:middle line:84% necessarily a general's level decision. 00:06:02.930 --> 00:06:07.160 align:middle line:84% That was kind of outsourced to the ranking officers 00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:07.970 align:middle line:90% in the field. 00:06:07.970 --> 00:06:10.640 align:middle line:84% And what astonishes me, what Michael found, 00:06:10.640 --> 00:06:13.280 align:middle line:84% is that in the earliest stages the nuclear weapons 00:06:13.280 --> 00:06:14.705 align:middle line:90% were treated like that. 00:06:14.705 --> 00:06:16.910 align:middle line:84% They were plugged into an existing 00:06:16.910 --> 00:06:22.640 align:middle line:84% system of local decision making about when to use them, 00:06:22.640 --> 00:06:24.350 align:middle line:90% under what circumstances. 00:06:24.350 --> 00:06:26.570 align:middle line:84% And that Michael suggests shows that they were not 00:06:26.570 --> 00:06:28.910 align:middle line:84% treated as a separate category early on. 00:06:28.910 --> 00:06:30.500 align:middle line:84% They were treated like another weapon. 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:32.250 align:middle line:84% There had been many other kinds of weapons 00:06:32.250 --> 00:06:34.070 align:middle line:84% developed and deployed from scratch 00:06:34.070 --> 00:06:35.540 align:middle line:90% in the course of the war. 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:40.700 align:middle line:84% And that these were treated at least logistically or kind 00:06:40.700 --> 00:06:44.420 align:middle line:84% of bureaucratically like yet another weapon 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:50.659 align:middle line:84% to be deployed largely at the discretion of the local field 00:06:50.659 --> 00:06:52.310 align:middle line:90% commanders. 00:06:52.310 --> 00:06:56.000 align:middle line:84% And that to the extent there was a standing order at all, 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:57.900 align:middle line:84% it was to use them when you got them. 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:00.560 align:middle line:84% It wasn't like drop one, wait three days. 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.210 align:middle line:84% There was no such coordination of that level. 00:07:03.210 --> 00:07:06.080 align:middle line:84% And in fact, there was no third bomb ready. 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:07.610 align:middle line:90% The two were dropped. 00:07:07.610 --> 00:07:10.025 align:middle line:84% The bomb dropped against Nagasaki was, 00:07:10.025 --> 00:07:11.900 align:middle line:84% and you get a little bit of this in the film, 00:07:11.900 --> 00:07:15.950 align:middle line:84% was the schedule was pushed up by the local field commanders 00:07:15.950 --> 00:07:18.920 align:middle line:84% because there was a worry about severe weather, 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:20.750 align:middle line:84% a typhoon coming that would have threatened 00:07:20.750 --> 00:07:26.930 align:middle line:90% certain kinds of aircraft runs. 00:07:26.930 --> 00:07:29.670 align:middle line:84% And in fact, Nagasaki wasn't even the original target city. 00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:33.120 align:middle line:84% There was a decision made by the pilot in mid-flight 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:34.830 align:middle line:84% to change paths, I think largely because 00:07:34.830 --> 00:07:36.450 align:middle line:84% of things like changing conditions in the weather 00:07:36.450 --> 00:07:37.210 align:middle line:90% and so on. 00:07:37.210 --> 00:07:39.750 align:middle line:84% So these were not highly staged, or these 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:43.870 align:middle line:84% were not highly carefully thought out 00:07:43.870 --> 00:07:45.310 align:middle line:90% and vetted individual decisions. 00:07:45.310 --> 00:07:47.530 align:middle line:84% The decision was load them into the planes, 00:07:47.530 --> 00:07:48.760 align:middle line:90% and drop when you got them. 00:07:48.760 --> 00:07:53.050 align:middle line:84% And they had two, the makings for a third not yet compiled 00:07:53.050 --> 00:07:56.620 align:middle line:84% weapon were literally on a boat, making their way to Tinian 00:07:56.620 --> 00:07:59.470 align:middle line:84% at the time that Japan surrendered. 00:07:59.470 --> 00:08:03.130 align:middle line:84% So the idea was drop them one after the other, 00:08:03.130 --> 00:08:06.010 align:middle line:84% much like the incendiary bombing raids have been, 00:08:06.010 --> 00:08:08.140 align:middle line:90% one after the other. 00:08:08.140 --> 00:08:11.595 align:middle line:84% And what Michael and others have argued, 00:08:11.595 --> 00:08:12.970 align:middle line:84% what made the atomic weapons seem 00:08:12.970 --> 00:08:16.100 align:middle line:84% special was the fact that the fighting stopped, 00:08:16.100 --> 00:08:18.313 align:middle line:84% which was not necessarily predicted. 00:08:18.313 --> 00:08:20.230 align:middle line:84% No one thought you drop one, and they'll stop. 00:08:20.230 --> 00:08:22.300 align:middle line:84% Or at least no one seems to have thought that. 00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:24.400 align:middle line:84% No one thought if we timed the other one very carefully 00:08:24.400 --> 00:08:25.317 align:middle line:90% that'll convince them. 00:08:25.317 --> 00:08:27.490 align:middle line:84% There it was no such calculation for the timing 00:08:27.490 --> 00:08:30.460 align:middle line:84% of the second bomb that was used in this case against Nagasaki. 00:08:30.460 --> 00:08:32.500 align:middle line:84% And they were prepared-- they were preparing 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:34.330 align:middle line:84% to drop a third one, and they would have dropped a fourth 00:08:34.330 --> 00:08:34.996 align:middle line:90% if they had one. 00:08:34.996 --> 00:08:38.179 align:middle line:84% They just literally didn't have the parts. 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:41.200 align:middle line:84% So Michael argues that it was actually 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:44.330 align:middle line:84% in response to the fact that unlike other military 00:08:44.330 --> 00:08:48.380 align:middle line:84% campaigns, there was at least a coincidence in time 00:08:48.380 --> 00:08:52.910 align:middle line:84% this time around that Japan did surrender within days 00:08:52.910 --> 00:08:54.290 align:middle line:90% of the second bombing. 00:08:54.290 --> 00:08:57.800 align:middle line:84% That then in kind of a post hoc rationalization, 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:00.410 align:middle line:84% according to Michael, made people 00:09:00.410 --> 00:09:02.180 align:middle line:84% think that the atomic weapons were now 00:09:02.180 --> 00:09:04.880 align:middle line:84% somehow in the category of their own, or different, or special. 00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:05.838 align:middle line:90% That was a long answer. 00:09:05.838 --> 00:09:08.250 align:middle line:84% It's a very complicated question. 00:09:08.250 --> 00:09:09.890 align:middle line:84% I think a bunch of the scientists who 00:09:09.890 --> 00:09:12.440 align:middle line:84% worked for example on Los Alamos, scientists, engineers, 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:15.210 align:middle line:84% I think they thought this was different early on. 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:16.880 align:middle line:84% And some of their concerns which we 00:09:16.880 --> 00:09:19.760 align:middle line:84% hear about less so in the film and other reminiscences 00:09:19.760 --> 00:09:22.460 align:middle line:84% and interviews and so on, memoirs have been published, 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:24.260 align:middle line:84% is that they were often quite concerned 00:09:24.260 --> 00:09:29.000 align:middle line:84% that some of the army figures, military figures, who also 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:30.740 align:middle line:84% witnessed for example, the Trinity test, 00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:33.740 align:middle line:84% were not as shocked as the scientists were. 00:09:33.740 --> 00:09:36.920 align:middle line:84% I think I mentioned very, very briefly in my previous lecture 00:09:36.920 --> 00:09:40.310 align:middle line:84% that for the Trinity test in Alamogordo, 00:09:40.310 --> 00:09:43.400 align:middle line:84% New Mexico, one of the things that really, really 00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:45.710 align:middle line:84% seems to have left a visceral reaction to many 00:09:45.710 --> 00:09:50.720 align:middle line:84% of the folks who then were able to inspect what would soon 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:53.840 align:middle line:84% be called ground zero, was that the heat and especially 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:57.500 align:middle line:84% pressure of the blast had fused desert sand into glass. 00:09:57.500 --> 00:09:59.630 align:middle line:84% And that at least, as some of these scientists 00:09:59.630 --> 00:10:01.550 align:middle line:84% later recalled, that gave them a kind 00:10:01.550 --> 00:10:03.950 align:middle line:84% of visceral sense of the forces at play. 00:10:03.950 --> 00:10:07.130 align:middle line:84% And then some of them report being equally viscerally 00:10:07.130 --> 00:10:09.435 align:middle line:84% upset that the generals weren't impressed by that. 00:10:09.435 --> 00:10:11.060 align:middle line:84% So some of the scientists seem to think 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:13.143 align:middle line:84% we are playing with the forces that power the sun. 00:10:13.143 --> 00:10:15.470 align:middle line:84% We're dealing with extraordinarily powerful 00:10:15.470 --> 00:10:17.015 align:middle line:90% physical phenomena. 00:10:17.015 --> 00:10:18.890 align:middle line:84% And so at least in their later recollections, 00:10:18.890 --> 00:10:20.723 align:middle line:84% they seem to have treated this as different, 00:10:20.723 --> 00:10:23.030 align:middle line:84% not just another TNT bomb souped up. 00:10:23.030 --> 00:10:24.792 align:middle line:84% And therefore, they were concerned 00:10:24.792 --> 00:10:26.750 align:middle line:84% that others didn't treat it with a similar kind 00:10:26.750 --> 00:10:28.370 align:middle line:90% of differentness. 00:10:28.370 --> 00:10:30.380 align:middle line:84% But I'm pretty convinced by Michael's argument 00:10:30.380 --> 00:10:30.980 align:middle line:90% more broadly. 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:35.300 align:middle line:84% If you look at the political, high level political apparatus, 00:10:35.300 --> 00:10:38.040 align:middle line:84% and the military planning war department apparatus, 00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:39.980 align:middle line:84% this was treated at least bureaucratically 00:10:39.980 --> 00:10:43.040 align:middle line:84% in terms of standing orders as such, much more 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:45.380 align:middle line:84% like the next thing in the arsenal to drop, 00:10:45.380 --> 00:10:48.142 align:middle line:84% as opposed to some total separate category in itself. 00:10:48.142 --> 00:10:50.350 align:middle line:84% I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts on that. 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:52.520 align:middle line:84% But that's my not very brief take 00:10:52.520 --> 00:10:53.705 align:middle line:90% on that very juicy question. 00:10:53.705 --> 00:10:54.580 align:middle line:90% It's a good question. 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:57.340 align:middle line:90% 00:10:57.340 --> 00:10:58.000 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:10:58.750 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Steven. 00:10:58.750 --> 00:11:00.208 align:middle line:84% That's also a really hard question. 00:11:00.208 --> 00:11:03.107 align:middle line:84% It's a important question, but it's a hard one. 00:11:03.107 --> 00:11:05.440 align:middle line:84% And I talked a little bit about this in a previous class 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:06.580 align:middle line:90% session. 00:11:06.580 --> 00:11:08.200 align:middle line:90% But it's worth revisiting. 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:10.240 align:middle line:84% So the short answer is many of these folks 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:13.000 align:middle line:84% were aware, as I say, the scientists and engineers, let's 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:14.680 align:middle line:84% say, were definitely aware that there 00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:16.870 align:middle line:84% was going to be associated radiation and fallout. 00:11:16.870 --> 00:11:18.610 align:middle line:84% And that would not be good for people. 00:11:18.610 --> 00:11:20.860 align:middle line:84% They knew there was an inherent clear danger that 00:11:20.860 --> 00:11:24.430 align:middle line:84% was not like TNT or other conventional explosives. 00:11:24.430 --> 00:11:26.200 align:middle line:84% That really did strike many of them 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:27.760 align:middle line:90% as being importantly different. 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:33.010 align:middle line:84% They did not have anything like the sophisticated large-scale 00:11:33.010 --> 00:11:35.860 align:middle line:84% statistically powerful controlled medical 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:39.280 align:middle line:84% experimentation type results or body of knowledge 00:11:39.280 --> 00:11:41.240 align:middle line:90% that would develop later. 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:45.670 align:middle line:84% So we shouldn't expect them to have had the same knowledge 00:11:45.670 --> 00:11:50.050 align:middle line:84% about the human biological implications of fallout, 00:11:50.050 --> 00:11:52.480 align:middle line:84% as the community would later acquire, largely 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:55.010 align:middle line:84% from the use of these weapons and from other kinds of tests. 00:11:55.010 --> 00:11:57.140 align:middle line:84% So they didn't know what would later be known. 00:11:57.140 --> 00:11:58.550 align:middle line:90% They knew something. 00:11:58.550 --> 00:12:03.760 align:middle line:84% They knew enough to treat it very relatively carefully. 00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:04.260 align:middle line:90% It is. 00:12:04.260 --> 00:12:04.885 align:middle line:90% Yes, thank you. 00:12:04.885 --> 00:12:07.780 align:middle line:84% They're aware that that's at least a likely possibility. 00:12:07.780 --> 00:12:10.050 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, they were pretty cavalier, 00:12:10.050 --> 00:12:12.370 align:middle line:84% even with their own personal safety. 00:12:12.370 --> 00:12:15.510 align:middle line:84% So for example, I think I mentioned briefly. 00:12:15.510 --> 00:12:18.270 align:middle line:84% One of my college professors who had just retired before I 00:12:18.270 --> 00:12:21.390 align:middle line:84% started college, 10,000 years ago approximately, 00:12:21.390 --> 00:12:24.540 align:middle line:84% he had served as a very young kid on the Manhattan Project. 00:12:24.540 --> 00:12:25.500 align:middle line:90% I mean he like a kid. 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:28.440 align:middle line:84% He was basically like a first year grad student. 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:31.410 align:middle line:84% So even our TAs are more advanced 00:12:31.410 --> 00:12:34.080 align:middle line:84% than this kid was, when he joined the project. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:36.930 align:middle line:84% And he would say, they would carry little radioactive 00:12:36.930 --> 00:12:40.440 align:middle line:84% sources in their jacket or vest pockets 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:42.900 align:middle line:84% to calibrate the local machinery. 00:12:42.900 --> 00:12:45.780 align:middle line:84% So they would put alpha emitters next to their gut. 00:12:45.780 --> 00:12:47.610 align:middle line:84% I don't recommend you do that today. 00:12:47.610 --> 00:12:50.310 align:middle line:84% So there was a kind of cavalierness 00:12:50.310 --> 00:12:52.920 align:middle line:84% about radioactivity in general for a lot of these folks. 00:12:52.920 --> 00:12:54.090 align:middle line:90% Partly, oh there's a war on. 00:12:54.090 --> 00:12:56.190 align:middle line:84% We don't have time to be all special and careful. 00:12:56.190 --> 00:12:58.565 align:middle line:84% Partly they didn't know what would later be better known. 00:12:58.565 --> 00:13:02.780 align:middle line:84% And then partly for people who were working on the project who 00:13:02.780 --> 00:13:04.640 align:middle line:84% weren't themselves scientists or engineers, 00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:10.670 align:middle line:84% there was a really I think very significant lack of effort 00:13:10.670 --> 00:13:13.550 align:middle line:84% to better inform those people about appropriate safety 00:13:13.550 --> 00:13:15.350 align:middle line:84% procedures that based on the knowledge that 00:13:15.350 --> 00:13:17.250 align:middle line:90% even was in hand at the time. 00:13:17.250 --> 00:13:19.190 align:middle line:90% See what I mean? 00:13:19.190 --> 00:13:23.540 align:middle line:84% And that's just for radioactive emitters generally. 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:25.880 align:middle line:84% Then we come to the question of fallout 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:27.890 align:middle line:84% specifically from the use of these weapons 00:13:27.890 --> 00:13:30.500 align:middle line:90% in a large human population. 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:33.920 align:middle line:84% And that, again, they knew enough to start 00:13:33.920 --> 00:13:35.090 align:middle line:90% studying long-term effects. 00:13:35.090 --> 00:13:37.550 align:middle line:84% They figured this would not be good for people. 00:13:37.550 --> 00:13:39.440 align:middle line:84% They didn't have detailed information 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:41.630 align:middle line:84% about which cancers at what rates, 00:13:41.630 --> 00:13:44.060 align:middle line:84% what kinds of demographics, young children affected 00:13:44.060 --> 00:13:47.270 align:middle line:84% differently than older people, a role of preexisting conditions, 00:13:47.270 --> 00:13:49.670 align:middle line:84% the kinds of things that kind of biostatisticians 00:13:49.670 --> 00:13:53.253 align:middle line:84% would come to study much more carefully later. 00:13:53.253 --> 00:13:54.920 align:middle line:84% So again, that was a pretty long answer. 00:13:54.920 --> 00:13:58.550 align:middle line:84% But they were not entirely ignorant of the dangers 00:13:58.550 --> 00:14:07.250 align:middle line:84% of radioactivity, in general, or some of the likely implications 00:14:07.250 --> 00:14:10.580 align:middle line:84% of radioactive fallout from the use of these things in a city. 00:14:10.580 --> 00:14:13.415 align:middle line:84% And they didn't know what other people would 00:14:13.415 --> 00:14:14.540 align:middle line:90% learn in more detail later. 00:14:14.540 --> 00:14:20.205 align:middle line:90% 00:14:20.205 --> 00:14:21.080 align:middle line:90% That's a great point. 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:22.210 align:middle line:84% I'll just add again quickly, thank you, 00:14:22.210 --> 00:14:23.320 align:middle line:90% Tiffany on that point too. 00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:27.735 align:middle line:84% Coming back maybe to Steven's question more directly. 00:14:27.735 --> 00:14:29.860 align:middle line:84% Meaning more directly from me, than I [INAUDIBLE].. 00:14:29.860 --> 00:14:32.350 align:middle line:84% There was a long-term study of people 00:14:32.350 --> 00:14:35.140 align:middle line:84% who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 00:14:35.140 --> 00:14:37.480 align:middle line:90% at the time the bombs went off. 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:42.190 align:middle line:84% Long-term longitudinal study largely under US auspices. 00:14:42.190 --> 00:14:46.390 align:middle line:84% So Japan, as you may know, was occupied by the Allied forces, 00:14:46.390 --> 00:14:48.790 align:middle line:84% mostly the US, but the Allies of World War 00:14:48.790 --> 00:14:52.460 align:middle line:84% II for the better part of a decade, 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:54.430 align:middle line:84% starting very soon after surrender. 00:14:54.430 --> 00:14:57.520 align:middle line:84% So there were a lot of US-based long term 00:14:57.520 --> 00:15:01.430 align:middle line:84% studies of the effects of the weapons on site, 00:15:01.430 --> 00:15:05.210 align:middle line:84% including a lot of these biomedical epidemiological type 00:15:05.210 --> 00:15:05.710 align:middle line:90% studies. 00:15:05.710 --> 00:15:11.110 align:middle line:84% And yet it still remains deeply, deeply controversial 00:15:11.110 --> 00:15:15.460 align:middle line:84% how many deaths to attribute to the bombings, 00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:19.950 align:middle line:84% partly because of different definitions about who 00:15:19.950 --> 00:15:24.060 align:middle line:84% was exposed in what way, partly to the usual difficulties 00:15:24.060 --> 00:15:26.520 align:middle line:84% statistically of saying would this many people have gotten 00:15:26.520 --> 00:15:28.620 align:middle line:84% lung cancer even if they hadn't been exposed 00:15:28.620 --> 00:15:31.500 align:middle line:84% to this kind of basically pathogen for lack of a better 00:15:31.500 --> 00:15:34.890 align:middle line:84% word radioactive source, and also because a lot of the stuff 00:15:34.890 --> 00:15:37.192 align:middle line:84% remains classified or remain classified 00:15:37.192 --> 00:15:38.400 align:middle line:90% for a long, long time anyway. 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:42.277 align:middle line:84% So one of the themes we'll come to a bit in this class, 00:15:42.277 --> 00:15:43.860 align:middle line:84% we've already got a little hint of it, 00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:47.490 align:middle line:84% is the role of classification in making 00:15:47.490 --> 00:15:49.620 align:middle line:84% it difficult to draw certain kinds of conclusions 00:15:49.620 --> 00:15:51.953 align:middle line:84% from otherwise very complicated scientific and technical 00:15:51.953 --> 00:15:52.980 align:middle line:90% projects. 00:15:52.980 --> 00:15:56.970 align:middle line:84% In this case, it was a lot of the stuff was 00:15:56.970 --> 00:16:00.870 align:middle line:84% subject to boring classified strictures, which 00:16:00.870 --> 00:16:03.115 align:middle line:84% didn't help with independent statisticians redoing 00:16:03.115 --> 00:16:05.490 align:middle line:84% the stats, and stuff the stuff that we would kind of take 00:16:05.490 --> 00:16:09.623 align:middle line:84% for granted in peer reviewed scientific studies today. 00:16:09.623 --> 00:16:11.790 align:middle line:84% So literally today, I'm sure I didn't look recently. 00:16:11.790 --> 00:16:14.252 align:middle line:84% But I'm sure if anyone goes on Wikipedia, 00:16:14.252 --> 00:16:16.710 align:middle line:84% and says how many casualties from the bombing of Hiroshima, 00:16:16.710 --> 00:16:19.330 align:middle line:84% there will probably be one of these like warning comment 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:20.050 align:middle line:90% signs. 00:16:20.050 --> 00:16:21.490 align:middle line:90% People are flaming each other. 00:16:21.490 --> 00:16:22.490 align:middle line:90% The editors don't agree. 00:16:22.490 --> 00:16:24.940 align:middle line:84% Because to this day, 75 years later, 00:16:24.940 --> 00:16:27.850 align:middle line:84% asking what sounds like a countable seemingly 00:16:27.850 --> 00:16:30.550 align:middle line:84% straightforward question, how many people were affected, 00:16:30.550 --> 00:16:33.160 align:middle line:84% killed, injured whatever, is remarkably 00:16:33.160 --> 00:16:36.640 align:middle line:84% straightforward to very well intentioned experts, let alone 00:16:36.640 --> 00:16:40.360 align:middle line:84% people who are operating from further away 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.410 align:middle line:90% from the original information. 00:16:42.410 --> 00:16:46.750 align:middle line:84% So it gets really tricky to assess literally 00:16:46.750 --> 00:16:48.010 align:middle line:90% how many people were killed. 00:16:48.010 --> 00:16:52.360 align:middle line:84% The immediate blast damage that actually was counted up pretty 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:53.405 align:middle line:90% compellingly clearly. 00:16:53.405 --> 00:16:56.030 align:middle line:84% There's not much argument about who died within the first week. 00:16:56.030 --> 00:17:00.220 align:middle line:84% But all these kind of long tail, more epidemiological type 00:17:00.220 --> 00:17:03.400 align:middle line:84% things, remain actually quite tricky 00:17:03.400 --> 00:17:07.973 align:middle line:84% and can inspire some real earnest debate. 00:17:07.973 --> 00:17:12.920 align:middle line:90% 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:14.662 align:middle line:90% Yeah, it's a great point Lulu. 00:17:14.662 --> 00:17:15.829 align:middle line:90% And it's again, it's tricky. 00:17:15.829 --> 00:17:17.240 align:middle line:90% I find it tricky myself. 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:20.686 align:middle line:84% And just biologically, I'm closer 00:17:20.686 --> 00:17:22.520 align:middle line:84% to those times than most of the rest of you, 00:17:22.520 --> 00:17:24.450 align:middle line:90% but not that much closer. 00:17:24.450 --> 00:17:27.012 align:middle line:84% I mean I grew up during the Cold War, and thinking about-- 00:17:27.012 --> 00:17:28.430 align:middle line:84% I didn't have to do duck and cover 00:17:28.430 --> 00:17:31.010 align:middle line:84% drills during like h-bomb raids, but like my parents did. 00:17:31.010 --> 00:17:31.850 align:middle line:90% So I heard about it. 00:17:31.850 --> 00:17:35.480 align:middle line:84% Anyway, but nonetheless it's hard to get my mind back 00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:37.760 align:middle line:90% to a time of total war. 00:17:37.760 --> 00:17:39.380 align:middle line:90% I mean, thank goodness, right? 00:17:39.380 --> 00:17:42.140 align:middle line:84% But if you look at the casualty counts, 00:17:42.140 --> 00:17:45.650 align:middle line:84% the fatality counts from the incendiary bombings of Tokyo 00:17:45.650 --> 00:17:49.780 align:middle line:84% and Dresden, they very likely exceeded 00:17:49.780 --> 00:17:51.627 align:middle line:84% at least the short term casualty counts 00:17:51.627 --> 00:17:53.460 align:middle line:84% from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 00:17:53.460 --> 00:17:55.420 align:middle line:84% at least they were comparable, meaning 00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.420 align:middle line:84% there were cities where hundreds of thousands of people 00:17:58.420 --> 00:18:03.190 align:middle line:84% were killed by dropping of weapons from aircraft multiple 00:18:03.190 --> 00:18:05.560 align:middle line:84% times in just the weeks, let alone months, 00:18:05.560 --> 00:18:09.550 align:middle line:84% before these to our eyes new kinds of weapons 00:18:09.550 --> 00:18:11.470 align:middle line:90% were used in August of '45. 00:18:11.470 --> 00:18:16.540 align:middle line:84% So the scale of the human costs of civilian of total war 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:19.720 align:middle line:84% where it's not people in uniform fighting on a battlefield 00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:22.260 align:middle line:84% but anyone who's within some geographical territory, 00:18:22.260 --> 00:18:24.970 align:middle line:84% is suddenly considered fair game as a target. 00:18:24.970 --> 00:18:28.913 align:middle line:84% That wasn't invented with the use of nuclear weapons. 00:18:28.913 --> 00:18:30.580 align:middle line:84% And the difference that sometimes people 00:18:30.580 --> 00:18:32.800 align:middle line:84% would articulate soon afterwards was 00:18:32.800 --> 00:18:35.830 align:middle line:84% it took 1,000 aircraft to level Tokyo. 00:18:35.830 --> 00:18:37.425 align:middle line:84% And it took one to level Hiroshima. 00:18:37.425 --> 00:18:38.800 align:middle line:84% So some people would start saying 00:18:38.800 --> 00:18:39.680 align:middle line:90% these really are different. 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:40.340 align:middle line:90% Let's be careful. 00:18:40.340 --> 00:18:41.715 align:middle line:84% Let's think about this carefully. 00:18:41.715 --> 00:18:44.680 align:middle line:84% Others would say 100,000 people dead. 00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:46.030 align:middle line:90% That's like last Thursday. 00:18:46.030 --> 00:18:48.832 align:middle line:84% It's just remarkable what's the comparison class. 00:18:48.832 --> 00:18:49.790 align:middle line:90% Let me put it that way. 00:18:49.790 --> 00:18:52.970 align:middle line:84% What are you comparing it with, and how do our own individual 00:18:52.970 --> 00:18:58.423 align:middle line:84% sensibilities shift compared to what many folks' were immersed 00:18:58.423 --> 00:18:59.090 align:middle line:90% in, at the time? 00:18:59.090 --> 00:19:03.050 align:middle line:84% And I don't say that to say there's no culpability. 00:19:03.050 --> 00:19:04.910 align:middle line:84% I'm just saying it's astonishing to me 00:19:04.910 --> 00:19:08.890 align:middle line:84% that might have seemed unremarkable in its day, 00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:11.650 align:middle line:84% given 3 and 1/2, 4 years of this really 00:19:11.650 --> 00:19:17.320 align:middle line:84% devastating heavy civilian law, so-called total war. 00:19:17.320 --> 00:19:19.180 align:middle line:90% So I just find that-- 00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:21.940 align:middle line:84% I mean thankfully, I don't think we have that kind of experience 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:25.990 align:middle line:84% in any of our lifetimes of that kind of civilian loss of life 00:19:25.990 --> 00:19:28.390 align:middle line:90% in wartime. 00:19:28.390 --> 00:19:32.260 align:middle line:84% There's been plenty of bad things happen since. 00:19:32.260 --> 00:19:38.680 align:middle line:84% Yeah, anyway so just the scale of civilian human loss, 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:41.440 align:middle line:84% where you were deemed a legitimate target if you happen 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:44.860 align:middle line:84% to live in a city, let alone if you were drafter, 00:19:44.860 --> 00:19:46.900 align:middle line:84% let alone if you volunteered, or whatever. 00:19:46.900 --> 00:19:52.010 align:middle line:90% 00:19:52.010 --> 00:19:54.140 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and again, not to get ahead 00:19:54.140 --> 00:19:56.265 align:middle line:84% of ourselves, but for this coming Wednesday's class 00:19:56.265 --> 00:19:57.682 align:middle line:84% session, we'll talk about, and you 00:19:57.682 --> 00:19:59.510 align:middle line:84% get a hint of this in the film as well, 00:19:59.510 --> 00:20:01.580 align:middle line:84% the next step that happened to have 00:20:01.580 --> 00:20:03.710 align:middle line:84% been taken in this thread of discussion 00:20:03.710 --> 00:20:06.350 align:middle line:84% was the development of hydrogen weapons. 00:20:06.350 --> 00:20:09.410 align:middle line:84% Which are, roughly speaking 1,000 plus times 00:20:09.410 --> 00:20:12.140 align:middle line:84% more destructive by any parameter 00:20:12.140 --> 00:20:15.255 align:middle line:84% you choose to measure, than the weapons that had already 00:20:15.255 --> 00:20:15.755 align:middle line:90% been used. 00:20:15.755 --> 00:20:20.140 align:middle line:90% 00:20:20.140 --> 00:20:21.035 align:middle line:90% Right, right. 00:20:21.035 --> 00:20:23.410 align:middle line:84% On the question of Niels Bohr, it's a great point, Lucas. 00:20:23.410 --> 00:20:26.148 align:middle line:84% And I think it's a lot like something 00:20:26.148 --> 00:20:28.690 align:middle line:84% we talked at least briefly about in a class session maybe two 00:20:28.690 --> 00:20:32.170 align:middle line:84% classes ago, on Einstein's very famous letter to President 00:20:32.170 --> 00:20:34.120 align:middle line:90% Franklin Roosevelt as well. 00:20:34.120 --> 00:20:37.360 align:middle line:84% These for a long time were held up by scientists 00:20:37.360 --> 00:20:40.572 align:middle line:84% as examples of these Nobel Prize winning architects 00:20:40.572 --> 00:20:43.030 align:middle line:84% of modern physics were also geniuses of the human condition 00:20:43.030 --> 00:20:44.380 align:middle line:90% and political wizards. 00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:46.168 align:middle line:90% I wish any of that were true. 00:20:46.168 --> 00:20:48.460 align:middle line:84% And it's not to take away from either Einstein and Bohr 00:20:48.460 --> 00:20:53.360 align:middle line:84% to say that those stories are not wishful thinking. 00:20:53.360 --> 00:20:55.250 align:middle line:84% Boer very earnestly tried to serve 00:20:55.250 --> 00:20:57.035 align:middle line:84% in exactly the capacity you mentioned, 00:20:57.035 --> 00:20:58.160 align:middle line:90% because you're quite right. 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:01.180 align:middle line:84% And the fact is he was completely and kind of 00:21:01.180 --> 00:21:02.980 align:middle line:84% predictably ineffective at it, no one 00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:05.770 align:middle line:84% had any reason to listen to this mumbling Copenhagen 00:21:05.770 --> 00:21:08.020 align:middle line:84% guy who didn't seem to know anything 00:21:08.020 --> 00:21:10.360 align:middle line:90% about how governments work. 00:21:10.360 --> 00:21:13.600 align:middle line:84% So his entreaties, his efforts were-- 00:21:13.600 --> 00:21:14.660 align:middle line:90% he did make the efforts. 00:21:14.660 --> 00:21:16.180 align:middle line:90% Let's give him credit for that. 00:21:16.180 --> 00:21:17.230 align:middle line:90% He did see ahead. 00:21:17.230 --> 00:21:21.455 align:middle line:84% He was predictive, as many people were, of a an arms race 00:21:21.455 --> 00:21:23.830 align:middle line:84% unless there was this narrow window of opportunity to try 00:21:23.830 --> 00:21:27.280 align:middle line:84% to avert an arms race, mutual suspicions, and distrust 00:21:27.280 --> 00:21:28.210 align:middle line:90% growing. 00:21:28.210 --> 00:21:32.500 align:middle line:84% But I think there was very little chance of him 00:21:32.500 --> 00:21:34.000 align:middle line:90% having any actual success. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:36.470 align:middle line:84% And it turns out he had approximately zero success. 00:21:36.470 --> 00:21:37.930 align:middle line:84% So it's not to fault him for trying 00:21:37.930 --> 00:21:41.440 align:middle line:84% or for recognizing this as a likely scenario. 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:43.390 align:middle line:84% But we tend to hear about these stories 00:21:43.390 --> 00:21:46.270 align:middle line:84% by like biographers of Niels Bohr, who 00:21:46.270 --> 00:21:48.250 align:middle line:84% are enamored of the many extraordinary things 00:21:48.250 --> 00:21:51.040 align:middle line:84% that Bohr was able to do during his lifetime. 00:21:51.040 --> 00:21:53.290 align:middle line:84% But if we ask the same question of historians 00:21:53.290 --> 00:21:55.570 align:middle line:84% of US foreign relations they'll say, Niels who? 00:21:55.570 --> 00:21:59.290 align:middle line:84% Because it had literally zero impact, at least from where 00:21:59.290 --> 00:22:02.780 align:middle line:84% they're sitting on the very, very complicated relations 00:22:02.780 --> 00:22:06.410 align:middle line:84% between US and Britain, let alone US and the Soviets, 00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:07.640 align:middle line:90% or anything else. 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:12.110 align:middle line:84% So guess I take these episodes as examples 00:22:12.110 --> 00:22:14.030 align:middle line:84% that some of these physicists were indeed 00:22:14.030 --> 00:22:18.680 align:middle line:84% trying to think one or two steps ahead, and they were not-- 00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:23.450 align:middle line:84% maybe they misjudged their own likely influence. 00:22:23.450 --> 00:22:26.720 align:middle line:84% So they get credit in my mind for thinking about it at all 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:32.390 align:middle line:84% and trying, but not much of a tract record in hindsight. 00:22:32.390 --> 00:22:39.450 align:middle line:90% 00:22:39.450 --> 00:22:40.530 align:middle line:90% It's a great question. 00:22:40.530 --> 00:22:42.130 align:middle line:90% Thank you, really interesting. 00:22:42.130 --> 00:22:48.870 align:middle line:84% So the first impact was it was not very many from any given 00:22:48.870 --> 00:22:49.630 align:middle line:90% campus. 00:22:49.630 --> 00:22:51.750 align:middle line:84% So it wasn't like one department was emptied out. 00:22:51.750 --> 00:22:55.470 align:middle line:84% And in fact, there was at the time, a very, very strong 00:22:55.470 --> 00:22:57.990 align:middle line:84% concern on many, many, many university and college 00:22:57.990 --> 00:23:01.260 align:middle line:84% campuses in the US to keep as many physicists on site 00:23:01.260 --> 00:23:03.610 align:middle line:84% as possible, because they were involved 00:23:03.610 --> 00:23:05.610 align:middle line:84% in teaching what we would now consider basically 00:23:05.610 --> 00:23:08.880 align:middle line:84% classical physics, blocks, sliding down planes, 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:11.217 align:middle line:84% and elementary circuits and radio, 00:23:11.217 --> 00:23:13.050 align:middle line:84% which was often done in physics departments, 00:23:13.050 --> 00:23:14.757 align:middle line:84% not a separate electrical engineering 00:23:14.757 --> 00:23:16.090 align:middle line:90% department in many, many places. 00:23:16.090 --> 00:23:18.060 align:middle line:84% So there was this huge concern about, 00:23:18.060 --> 00:23:20.970 align:middle line:84% literally they talked about rationing and stockpiling 00:23:20.970 --> 00:23:25.990 align:middle line:84% physics instructors to teach canonical college students, 00:23:25.990 --> 00:23:30.000 align:middle line:84% but also to teach huge numbers of navy and army 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.790 align:middle line:84% special students who were drafted sometimes 00:23:32.790 --> 00:23:35.550 align:middle line:84% often straight out of high school, were not yet college 00:23:35.550 --> 00:23:38.430 align:middle line:84% students, and were sent to many, many campuses 00:23:38.430 --> 00:23:43.750 align:middle line:84% around the US for crash course study, very 00:23:43.750 --> 00:23:47.890 align:middle line:84% accelerated schedules, to learn basically rudimentary physics, 00:23:47.890 --> 00:23:52.960 align:middle line:84% like for radio communication or like sighting or sound ranging. 00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:55.138 align:middle line:84% It really was like classical physics. 00:23:55.138 --> 00:23:56.680 align:middle line:84% And in fact, physics departments were 00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:59.627 align:middle line:84% admonished not to waste their time teaching quantum mechanics 00:23:59.627 --> 00:24:01.210 align:middle line:84% or nuclear physics, because that's not 00:24:01.210 --> 00:24:03.580 align:middle line:84% going to be of any importance during the war. 00:24:03.580 --> 00:24:05.020 align:middle line:90% That makes me smirk. 00:24:05.020 --> 00:24:06.880 align:middle line:84% And they should put all their efforts 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:11.500 align:middle line:84% teaching classical E&M and Newtonian mechanics. 00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:14.140 align:middle line:84% Whether it's for how do you measure air pressure, what's 00:24:14.140 --> 00:24:16.900 align:middle line:84% a barometer, how do you measure angles 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:20.590 align:middle line:84% with a handheld of sighting device. 00:24:20.590 --> 00:24:22.610 align:middle line:84% So I find that really fascinating. 00:24:22.610 --> 00:24:25.960 align:middle line:84% So the term that's often used you might have heard, 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:29.320 align:middle line:84% the Second World War has often been called the physicists war. 00:24:29.320 --> 00:24:31.420 align:middle line:84% And that term has usually been taken to mean, 00:24:31.420 --> 00:24:32.587 align:middle line:90% oh, we know what that means. 00:24:32.587 --> 00:24:36.280 align:middle line:84% It was all about radar and exotic weapons projects, 00:24:36.280 --> 00:24:38.257 align:middle line:90% like the Manhattan Project. 00:24:38.257 --> 00:24:40.090 align:middle line:84% And so I actually wrote about this recently. 00:24:40.090 --> 00:24:43.480 align:middle line:84% It turns out the phrase was introduced 00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.540 align:middle line:84% before the attack on Pearl Harbor, 00:24:46.540 --> 00:24:50.740 align:middle line:84% before there was Los Alamos laboratory, at a time when 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:53.050 align:middle line:84% radar was still deeply classified. 00:24:53.050 --> 00:24:55.927 align:middle line:84% The usage of the term, if you do one of these Google Ngrams, all 00:24:55.927 --> 00:24:58.510 align:middle line:84% these fun things we could do now searching in English language 00:24:58.510 --> 00:25:00.880 align:middle line:84% corpus, the phrase physicist wars 00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:04.480 align:middle line:84% use, it spiked in 1943, at which time 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:06.040 align:middle line:84% anything about the Manhattan Project 00:25:06.040 --> 00:25:07.545 align:middle line:90% was deeply, deeply classified. 00:25:07.545 --> 00:25:08.920 align:middle line:84% They were not printing editorials 00:25:08.920 --> 00:25:12.610 align:middle line:84% about the nuclear weapons in the op ed pages. 00:25:12.610 --> 00:25:15.670 align:middle line:84% So the term physicists war was used to respond to the fact 00:25:15.670 --> 00:25:21.460 align:middle line:84% that more and more young people, mostly men, mostly boys, 00:25:21.460 --> 00:25:24.040 align:middle line:84% had to be trained in crash course settings 00:25:24.040 --> 00:25:27.370 align:middle line:84% on what we would call classical physics for practical purposes 00:25:27.370 --> 00:25:29.840 align:middle line:84% on the battlefield, by which they meant 00:25:29.840 --> 00:25:32.270 align:middle line:84% barometric pressure, measure angles, 00:25:32.270 --> 00:25:35.120 align:middle line:84% use sighting on a gun, and elementary electronics, 00:25:35.120 --> 00:25:35.870 align:middle line:90% and circuits. 00:25:35.870 --> 00:25:37.880 align:middle line:84% So the physicists war, the meaning of the term 00:25:37.880 --> 00:25:39.440 align:middle line:84% actually changed quite dramatically 00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:44.190 align:middle line:84% after this dramatic revelation about these new previously 00:25:44.190 --> 00:25:49.220 align:middle line:84% secret weapons projects and the kind of impacts they had. 00:25:49.220 --> 00:25:51.650 align:middle line:84% So the physics classrooms were bulging faster than ever 00:25:51.650 --> 00:25:52.220 align:middle line:90% before. 00:25:52.220 --> 00:25:53.630 align:middle line:84% They weren't getting drained out. 00:25:53.630 --> 00:25:56.663 align:middle line:84% There were more people rushing to study physics, 00:25:56.663 --> 00:25:58.580 align:middle line:84% more people who were put into physics classes, 00:25:58.580 --> 00:26:00.050 align:middle line:90% whether they chose to or not. 00:26:00.050 --> 00:26:02.100 align:middle line:84% And more and more people teaching physics, 00:26:02.100 --> 00:26:04.752 align:middle line:84% not just for math and chemistry, but for music. 00:26:04.752 --> 00:26:06.710 align:middle line:84% Anyone who had any kind of quantitative skills, 00:26:06.710 --> 00:26:08.670 align:middle line:84% political science, you know any statistics? 00:26:08.670 --> 00:26:13.070 align:middle line:84% Good, now here's your crash course to relearn calculus, 00:26:13.070 --> 00:26:15.540 align:middle line:84% and you're going to teach Maxwell's equations next week. 00:26:15.540 --> 00:26:17.540 align:middle line:84% And again, anyone who was caught poaching, 00:26:17.540 --> 00:26:19.790 align:middle line:84% that was their word, stealing legitimate physics 00:26:19.790 --> 00:26:23.720 align:middle line:84% instructors from one campus were subject to public shaming. 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:26.750 align:middle line:84% So there was an effort to keep more and more physics 00:26:26.750 --> 00:26:28.520 align:middle line:84% instructors in the classrooms, not 00:26:28.520 --> 00:26:30.300 align:middle line:84% to teach fancy, fancy nuclear fission, 00:26:30.300 --> 00:26:32.520 align:middle line:90% but rather these other topics. 00:26:32.520 --> 00:26:35.010 align:middle line:84% And that meant that when a couple slipped away, 00:26:35.010 --> 00:26:38.250 align:middle line:84% it was I think lost in the noise I have a feeling. 00:26:38.250 --> 00:26:41.760 align:middle line:84% Because there was so much tumult about huge kind of throughput. 00:26:41.760 --> 00:26:46.530 align:middle line:84% MIT'S campus switched to basically 12-month instruction 00:26:46.530 --> 00:26:50.430 align:middle line:84% and we had I think at the height of this three times more-- 00:26:50.430 --> 00:26:52.620 align:middle line:84% or not three times-- it was like a 3 to 2 ratio. 00:26:52.620 --> 00:26:55.470 align:middle line:84% It was like a 1 and 1/2 times more 00:26:55.470 --> 00:26:58.170 align:middle line:84% so-called special students, meaning full-time army and navy 00:26:58.170 --> 00:27:02.740 align:middle line:84% students assigned to MIT for six week terms than MIT students. 00:27:02.740 --> 00:27:06.370 align:middle line:84% So the MIT's own campus was taken over, 00:27:06.370 --> 00:27:07.530 align:middle line:90% was put into high gear. 00:27:07.530 --> 00:27:11.210 align:middle line:84% And that was very common in many, many other liberal arts, 00:27:11.210 --> 00:27:13.710 align:middle line:84% tiny liberal arts colleges, big universities, and everything 00:27:13.710 --> 00:27:18.480 align:middle line:84% in between, these very, very intensive short term 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:20.650 align:middle line:90% crash course things. 00:27:20.650 --> 00:27:23.940 align:middle line:84% In fact, if I can find it in time, I'll put it in the chat. 00:27:23.940 --> 00:27:27.130 align:middle line:84% One of my favorite photos is actually of 10-250. 00:27:27.130 --> 00:27:29.130 align:middle line:84% I don't know if it's your beloved or your hated, 00:27:29.130 --> 00:27:30.945 align:middle line:84% a room many of you will probably know, 00:27:30.945 --> 00:27:32.610 align:middle line:84% one of our big, big lecture halls, 00:27:32.610 --> 00:27:36.180 align:middle line:84% 10-250 filled with young men in uniform 00:27:36.180 --> 00:27:38.220 align:middle line:84% taking one of these crash course classes 00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:40.770 align:middle line:90% in probably elementary circuits. 00:27:40.770 --> 00:27:43.140 align:middle line:84% And it's just a see of faces that all 00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:46.500 align:middle line:84% look the same, in all the same uniforms, just 400 people 00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:48.990 align:middle line:84% filling 10-250 all in their khakis. 00:27:48.990 --> 00:27:51.482 align:middle line:84% That's what campus at MIT was like. 00:27:51.482 --> 00:27:53.190 align:middle line:84% That was the predominant thing as opposed 00:27:53.190 --> 00:27:55.360 align:middle line:84% to, hey, where did all these people go? 00:27:55.360 --> 00:27:57.870 align:middle line:84% They must be doing something top secret. 00:27:57.870 --> 00:27:58.620 align:middle line:90% Gary, you're up. 00:27:58.620 --> 00:28:00.480 align:middle line:90% And then Alex. 00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:04.380 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I just wanted to share a movie suggestion, 00:28:04.380 --> 00:28:06.030 align:middle line:90% because you mentioned Dresden. 00:28:06.030 --> 00:28:08.010 align:middle line:84% And it's a chilling movie, but it's 00:28:08.010 --> 00:28:10.020 align:middle line:84% about how things can get normalized. 00:28:10.020 --> 00:28:14.040 align:middle line:84% Bob McNamara, who was the Secretary of Defense 00:28:14.040 --> 00:28:16.890 align:middle line:84% during the Vietnam War, but was very involved 00:28:16.890 --> 00:28:20.910 align:middle line:84% in World War II with regard to the bombings in Tokyo, 00:28:20.910 --> 00:28:22.830 align:middle line:90% the Tokyo fire bombing. 00:28:22.830 --> 00:28:25.540 align:middle line:84% I got to know Bob very late in his life. 00:28:25.540 --> 00:28:27.480 align:middle line:84% And I thought I'm going to hate this guy. 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.150 align:middle line:84% I grew up just hating the whole idea 00:28:30.150 --> 00:28:33.390 align:middle line:84% of who this Secretary of Defense and the Vietnam War might be. 00:28:33.390 --> 00:28:36.870 align:middle line:90% And he was reflective about it. 00:28:36.870 --> 00:28:38.550 align:middle line:84% And he made this movie when I knew him. 00:28:38.550 --> 00:28:41.670 align:middle line:84% But it's really worthwhile to watch, The Fog of War. 00:28:41.670 --> 00:28:42.420 align:middle line:90% DAVID KAISER: Yes. 00:28:42.420 --> 00:28:44.253 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: One other story about normalizing, 00:28:44.253 --> 00:28:47.670 align:middle line:84% my father was a corporal, never went to college. 00:28:47.670 --> 00:28:49.158 align:middle line:90% And he was in Tinian. 00:28:49.158 --> 00:28:49.950 align:middle line:90% DAVID KAISER: Yeah. 00:28:49.950 --> 00:28:52.215 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And so the day after Nagasaki, the general 00:28:52.215 --> 00:28:54.090 align:middle line:84% said to him, Sammy, you want to go up and see 00:28:54.090 --> 00:28:55.080 align:middle line:90% what we did yesterday? 00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:58.650 align:middle line:84% So my dad flew over Nagasaki literally the day after. 00:28:58.650 --> 00:29:02.160 align:middle line:84% 30 or 40 years later, if I'd asked my dad about it, 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:04.320 align:middle line:90% and he was a good man. 00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:06.090 align:middle line:90% I love him to this day. 00:29:06.090 --> 00:29:07.125 align:middle line:90% But he would say-- 00:29:07.125 --> 00:29:08.250 align:middle line:90% I'd say, what do you think? 00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:10.990 align:middle line:84% He said, Gary, we did what we needed to do. 00:29:10.990 --> 00:29:12.270 align:middle line:90% He was just a corporal. 00:29:12.270 --> 00:29:14.118 align:middle line:90% He was a radio mechanic. 00:29:14.118 --> 00:29:14.910 align:middle line:90% DAVID KAISER: Yeah. 00:29:14.910 --> 00:29:16.680 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: But it got normalized. 00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:18.040 align:middle line:90% I have a question for you David. 00:29:18.040 --> 00:29:22.710 align:middle line:84% Do you know why Jacob Beser was the only man on both? 00:29:22.710 --> 00:29:24.780 align:middle line:84% I don't know the answer, but I knew his son. 00:29:24.780 --> 00:29:26.490 align:middle line:90% I knew Jerry Beser, his son. 00:29:26.490 --> 00:29:30.540 align:middle line:84% But Jacob Beser was the radar man on both flights. 00:29:30.540 --> 00:29:32.460 align:middle line:90% And why did they do that? 00:29:32.460 --> 00:29:34.800 align:middle line:84% He's the only person that was on both flights. 00:29:34.800 --> 00:29:35.730 align:middle line:84% DAVID KAISER: That's fascinating. 00:29:35.730 --> 00:29:36.772 align:middle line:90% I didn't know that, Gary. 00:29:36.772 --> 00:29:38.820 align:middle line:84% So my guess-- I'm just guessing, I'm speculating. 00:29:38.820 --> 00:29:41.598 align:middle line:84% And Wikipedia might answer it quicker and maybe even more 00:29:41.598 --> 00:29:42.390 align:middle line:90% accurately than me. 00:29:42.390 --> 00:29:44.640 align:middle line:84% My guess is that it was still, it 00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:46.290 align:middle line:84% was kind of a shoestring operation. 00:29:46.290 --> 00:29:48.540 align:middle line:84% Tinian, I mean they were throwing this thing together. 00:29:48.540 --> 00:29:52.530 align:middle line:84% They just barely had gotten the kind of airstrip to dry. 00:29:52.530 --> 00:29:55.200 align:middle line:84% It was so last minute that my guess 00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:57.850 align:middle line:84% is it could as well have been short staffed 00:29:57.850 --> 00:30:00.120 align:middle line:84% as any kind of strategic reason, especially 00:30:00.120 --> 00:30:02.370 align:middle line:84% if it was a more kind of specialized role, 00:30:02.370 --> 00:30:03.893 align:middle line:90% like the radar operator. 00:30:03.893 --> 00:30:06.060 align:middle line:84% It wouldn't surprise me if he was the person who had 00:30:06.060 --> 00:30:07.240 align:middle line:90% been trained and was available. 00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:08.610 align:middle line:84% I don't know if it was any more than that. 00:30:08.610 --> 00:30:11.110 align:middle line:84% DAVID: Yeah, so Gary, let's see something else you said, 00:30:11.110 --> 00:30:11.610 align:middle line:90% oh, yeah. 00:30:11.610 --> 00:30:12.550 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so let me just say briefly, 00:30:12.550 --> 00:30:14.610 align:middle line:84% because it's something that the film didn't really get into. 00:30:14.610 --> 00:30:17.440 align:middle line:84% A lot of the scholarship in the 40 years since even the film 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:20.710 align:middle line:84% came out, let alone the 75 years since the events in question, 00:30:20.710 --> 00:30:23.050 align:middle line:84% has really gone around and around frankly, 00:30:23.050 --> 00:30:25.780 align:middle line:84% or has been a very vigorous debate, 00:30:25.780 --> 00:30:31.000 align:middle line:84% I'll put it that way, about basically 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:33.670 align:middle line:84% were the bombs needed that's kind of a second guessing 00:30:33.670 --> 00:30:34.600 align:middle line:90% after the fact. 00:30:34.600 --> 00:30:37.840 align:middle line:84% Or put a little more prospectively, 00:30:37.840 --> 00:30:41.260 align:middle line:84% what convinced people to give this standing order 00:30:41.260 --> 00:30:43.930 align:middle line:90% to use these weapons at all? 00:30:43.930 --> 00:30:46.000 align:middle line:84% And soon after the war, I think it 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:50.410 align:middle line:84% was 1947, then the person who had been Secretary of War 00:30:50.410 --> 00:30:53.680 align:middle line:84% during the Second World War, Henry Stimson, published 00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:56.620 align:middle line:84% a famous, famous article basically justifying 00:30:56.620 --> 00:30:58.550 align:middle line:90% the use of the nuclear weapons. 00:30:58.550 --> 00:31:00.652 align:middle line:84% And he's saying it saved a million lives. 00:31:00.652 --> 00:31:02.860 align:middle line:84% And then it became was it either a million fatalities 00:31:02.860 --> 00:31:03.370 align:middle line:90% or casualties. 00:31:03.370 --> 00:31:05.380 align:middle line:84% But either way he said, if the United States had 00:31:05.380 --> 00:31:08.920 align:middle line:84% to actually launch this planned in-person invasion 00:31:08.920 --> 00:31:12.700 align:middle line:84% of the mainland of Japan, if there was no way 00:31:12.700 --> 00:31:15.610 align:middle line:84% to secure a surrender in an end of the wall other 00:31:15.610 --> 00:31:18.500 align:middle line:84% than a fully armed invasion of the mainland which 00:31:18.500 --> 00:31:22.010 align:middle line:84% is what was indeed being planned by mostly US 00:31:22.010 --> 00:31:26.720 align:middle line:84% Allied forces, then the casualty count both among US soldiers 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:30.180 align:middle line:84% and among Japanese civilians would have been astronomical. 00:31:30.180 --> 00:31:32.690 align:middle line:84% And he mentioned the figure 1 million. 00:31:32.690 --> 00:31:35.240 align:middle line:84% Well, where did he get the figure 1 million from? 00:31:35.240 --> 00:31:37.760 align:middle line:84% It seems to have been invented in 1947. 00:31:37.760 --> 00:31:40.220 align:middle line:84% It seems not to have come from any classified 00:31:40.220 --> 00:31:42.020 align:middle line:84% or since declassified military planning 00:31:42.020 --> 00:31:44.000 align:middle line:90% document ahead of time. 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.460 align:middle line:84% So then the question becomes, would an invasion 00:31:46.460 --> 00:31:47.720 align:middle line:90% have been necessary. 00:31:47.720 --> 00:31:50.660 align:middle line:84% Were there other reasons to have thought, based on information 00:31:50.660 --> 00:31:53.090 align:middle line:84% available at the time, that Japan might or might not 00:31:53.090 --> 00:31:54.830 align:middle line:84% have been getting closer to a surrender 00:31:54.830 --> 00:31:56.450 align:middle line:84% even prior to the use of the bombs, 00:31:56.450 --> 00:31:58.640 align:middle line:84% alone would an invasion have been needed? 00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:00.313 align:middle line:84% And if an invasion were needed, where 00:32:00.313 --> 00:32:02.480 align:middle line:84% do these casualty figures or these projected figures 00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:03.570 align:middle line:90% have come from? 00:32:03.570 --> 00:32:05.605 align:middle line:84% So I'll just say, I don't know all the answers. 00:32:05.605 --> 00:32:07.980 align:middle line:84% But I people who've pored over this very, very carefully. 00:32:07.980 --> 00:32:10.340 align:middle line:84% And say each of those questions is subject to, 00:32:10.340 --> 00:32:13.445 align:middle line:84% let's say, many compelling and quite different answers. 00:32:13.445 --> 00:32:16.620 align:middle line:90% 00:32:16.620 --> 00:32:21.390 align:middle line:84% So many US military officials as later came out 00:32:21.390 --> 00:32:25.680 align:middle line:84% in declassified documents that were at the time quite secret, 00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:28.050 align:middle line:84% were already raising skepticism about 00:32:28.050 --> 00:32:32.125 align:middle line:84% whether a full invasion would be needed at all. 00:32:32.125 --> 00:32:33.750 align:middle line:84% And then other people say, oh, but that 00:32:33.750 --> 00:32:37.770 align:middle line:84% was before the really quite horrible fighting in Okinawa, 00:32:37.770 --> 00:32:38.760 align:middle line:90% which was in June. 00:32:38.760 --> 00:32:43.380 align:middle line:84% So maybe there was a concern that the Japanese troops would 00:32:43.380 --> 00:32:45.810 align:middle line:84% actually not surrender, even if they were clearly 00:32:45.810 --> 00:32:48.120 align:middle line:90% overwhelmed numerically. 00:32:48.120 --> 00:32:52.590 align:middle line:84% So which military officials even thought the United States would 00:32:52.590 --> 00:32:54.102 align:middle line:84% need to mount an invasion, that's 00:32:54.102 --> 00:32:55.560 align:middle line:84% already actually pretty complicated 00:32:55.560 --> 00:32:58.530 align:middle line:84% based on the documents that have since much later become 00:32:58.530 --> 00:32:59.400 align:middle line:90% available. 00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:02.400 align:middle line:84% Some people clearly wrote down Japan 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:05.820 align:middle line:84% is on the brink of surrender anyway, prior 00:33:05.820 --> 00:33:07.968 align:middle line:84% to the use of the weapons, prior to any invasion. 00:33:07.968 --> 00:33:10.260 align:middle line:84% Other people said, oh, we thought they might surrender, 00:33:10.260 --> 00:33:11.760 align:middle line:84% but now we're not so sure because 00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:14.250 align:middle line:84% of the really quite just horrific 00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:16.270 align:middle line:84% fighting, the kind of dug-in fighting, 00:33:16.270 --> 00:33:18.880 align:middle line:84% especially at Okinawa, not too long 00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:21.050 align:middle line:84% before the use of nuclear weapons. 00:33:21.050 --> 00:33:23.015 align:middle line:84% Then there were all these questions like, 00:33:23.015 --> 00:33:27.560 align:middle line:84% were the weapons used to end the wall or to secure the post-war? 00:33:27.560 --> 00:33:30.290 align:middle line:84% So was it signaling vis-a-vis rivalries 00:33:30.290 --> 00:33:33.500 align:middle line:84% with the Soviet Union, which was a popular thesis, 00:33:33.500 --> 00:33:35.030 align:middle line:90% or other things? 00:33:35.030 --> 00:33:37.670 align:middle line:84% Were they used for a kind of geopolitical strategy 00:33:37.670 --> 00:33:40.790 align:middle line:84% at least as much, if not more, than for direct kind 00:33:40.790 --> 00:33:42.090 align:middle line:90% of military strategy? 00:33:42.090 --> 00:33:45.170 align:middle line:84% And again, there are very compelling arguments 00:33:45.170 --> 00:33:46.850 align:middle line:84% based on lots and lots of documents, 00:33:46.850 --> 00:33:49.600 align:middle line:84% on not just those sides, but the whole kind of spectrum of that. 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:53.060 align:middle line:84% It gets pretty murky pretty quickly. 00:33:53.060 --> 00:33:58.070 align:middle line:84% So there are waves of revisiting these questions of what 00:33:58.070 --> 00:33:59.869 align:middle line:84% military role do the weapons play. 00:33:59.869 --> 00:34:01.490 align:middle line:84% And I'm not saying one or the other. 00:34:01.490 --> 00:34:03.020 align:middle line:90% I think it's complicated, right? 00:34:03.020 --> 00:34:05.570 align:middle line:84% But you can get these really interesting studies 00:34:05.570 --> 00:34:09.560 align:middle line:84% based on a lot more than what was publicly accessible in 1955 00:34:09.560 --> 00:34:13.429 align:middle line:84% or even 1965, with much more passage of time 00:34:13.429 --> 00:34:15.290 align:middle line:84% and much more active use of Freedom 00:34:15.290 --> 00:34:17.780 align:middle line:84% of Information Act and declassification and so on. 00:34:17.780 --> 00:34:21.080 align:middle line:90% It's pretty complicated. 00:34:21.080 --> 00:34:24.199 align:middle line:84% And so again, we go back to an earlier question. 00:34:24.199 --> 00:34:25.880 align:middle line:90% Do the bombs end the war? 00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:28.507 align:middle line:84% Were they somehow special that incendiary bombings that 00:34:28.507 --> 00:34:30.590 align:middle line:84% leveled cities were not capable of ending the war, 00:34:30.590 --> 00:34:32.239 align:middle line:90% but these special weapons were? 00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:35.393 align:middle line:84% That was a popular interpretation very soon 00:34:35.393 --> 00:34:37.310 align:middle line:84% after the war, when these things were revealed 00:34:37.310 --> 00:34:39.000 align:middle line:90% in such a dramatic way. 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:41.610 align:middle line:84% And then generations since have gone back to the question. 00:34:41.610 --> 00:34:44.208 align:middle line:84% And I think it's more complicated, more subtle, 00:34:44.208 --> 00:34:46.250 align:middle line:84% than some of the early pronouncements, either pro 00:34:46.250 --> 00:34:47.574 align:middle line:90% or con. 00:34:47.574 --> 00:34:48.949 align:middle line:84% And if people are interested, I'd 00:34:48.949 --> 00:34:50.969 align:middle line:84% be glad to share kind reading lists of lots of things that 00:34:50.969 --> 00:34:52.610 align:middle line:90% have dug into that since then. 00:34:52.610 --> 00:34:56.320 align:middle line:90% 00:34:56.320 --> 00:34:57.663 align:middle line:90% I think the answer is neither. 00:34:57.663 --> 00:34:59.080 align:middle line:84% And here's my understanding, Alex. 00:34:59.080 --> 00:35:01.420 align:middle line:90% But again, this is my-- 00:35:01.420 --> 00:35:03.670 align:middle line:84% I think it was raised as a serious question 00:35:03.670 --> 00:35:06.370 align:middle line:84% long before the test, and settled to everyone's 00:35:06.370 --> 00:35:07.700 align:middle line:90% satisfaction before the test. 00:35:07.700 --> 00:35:11.140 align:middle line:84% So I don't think it was only a joke. 00:35:11.140 --> 00:35:13.392 align:middle line:84% I think by the time of the test date, 00:35:13.392 --> 00:35:15.100 align:middle line:84% people weren't worried about that the way 00:35:15.100 --> 00:35:17.230 align:middle line:84% they once had legitimately sat down and calculated. 00:35:17.230 --> 00:35:18.820 align:middle line:84% They didn't just say, gosh, I wonder. 00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:19.820 align:middle line:90% Let's try it. 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:21.160 align:middle line:90% So I don't think it was a joke. 00:35:21.160 --> 00:35:22.535 align:middle line:84% But I also think it was no longer 00:35:22.535 --> 00:35:27.685 align:middle line:84% a live debated scientific question by mid-July of '45. 00:35:27.685 --> 00:35:30.500 align:middle line:90% 00:35:30.500 --> 00:35:32.410 align:middle line:84% My understanding is Enrico Fermi was 00:35:32.410 --> 00:35:34.480 align:middle line:84% the one who articulated that question, 00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:35.762 align:middle line:90% but not like the morning of. 00:35:35.762 --> 00:35:37.720 align:middle line:84% I think there was enough time for enough people 00:35:37.720 --> 00:35:40.417 align:middle line:84% to sit at that and check each other's calculations, and not 00:35:40.417 --> 00:35:43.000 align:middle line:84% only physicists, actually people who know stuff like chemists, 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.520 align:middle line:84% and other people who had relevant expertise. 00:35:45.520 --> 00:35:47.800 align:middle line:84% I think there was a vetting of that question well 00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:50.890 align:middle line:90% before the test date. 00:35:50.890 --> 00:35:51.775 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:35:51.775 --> 00:35:52.900 align:middle line:90% So the short answer is yes. 00:35:52.900 --> 00:35:57.228 align:middle line:84% But again, but you phrased it very well. 00:35:57.228 --> 00:35:58.270 align:middle line:90% Was there any indication? 00:35:58.270 --> 00:36:00.280 align:middle line:84% The answer is yes, not definitive indication. 00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:01.300 align:middle line:90% That's why it's still-- 00:36:01.300 --> 00:36:02.710 align:middle line:90% you hear the phrase war is hell. 00:36:02.710 --> 00:36:05.500 align:middle line:84% Like it's hell for information as well as 00:36:05.500 --> 00:36:08.860 align:middle line:84% for all the more obvious reasons. 00:36:08.860 --> 00:36:10.390 align:middle line:90% So here's what I mean by that. 00:36:10.390 --> 00:36:13.360 align:middle line:84% It has come to light since then that, first of all, 00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:17.560 align:middle line:84% some countries had cracked the Japanese encrypted cables, 00:36:17.560 --> 00:36:20.080 align:middle line:84% and was leaking that information to Washington, 00:36:20.080 --> 00:36:22.850 align:middle line:84% and London, and probably Moscow as well. 00:36:22.850 --> 00:36:26.770 align:middle line:84% So some elements of the Japanese government, which at this point 00:36:26.770 --> 00:36:28.420 align:middle line:84% was highly fractured and not really 00:36:28.420 --> 00:36:32.260 align:middle line:84% functioning very easily because Tokyo had been leveled, 00:36:32.260 --> 00:36:34.660 align:middle line:84% some parts of the Japanese government 00:36:34.660 --> 00:36:36.580 align:middle line:84% were sending out feelers to try to see 00:36:36.580 --> 00:36:40.120 align:middle line:84% if a neutral third party could begin peace negotiations 00:36:40.120 --> 00:36:42.570 align:middle line:84% or negotiations to end the fighting. 00:36:42.570 --> 00:36:44.320 align:middle line:84% It's not clear that they had the authority 00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.110 align:middle line:84% to speak for the emperor, who was refusing to step down, 00:36:47.110 --> 00:36:50.086 align:middle line:84% and that was part of this unconditional surrender 00:36:50.086 --> 00:36:51.540 align:middle line:90% and so on. 00:36:51.540 --> 00:36:55.080 align:middle line:84% So it's not clear if that represented 00:36:55.080 --> 00:36:58.580 align:middle line:84% what fraction of the then existing Japanese government 00:36:58.580 --> 00:36:59.450 align:middle line:90% that represented. 00:36:59.450 --> 00:37:01.200 align:middle line:84% It's also not clear how far that ever got. 00:37:01.200 --> 00:37:03.440 align:middle line:84% But there indeed was some evidence 00:37:03.440 --> 00:37:05.930 align:middle line:84% that some highly placed members of the Japanese government 00:37:05.930 --> 00:37:08.600 align:middle line:84% before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 00:37:08.600 --> 00:37:11.570 align:middle line:84% were seeking to start basically negotiations. 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:13.940 align:middle line:84% They were seeking a third party who might broker them. 00:37:13.940 --> 00:37:15.350 align:middle line:84% And again, that doesn't mean they 00:37:15.350 --> 00:37:16.642 align:middle line:90% were on the verge of surrender. 00:37:16.642 --> 00:37:18.560 align:middle line:84% What seems to be more clear than anything else 00:37:18.560 --> 00:37:20.660 align:middle line:84% from these other scholars, not my own work but I've 00:37:20.660 --> 00:37:23.035 align:middle line:84% learned from other people who've looked at this much more 00:37:23.035 --> 00:37:26.600 align:middle line:84% carefully, is that it was just complete disarray. 00:37:26.600 --> 00:37:29.780 align:middle line:84% I mean Washington DC was not subject to that kind 00:37:29.780 --> 00:37:31.010 align:middle line:90% of bombardment. 00:37:31.010 --> 00:37:34.040 align:middle line:84% And so there was something like a functioning chain of command, 00:37:34.040 --> 00:37:38.930 align:middle line:84% and something like a fractious but still functioning series 00:37:38.930 --> 00:37:41.180 align:middle line:84% of decision makers who could disagree, but nonetheless 00:37:41.180 --> 00:37:43.790 align:middle line:84% act on behalf of a functioning government. 00:37:43.790 --> 00:37:45.560 align:middle line:84% I think not much of that was functioning 00:37:45.560 --> 00:37:48.020 align:middle line:84% the same way in Japan by that point in the war, 00:37:48.020 --> 00:37:50.420 align:middle line:84% because of things like the enormous disruptions 00:37:50.420 --> 00:37:52.820 align:middle line:90% from the incendiary bombing. 00:37:52.820 --> 00:37:55.418 align:middle line:84% There were different factions, as one might expect. 00:37:55.418 --> 00:37:57.710 align:middle line:84% There were different factions in the US and in Britain. 00:37:57.710 --> 00:37:59.870 align:middle line:84% There were different factions within Japan. 00:37:59.870 --> 00:38:01.880 align:middle line:84% And it wasn't just military-civilian. 00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:03.920 align:middle line:84% There were different kind of complicated-- 00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:07.050 align:middle line:90% different loyalties and groups. 00:38:07.050 --> 00:38:09.170 align:middle line:84% So it's not clear who was speaking for whom, 00:38:09.170 --> 00:38:11.030 align:middle line:84% and if they even were capable of having 00:38:11.030 --> 00:38:13.370 align:middle line:84% the equivalent of like a full cabinet meeting, 00:38:13.370 --> 00:38:16.800 align:middle line:84% the way we might expect in a US context. 00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:18.770 align:middle line:90% So it's a great question, Alex. 00:38:18.770 --> 00:38:21.020 align:middle line:84% And unfortunately, the answer, again, is like oh gosh, 00:38:21.020 --> 00:38:22.080 align:middle line:90% it's complicated. 00:38:22.080 --> 00:38:24.410 align:middle line:84% So with the fullness of time, evidence 00:38:24.410 --> 00:38:27.620 align:middle line:84% has come out that there were some parties looking 00:38:27.620 --> 00:38:28.610 align:middle line:90% to do some things. 00:38:28.610 --> 00:38:30.980 align:middle line:84% What's not at all clear and maybe it wasn't clear 00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:33.560 align:middle line:84% even at the time, was in a sense, 00:38:33.560 --> 00:38:35.290 align:middle line:90% would that have carried the day. 00:38:35.290 --> 00:38:37.220 align:middle line:84% Who were they speaking on behalf of? 00:38:37.220 --> 00:38:38.808 align:middle line:84% Who had the authority at the time? 00:38:38.808 --> 00:38:40.350 align:middle line:84% Because I think that had gotten very, 00:38:40.350 --> 00:38:44.180 align:middle line:84% very again, let's just say non-trivial. 00:38:44.180 --> 00:38:45.530 align:middle line:90% So it's a great, great question. 00:38:45.530 --> 00:38:48.470 align:middle line:90% 00:38:48.470 --> 00:38:49.040 align:middle line:90% Sure. 00:38:49.040 --> 00:38:50.893 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no great question. 00:38:50.893 --> 00:38:52.310 align:middle line:84% A lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, lot has 00:38:52.310 --> 00:38:55.280 align:middle line:84% been written about the Oppenheimer affair, let's say, 00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.153 align:middle line:90% the Oppenheimer hearing. 00:38:58.153 --> 00:38:59.570 align:middle line:84% Over the years, again, people keep 00:38:59.570 --> 00:39:01.278 align:middle line:84% revisiting it as more and more it becomes 00:39:01.278 --> 00:39:04.670 align:middle line:84% declassified, more people are interviewed, and there's a lot. 00:39:04.670 --> 00:39:09.290 align:middle line:84% The 100th anniversary of Oppenheimer's birth was 2004. 00:39:09.290 --> 00:39:12.920 align:middle line:84% And over the 12 months of his centennial birth 00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:17.390 align:middle line:84% year, there were 12, like one per month, 12 full length 00:39:17.390 --> 00:39:19.830 align:middle line:84% biographies published just in that year, at least 12 that 00:39:19.830 --> 00:39:20.330 align:middle line:90% I counted. 00:39:20.330 --> 00:39:21.455 align:middle line:90% There could have been more. 00:39:21.455 --> 00:39:23.570 align:middle line:84% So I mean when I say there's like an Oppenheimer 00:39:23.570 --> 00:39:25.340 align:middle line:84% industry poring over this that's what 00:39:25.340 --> 00:39:29.970 align:middle line:84% I mean huge, huge amount of study of this. 00:39:29.970 --> 00:39:33.780 align:middle line:84% So let me just say briefly therefore, 00:39:33.780 --> 00:39:36.590 align:middle line:84% instead of going on for hours, and again we'll 00:39:36.590 --> 00:39:39.320 align:middle line:84% talk a little bit about this also in Wednesday's class. 00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:43.700 align:middle line:84% Oppenheimer ended the war really seen 00:39:43.700 --> 00:39:46.760 align:middle line:84% as the person who built the bomb, which 00:39:46.760 --> 00:39:51.400 align:middle line:90% is not historically accurate. 00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:53.992 align:middle line:84% The Manhattan Project had 125,000 people. 00:39:53.992 --> 00:39:55.450 align:middle line:84% And even the so-called inner circle 00:39:55.450 --> 00:39:57.940 align:middle line:84% was many, many people, not just one or two. 00:39:57.940 --> 00:39:59.980 align:middle line:84% But he really became the kind of face of it. 00:39:59.980 --> 00:40:02.000 align:middle line:84% And that became both for good and for ill. 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:06.427 align:middle line:84% I mean he was treated as a hero for many people 00:40:06.427 --> 00:40:08.260 align:middle line:84% who thought that the bomb had ended the war, 00:40:08.260 --> 00:40:09.760 align:middle line:84% and therefore saved lives, which was 00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:13.090 align:middle line:84% a dominant interpretation soon after the war in the United 00:40:13.090 --> 00:40:13.930 align:middle line:90% States. 00:40:13.930 --> 00:40:17.740 align:middle line:84% He was seen as this kind of wizardly philosopher king, 00:40:17.740 --> 00:40:22.605 align:middle line:84% like the film says, who had made it happen despite all the odds. 00:40:22.605 --> 00:40:23.980 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, that also made 00:40:23.980 --> 00:40:26.230 align:middle line:84% some people think that he was uniquely dangerous. 00:40:26.230 --> 00:40:30.040 align:middle line:84% If there is a single mastermind or a single set of secrets 00:40:30.040 --> 00:40:32.950 align:middle line:84% with which these things can be made, then 00:40:32.950 --> 00:40:35.238 align:middle line:84% that invites extra scrutiny, right? 00:40:35.238 --> 00:40:37.030 align:middle line:84% And this is something we'll talk a bit more 00:40:37.030 --> 00:40:38.510 align:middle line:90% in Wednesday's class. 00:40:38.510 --> 00:40:43.030 align:middle line:84% So there was a lot of scrutiny as the political assumptions 00:40:43.030 --> 00:40:46.390 align:middle line:84% and fortunes and groups in or out of power within the US 00:40:46.390 --> 00:40:49.060 align:middle line:84% and elsewhere shifted after the war. 00:40:49.060 --> 00:40:53.830 align:middle line:84% Oppenheimer had made a lot of enemies along the way, 00:40:53.830 --> 00:40:56.860 align:middle line:84% because he was very smart, and never, ever, ever 00:40:56.860 --> 00:40:59.760 align:middle line:84% shy about letting everyone just how smart he was. 00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:02.440 align:middle line:84% He could be terrifically cutting, 00:41:02.440 --> 00:41:05.380 align:middle line:84% I mean just mercilessly mocking of people 00:41:05.380 --> 00:41:07.870 align:middle line:84% whom he considered intellectually inferior, 00:41:07.870 --> 00:41:10.060 align:middle line:84% sometimes of students, often of people 00:41:10.060 --> 00:41:12.260 align:middle line:84% who were outside of his immediate circle. 00:41:12.260 --> 00:41:13.870 align:middle line:84% So he was mean to physics students. 00:41:13.870 --> 00:41:16.690 align:middle line:84% He was horrible to people like the Secretary of the Air 00:41:16.690 --> 00:41:18.607 align:middle line:84% Force, which is not a smart thing, by the way. 00:41:18.607 --> 00:41:21.023 align:middle line:84% If you're ever in a position to mock the Secretary the Air 00:41:21.023 --> 00:41:22.810 align:middle line:84% Force, let me advise you not to do it, 00:41:22.810 --> 00:41:24.945 align:middle line:84% whether the person deserves it or not. 00:41:24.945 --> 00:41:27.070 align:middle line:84% So that Oppenheimer kept making enemies, basically. 00:41:27.070 --> 00:41:29.487 align:middle line:84% He was in the spotlight, and that gave him the opportunity 00:41:29.487 --> 00:41:31.180 align:middle line:90% to shoot his mouth off a lot. 00:41:31.180 --> 00:41:34.450 align:middle line:84% And much like Galileo, a couple of centuries 00:41:34.450 --> 00:41:37.450 align:middle line:84% earlier, he was often adopting positions 00:41:37.450 --> 00:41:40.150 align:middle line:84% that one might find perfectly reasonable defensible, 00:41:40.150 --> 00:41:42.760 align:middle line:84% but defending them in an often very aggressive 00:41:42.760 --> 00:41:44.740 align:middle line:90% and kind of mocking way. 00:41:44.740 --> 00:41:46.700 align:middle line:84% Galileo and the Pope, Oppenheimer the Secretary 00:41:46.700 --> 00:41:48.370 align:middle line:84% the Air Force, right, not actually 00:41:48.370 --> 00:41:49.940 align:middle line:90% so dissimilar in some ways. 00:41:49.940 --> 00:41:52.220 align:middle line:84% So Oppenheimer started collecting 00:41:52.220 --> 00:41:57.590 align:middle line:84% a slew of really quite emboldened political enemies. 00:41:57.590 --> 00:42:01.822 align:middle line:84% And he started giving advice on strategic steps 00:42:01.822 --> 00:42:03.530 align:middle line:84% for the nuclear arsenal that many of them 00:42:03.530 --> 00:42:04.322 align:middle line:90% didn't like either. 00:42:04.322 --> 00:42:05.947 align:middle line:84% And again, we'll talk a bit about this, 00:42:05.947 --> 00:42:08.000 align:middle line:84% and there was a hint of that in the film as well. 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.070 align:middle line:84% So in less than a decade, he had then 00:42:10.070 --> 00:42:12.290 align:middle line:84% made a long series of quite powerful people 00:42:12.290 --> 00:42:15.300 align:middle line:84% who were pretty ticked off at him. 00:42:15.300 --> 00:42:16.883 align:middle line:84% And so in some sense, his hearing was, 00:42:16.883 --> 00:42:18.467 align:middle line:84% I don't know if it was overdetermined. 00:42:18.467 --> 00:42:20.030 align:middle line:84% But it wasn't actually such a shock. 00:42:20.030 --> 00:42:21.410 align:middle line:84% The fact of the hearing, the fact 00:42:21.410 --> 00:42:22.660 align:middle line:90% that people wanted to get him. 00:42:22.660 --> 00:42:25.190 align:middle line:84% What was left out of the film, and this largely 00:42:25.190 --> 00:42:27.140 align:middle line:84% came to light in more recent scholarship 00:42:27.140 --> 00:42:32.390 align:middle line:84% since the early 2000s, is that Oppenheimer frankly 00:42:32.390 --> 00:42:34.595 align:middle line:84% was trying to hold on for a long time. 00:42:34.595 --> 00:42:37.280 align:middle line:90% 00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:40.700 align:middle line:84% As we now know from since declassified documents, 00:42:40.700 --> 00:42:44.420 align:middle line:84% he often sold a bunch of his own students out. 00:42:44.420 --> 00:42:47.450 align:middle line:84% He was very desperate to protect his younger brother, Frank, who 00:42:47.450 --> 00:42:49.160 align:middle line:90% does feature a lot in the film. 00:42:49.160 --> 00:42:51.260 align:middle line:84% Frank had been an explicit card carrying 00:42:51.260 --> 00:42:53.690 align:middle line:84% member of the Communist party in the '30s, not active, 00:42:53.690 --> 00:42:56.645 align:middle line:84% but he joined the party as many, many, many, many academics 00:42:56.645 --> 00:42:57.770 align:middle line:90% did in the US, in the '30s. 00:42:57.770 --> 00:43:00.440 align:middle line:90% That wasn't so unusual. 00:43:00.440 --> 00:43:02.750 align:middle line:84% But that made Frank an easy target. 00:43:02.750 --> 00:43:06.710 align:middle line:84% And so it looks like not infrequently Robert Oppenheimer 00:43:06.710 --> 00:43:08.620 align:middle line:90% would try to cut these deals. 00:43:08.620 --> 00:43:10.370 align:middle line:84% He thought he could control the situation. 00:43:10.370 --> 00:43:11.480 align:middle line:90% Don't bother my brother. 00:43:11.480 --> 00:43:13.340 align:middle line:90% He's actually no harm. 00:43:13.340 --> 00:43:14.090 align:middle line:90% But you know what? 00:43:14.090 --> 00:43:15.860 align:middle line:84% Those guys, they're reds as well. 00:43:15.860 --> 00:43:17.660 align:middle line:84% And often those guys he'd point to were 00:43:17.660 --> 00:43:20.960 align:middle line:84% some of his own former PhD students behind their backs. 00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:24.350 align:middle line:84% So he was doing a lot of these things, as we now know, 00:43:24.350 --> 00:43:27.500 align:middle line:84% that paint a more complicated frankly human picture 00:43:27.500 --> 00:43:30.230 align:middle line:84% than the saintly martyr that often comes up even 00:43:30.230 --> 00:43:32.060 align:middle line:90% I think in this film actually. 00:43:32.060 --> 00:43:36.500 align:middle line:84% So his own political skills were not quite as sterling 00:43:36.500 --> 00:43:37.580 align:middle line:90% as he often thought. 00:43:37.580 --> 00:43:40.730 align:middle line:84% His way of coping with fast changing political winds 00:43:40.730 --> 00:43:43.078 align:middle line:84% were not what I think any of us would hope we 00:43:43.078 --> 00:43:44.370 align:middle line:90% would do within that situation. 00:43:44.370 --> 00:43:47.360 align:middle line:84% I don't know how we would do, but it didn't always 00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:48.860 align:middle line:90% look great, as we now know. 00:43:48.860 --> 00:43:51.350 align:middle line:84% And it comes off as almost a kind 00:43:51.350 --> 00:43:54.450 align:middle line:84% of grasping, at least in some of these scenarios. 00:43:54.450 --> 00:43:57.140 align:middle line:84% So Oppenheimer becomes, frankly, more interesting and also 00:43:57.140 --> 00:43:58.040 align:middle line:90% just much more human. 00:43:58.040 --> 00:43:59.707 align:middle line:84% There was a reason to write at least six 00:43:59.707 --> 00:44:01.550 align:middle line:90% of those 12 biographies in 2004. 00:44:01.550 --> 00:44:03.680 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of dimensions to this person, 00:44:03.680 --> 00:44:08.570 align:middle line:84% and a stand-in for larger fast moving currents certainly 00:44:08.570 --> 00:44:12.170 align:middle line:84% within the US, and I think beyond that as well. 00:44:12.170 --> 00:44:14.450 align:middle line:84% So I'd be glad to talk more about Oppenheimer. 00:44:14.450 --> 00:44:16.400 align:middle line:90% But let me shift to Teller. 00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:18.860 align:middle line:84% Teller was also a very early recruit, very 00:44:18.860 --> 00:44:20.750 align:middle line:90% active at wartime Los Alamos. 00:44:20.750 --> 00:44:25.582 align:middle line:84% And already a very accomplished theoretical physicist, 00:44:25.582 --> 00:44:27.290 align:middle line:84% that generation they all knew each other. 00:44:27.290 --> 00:44:29.930 align:middle line:84% It was a small community before then. 00:44:29.930 --> 00:44:30.680 align:middle line:90% He was an emigre. 00:44:30.680 --> 00:44:36.030 align:middle line:84% He was a Hungarian Jewish person who fled fascism. 00:44:36.030 --> 00:44:38.030 align:middle line:84% He'd been studying in Germany like many of them. 00:44:38.030 --> 00:44:40.520 align:middle line:84% So he had very good reason to come to the United States 00:44:40.520 --> 00:44:43.790 align:middle line:84% in the '30s and was hired here in that wave 00:44:43.790 --> 00:44:45.680 align:middle line:90% that we talked briefly about. 00:44:45.680 --> 00:44:47.930 align:middle line:84% And he was very accomplished, and in particular very 00:44:47.930 --> 00:44:51.680 align:middle line:84% accomplished in nuclear physics, ahead of the curve on that. 00:44:51.680 --> 00:44:54.250 align:middle line:84% He also, I think because of his experiences 00:44:54.250 --> 00:44:57.280 align:middle line:84% with these very short lived communist and socialist 00:44:57.280 --> 00:44:59.800 align:middle line:84% governments in Central Europe after the end of the First 00:44:59.800 --> 00:45:03.250 align:middle line:84% World War, a bunch of these emigres like Teller 00:45:03.250 --> 00:45:05.920 align:middle line:84% had experienced what they considered just really 00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:10.348 align:middle line:84% scary chaos in their reckoning right 00:45:10.348 --> 00:45:11.890 align:middle line:84% after the end of the First World War, 00:45:11.890 --> 00:45:15.080 align:middle line:84% when they were basically late teens or early 20s. 00:45:15.080 --> 00:45:17.050 align:middle line:84% A lot of them from self-proclaimed communists, 00:45:17.050 --> 00:45:18.610 align:middle line:84% or other socialists, short lived. 00:45:18.610 --> 00:45:21.220 align:middle line:84% There was a huge back and forth, the far left, the far right, 00:45:21.220 --> 00:45:24.100 align:middle line:84% the far left, far right, militias in the streets, 00:45:24.100 --> 00:45:27.790 align:middle line:84% hopefully nothing that any of us will experience soon or not so 00:45:27.790 --> 00:45:28.330 align:middle line:90% soon. 00:45:28.330 --> 00:45:31.090 align:middle line:84% So Teller was a devoted anti-communist 00:45:31.090 --> 00:45:33.130 align:middle line:84% before he landed on the US shore, 00:45:33.130 --> 00:45:37.600 align:middle line:84% from I think really not because he read Marx and was horrified. 00:45:37.600 --> 00:45:39.520 align:middle line:84% Because he'd seen these blood in the streets 00:45:39.520 --> 00:45:40.890 align:middle line:90% kind of fights in the 19-teens. 00:45:40.890 --> 00:45:43.942 align:middle line:90% 00:45:43.942 --> 00:45:46.150 align:middle line:84% And many of the folks who came with him from that era 00:45:46.150 --> 00:45:47.530 align:middle line:90% shared those sentiments. 00:45:47.530 --> 00:45:51.130 align:middle line:84% So he was very, we might say jingoistic. 00:45:51.130 --> 00:45:53.840 align:middle line:84% His adopted home really should develop the most significant 00:45:53.840 --> 00:45:54.340 align:middle line:90% weapons. 00:45:54.340 --> 00:45:57.310 align:middle line:84% We really should keep all these other kind of bad people at bay 00:45:57.310 --> 00:45:59.530 align:middle line:90% was a rough paraphrase. 00:45:59.530 --> 00:46:02.440 align:middle line:84% Now he spent the war years at Los Alamos 00:46:02.440 --> 00:46:06.700 align:middle line:84% trying to argue that a fission bomb was small potatoes. 00:46:06.700 --> 00:46:08.450 align:middle line:84% And why are we wasting our time with this. 00:46:08.450 --> 00:46:10.117 align:middle line:84% We should actually be going for a fusion 00:46:10.117 --> 00:46:12.700 align:middle line:84% bomb, of the sort we will talk briefly about on Wednesday. 00:46:12.700 --> 00:46:14.948 align:middle line:84% So he kept butting heads with leadership, 00:46:14.948 --> 00:46:16.990 align:middle line:84% because he thought they had the wrong priorities. 00:46:16.990 --> 00:46:18.657 align:middle line:84% This was at a time when there were still 00:46:18.657 --> 00:46:21.190 align:middle line:84% like micrograms of plutonium on the planet, 00:46:21.190 --> 00:46:24.760 align:middle line:84% no working device had been developed and tested. 00:46:24.760 --> 00:46:26.830 align:middle line:84% And he's like, that's such a trivial task. 00:46:26.830 --> 00:46:28.150 align:middle line:90% Give me all the resources. 00:46:28.150 --> 00:46:29.697 align:middle line:90% I want to build a hydrogen bomb. 00:46:29.697 --> 00:46:31.030 align:middle line:90% He didn't quite say it that way. 00:46:31.030 --> 00:46:34.040 align:middle line:84% He had very big strong fights about resources and priorities. 00:46:34.040 --> 00:46:36.160 align:middle line:84% And so more or less, to appease him, 00:46:36.160 --> 00:46:38.110 align:middle line:84% because he was a smart contributing member 00:46:38.110 --> 00:46:42.100 align:middle line:84% he was given a small little study group even during the war 00:46:42.100 --> 00:46:44.140 align:middle line:90% to work on fusion weapons. 00:46:44.140 --> 00:46:47.950 align:middle line:84% And I think even by his own reckoning, they got nowhere. 00:46:47.950 --> 00:46:51.050 align:middle line:84% But it was a study group to lay the seeds. 00:46:51.050 --> 00:46:53.780 align:middle line:84% In fact, even before there was a Los Alamos Laboratory, 00:46:53.780 --> 00:46:56.240 align:middle line:84% he was arguing from literally the very first discussion 00:46:56.240 --> 00:46:58.460 align:middle line:84% on Berkeley's campus with Oppenheimer and the rest 00:46:58.460 --> 00:47:00.110 align:middle line:90% that fission bombs were trivial. 00:47:00.110 --> 00:47:04.130 align:middle line:84% We should be going right now from summer 1942 into fusion. 00:47:04.130 --> 00:47:06.980 align:middle line:90% I mean, that was his idée fixe. 00:47:06.980 --> 00:47:11.320 align:middle line:84% And after the war, he's more and more listened to 00:47:11.320 --> 00:47:13.070 align:middle line:84% by the folks who are getting more and more 00:47:13.070 --> 00:47:14.420 align:middle line:90% impatient with Oppenheimer. 00:47:14.420 --> 00:47:19.873 align:middle line:84% He seems like he has answers that many of the Air Force 00:47:19.873 --> 00:47:22.040 align:middle line:84% leadership after the war actually does want to hear. 00:47:22.040 --> 00:47:23.660 align:middle line:84% They want to hear about bigger bombs that 00:47:23.660 --> 00:47:25.160 align:middle line:84% would be under the control of the Air Force, that 00:47:25.160 --> 00:47:27.285 align:middle line:84% would be the reason the Air Force would be the most 00:47:27.285 --> 00:47:28.430 align:middle line:90% important service branch. 00:47:28.430 --> 00:47:31.040 align:middle line:84% And all of these things get tied up in kind of rivalries 00:47:31.040 --> 00:47:33.300 align:middle line:90% within the US infrastructure. 00:47:33.300 --> 00:47:35.087 align:middle line:84% So Teller's star rises basically, 00:47:35.087 --> 00:47:37.670 align:middle line:84% or at least he has more people listening to him after the war, 00:47:37.670 --> 00:47:39.020 align:middle line:90% including-- 00:47:39.020 --> 00:47:41.630 align:middle line:84% he's very influential, not him alone, 00:47:41.630 --> 00:47:44.750 align:middle line:84% but he was a big mover in getting a whole second weapons 00:47:44.750 --> 00:47:47.720 align:middle line:84% laboratory established, the Livermore National Laboratory, 00:47:47.720 --> 00:47:50.750 align:middle line:84% which opened its doors in September of 1952 00:47:50.750 --> 00:47:53.750 align:middle line:84% with the express purpose of working full tilt on fusion 00:47:53.750 --> 00:47:55.890 align:middle line:90% weapons, this kind of thing. 00:47:55.890 --> 00:47:57.890 align:middle line:90% So he's moving in that. 00:47:57.890 --> 00:48:00.140 align:middle line:84% He did testify, as you heard in the film, 00:48:00.140 --> 00:48:02.780 align:middle line:84% at Oppenheimer's security hearing in a way 00:48:02.780 --> 00:48:07.190 align:middle line:84% that really when the transcript was published, 00:48:07.190 --> 00:48:10.460 align:middle line:84% was seen as really devastating by many, many members 00:48:10.460 --> 00:48:11.720 align:middle line:90% of the physics community. 00:48:11.720 --> 00:48:14.540 align:middle line:84% He doesn't come out and explicitly call Oppenheimer 00:48:14.540 --> 00:48:18.590 align:middle line:84% a communist or directly a security 00:48:18.590 --> 00:48:20.840 align:middle line:84% risk, which other people were calling him, 00:48:20.840 --> 00:48:22.310 align:middle line:90% fairly or unfairly. 00:48:22.310 --> 00:48:25.380 align:middle line:84% But he says, Oppenheimer is a complicated person, 00:48:25.380 --> 00:48:27.020 align:middle line:84% which was not meant to be a complement. 00:48:27.020 --> 00:48:30.710 align:middle line:84% And the famous line, which I'll get pretty close, Teller says 00:48:30.710 --> 00:48:36.870 align:middle line:84% under oath, I wish that these big important tasks were 00:48:36.870 --> 00:48:39.930 align:middle line:84% in hands I understood better, so therefore could trust more. 00:48:39.930 --> 00:48:41.820 align:middle line:84% He says, I basically don't trust Oppenheimer, 00:48:41.820 --> 00:48:43.950 align:middle line:84% because he is this kind of complicated maybe 00:48:43.950 --> 00:48:46.330 align:middle line:90% scheming kind of person. 00:48:46.330 --> 00:48:48.395 align:middle line:84% And so Teller gives this basically damning, 00:48:48.395 --> 00:48:49.770 align:middle line:84% what's seen as damning testimony. 00:48:49.770 --> 00:48:52.590 align:middle line:84% For decades he outlived Oppenheimer for decades. 00:48:52.590 --> 00:48:54.660 align:middle line:84% For decades, people wouldn't shake his hand 00:48:54.660 --> 00:48:56.493 align:middle line:84% when he'd come to give a physics colloquium. 00:48:56.493 --> 00:48:59.490 align:middle line:84% It really had a generation long impact 00:48:59.490 --> 00:49:01.320 align:middle line:90% on how people thought of him. 00:49:01.320 --> 00:49:03.557 align:middle line:84% Nonetheless, in other circles many others 00:49:03.557 --> 00:49:04.390 align:middle line:90% couldn't get enough. 00:49:04.390 --> 00:49:07.170 align:middle line:84% And so he continued to have influence among certain US 00:49:07.170 --> 00:49:10.440 align:middle line:84% administrations well past the '80s, 00:49:10.440 --> 00:49:14.454 align:middle line:84% I mean really decades after the '40s and '50s. 00:49:14.454 --> 00:49:21.590 align:middle line:84% So much like it's easy to venerate people 00:49:21.590 --> 00:49:23.600 align:middle line:84% like Niels Bohr, oh, world government, 00:49:23.600 --> 00:49:26.008 align:middle line:84% if only he could have carried the day. 00:49:26.008 --> 00:49:27.800 align:middle line:84% Like well, I don't think it works that way. 00:49:27.800 --> 00:49:31.037 align:middle line:84% Teller is I think often vilified often 00:49:31.037 --> 00:49:33.620 align:middle line:84% by the same people who want to see heroes like Einstein, Bohr, 00:49:33.620 --> 00:49:34.970 align:middle line:90% and Oppenheimer. 00:49:34.970 --> 00:49:37.670 align:middle line:84% All these people are complicated and the world is complicated. 00:49:37.670 --> 00:49:39.837 align:middle line:84% And I don't want to leave the impression that Teller 00:49:39.837 --> 00:49:42.860 align:middle line:84% was somehow like a masterful demon, 00:49:42.860 --> 00:49:44.780 align:middle line:90% which he's often been cast as. 00:49:44.780 --> 00:49:47.600 align:middle line:84% He certainly had very, very different ideas 00:49:47.600 --> 00:49:49.610 align:middle line:84% about the scientist's responsibility 00:49:49.610 --> 00:49:52.010 align:middle line:84% and about the geopolitical stature of the US, 00:49:52.010 --> 00:49:55.010 align:middle line:84% vis-a-vis changes in Europe, especially. 00:49:55.010 --> 00:49:59.720 align:middle line:84% And he was just dogged, I mean he was just undeterrable 00:49:59.720 --> 00:50:03.950 align:middle line:84% with this focus on more and more bigger fancy weapons, 00:50:03.950 --> 00:50:07.340 align:middle line:84% and let's make them available more and more quickly. 00:50:07.340 --> 00:50:10.460 align:middle line:84% So that became the kind of symbol of this larger split 00:50:10.460 --> 00:50:14.660 align:middle line:84% within the community, between the Oppenheimer camp 00:50:14.660 --> 00:50:15.680 align:middle line:90% and the Teller camp. 00:50:15.680 --> 00:50:18.840 align:middle line:84% Ironically, Teller was being surveilled by the FBI 00:50:18.840 --> 00:50:20.550 align:middle line:90% just as much as Oppenheimer was. 00:50:20.550 --> 00:50:23.880 align:middle line:84% They didn't trust this strange weirdo European Jew. 00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:24.780 align:middle line:90% Who is this guy? 00:50:24.780 --> 00:50:26.738 align:middle line:84% He came from places where there are communists. 00:50:26.738 --> 00:50:29.130 align:middle line:84% I mean, the FBI was really in overdrive in this period, 00:50:29.130 --> 00:50:30.000 align:middle line:90% I say chuckling now. 00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:30.960 align:middle line:90% It wasn't so funny. 00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:32.730 align:middle line:84% And there are these amazing passages 00:50:32.730 --> 00:50:36.240 align:middle line:84% in his once classified, in Teller's once classified file, 00:50:36.240 --> 00:50:37.990 align:middle line:90% saying we don't trust this guy. 00:50:37.990 --> 00:50:39.660 align:middle line:84% We don't know who he's talking to. 00:50:39.660 --> 00:50:41.640 align:middle line:84% He's no more trustworthy than Oppenheimer. 00:50:41.640 --> 00:50:44.137 align:middle line:90% So it's a-- 00:50:44.137 --> 00:50:45.720 align:middle line:84% I don't want to say it's a shell game. 00:50:45.720 --> 00:50:48.570 align:middle line:84% But it wasn't like he was seen as unproblematic. 00:50:48.570 --> 00:50:50.970 align:middle line:84% He was seen as someone who said the things 00:50:50.970 --> 00:50:52.650 align:middle line:84% that some other powerful people wanted 00:50:52.650 --> 00:50:54.360 align:middle line:90% to hear more at that time. 00:50:54.360 --> 00:50:56.310 align:middle line:90% I think he was useful. 00:50:56.310 --> 00:50:57.870 align:middle line:84% I think he earnestly believed that. 00:50:57.870 --> 00:51:01.380 align:middle line:84% But he was also useful to frankly, other people who 00:51:01.380 --> 00:51:05.550 align:middle line:84% really did understand a bit more of the kind of hard power 00:51:05.550 --> 00:51:08.200 align:middle line:90% plays of Cold War politics. 00:51:08.200 --> 00:51:10.000 align:middle line:84% So I think Teller is also, there's much, 00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:13.650 align:middle line:84% much less attention paid to him in the secondary literature, 00:51:13.650 --> 00:51:15.660 align:middle line:84% even though he lived a much longer life, 00:51:15.660 --> 00:51:20.410 align:middle line:84% he was involved in many more unusual events. 00:51:20.410 --> 00:51:23.080 align:middle line:84% But I honestly think it's a lingering sense that he 00:51:23.080 --> 00:51:25.660 align:middle line:90% was somehow just the bad guy. 00:51:25.660 --> 00:51:28.450 align:middle line:84% He's been cast I think in a kind of one dimensional role 00:51:28.450 --> 00:51:31.450 align:middle line:84% that I think there's just been less attention paid 00:51:31.450 --> 00:51:34.570 align:middle line:84% to the nuance that we might now get to try to do for someone 00:51:34.570 --> 00:51:35.854 align:middle line:90% like Oppenheimer. 00:51:35.854 --> 00:51:38.700 align:middle line:90% 00:51:38.700 --> 00:51:39.690 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:51:39.690 --> 00:51:41.580 align:middle line:84% So we'll get a little hint of that. 00:51:41.580 --> 00:51:43.230 align:middle line:90% It won't be the Chicago site. 00:51:43.230 --> 00:51:45.540 align:middle line:84% But a little bit of that theme certainly 00:51:45.540 --> 00:51:47.430 align:middle line:84% comes up in the next film we'll watch, 00:51:47.430 --> 00:51:48.790 align:middle line:90% basically a week from now. 00:51:48.790 --> 00:51:50.165 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to figure out a way 00:51:50.165 --> 00:51:52.930 align:middle line:84% to make sure you can all see it through the Canvas site. 00:51:52.930 --> 00:51:54.180 align:middle line:90% The film's called Containment. 00:51:54.180 --> 00:51:57.720 align:middle line:84% I think I mentioned it briefly, by my friend and colleague, 00:51:57.720 --> 00:52:00.330 align:middle line:84% and actually my former advisor, Peter Galison, 00:52:00.330 --> 00:52:01.830 align:middle line:90% and some of his colleagues. 00:52:01.830 --> 00:52:04.440 align:middle line:84% So it's a much more recent view of some 00:52:04.440 --> 00:52:08.040 align:middle line:84% of the kind of nuclear legacies, in particular, environmental 00:52:08.040 --> 00:52:10.680 align:middle line:90% and radiological. 00:52:10.680 --> 00:52:14.220 align:middle line:84% And not just of the wartime, but of the kind of Cold War 00:52:14.220 --> 00:52:15.160 align:middle line:90% period ever since. 00:52:15.160 --> 00:52:18.570 align:middle line:84% It's in some sense still going on. 00:52:18.570 --> 00:52:22.920 align:middle line:84% So how does one handle waste byproducts 00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:26.070 align:middle line:84% of civilian nuclear power, let alone 00:52:26.070 --> 00:52:28.260 align:middle line:84% above-ground nuclear testing, when 00:52:28.260 --> 00:52:31.710 align:middle line:84% some of these very, very deeply dangerous poisonous isotopes 00:52:31.710 --> 00:52:34.230 align:middle line:84% have half lives in the tens or even hundreds of thousands 00:52:34.230 --> 00:52:35.200 align:middle line:90% of years? 00:52:35.200 --> 00:52:39.490 align:middle line:84% So the stuff isn't going away anytime soon, to put it mildly. 00:52:39.490 --> 00:52:42.390 align:middle line:84% And so that's the kind of thing that the new film, the more 00:52:42.390 --> 00:52:44.970 align:middle line:90% recent film, grapples with. 00:52:44.970 --> 00:52:47.370 align:middle line:84% And we'll watch that and we can have a similar session 00:52:47.370 --> 00:52:49.140 align:middle line:90% to talk about it next week. 00:52:49.140 --> 00:52:52.440 align:middle line:84% I'll make sure we all have the details in an email. 00:52:52.440 --> 00:52:55.620 align:middle line:84% But yeah, I mean again, it's one of these things where 00:52:55.620 --> 00:52:57.343 align:middle line:90% people knew better at the time. 00:52:57.343 --> 00:52:59.010 align:middle line:84% They didn't know as much as we know now. 00:52:59.010 --> 00:53:03.270 align:middle line:84% But the cavalierness, or even sometimes callousness, 00:53:03.270 --> 00:53:05.790 align:middle line:84% I think, with which some legitimately dangerous 00:53:05.790 --> 00:53:08.310 align:middle line:84% materials were handled in the '40s and '50s, 00:53:08.310 --> 00:53:10.230 align:middle line:90% it's still astonishing. 00:53:10.230 --> 00:53:13.320 align:middle line:84% And it's not good to say the only place 00:53:13.320 --> 00:53:15.660 align:middle line:84% it was worse was some parts of the Soviet Union. 00:53:15.660 --> 00:53:17.250 align:middle line:84% I mean if that's a competition, that's 00:53:17.250 --> 00:53:20.190 align:middle line:84% not great in terms of just the cavalier disregard 00:53:20.190 --> 00:53:24.300 align:middle line:84% for local populations that the only place more 00:53:24.300 --> 00:53:26.460 align:middle line:84% poisonous from nuclear efforts than Hanford 00:53:26.460 --> 00:53:28.890 align:middle line:84% is the corresponding site in, I forgot which one it is. 00:53:28.890 --> 00:53:29.848 align:middle line:90% Tiffany might remember. 00:53:29.848 --> 00:53:33.120 align:middle line:84% But one of these sites within the former Soviet Union, where 00:53:33.120 --> 00:53:35.220 align:middle line:84% they had also been doing enormously large-scale 00:53:35.220 --> 00:53:39.332 align:middle line:84% plutonium production and similar things like that. 00:53:39.332 --> 00:53:40.790 align:middle line:84% Right, in fact, my understanding is 00:53:40.790 --> 00:53:43.010 align:middle line:84% that he was exposed because he threw himself on top of it, 00:53:43.010 --> 00:53:43.950 align:middle line:90% to knock him apart. 00:53:43.950 --> 00:53:45.800 align:middle line:84% He basically threw, like a soldier 00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:48.470 align:middle line:84% would on a grenade or something like that, to save comrades. 00:53:48.470 --> 00:53:51.530 align:middle line:84% That he literally threw his body on these 00:53:51.530 --> 00:53:55.790 align:middle line:90% now joined critical mass. 00:53:55.790 --> 00:53:58.310 align:middle line:84% So my mentor that I mentioned who 00:53:58.310 --> 00:54:00.740 align:middle line:84% had served as a young kid in Manhattan Project, so 00:54:00.740 --> 00:54:04.047 align:middle line:84% the rest of his life my teacher wore Slotin's belt buckle. 00:54:04.047 --> 00:54:04.880 align:middle line:90% They'd been buddies. 00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:10.760 align:middle line:84% They were like totally young kids together at Los Alamos. 00:54:10.760 --> 00:54:14.000 align:middle line:84% And so the accident happened soon after the end of the war, 00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:15.200 align:middle line:90% like weeks. 00:54:15.200 --> 00:54:17.210 align:middle line:84% They were still working full tilt. 00:54:17.210 --> 00:54:20.060 align:middle line:84% And Leonard Rieser was still there, my teacher. 00:54:20.060 --> 00:54:23.080 align:middle line:84% And so Slotin died within days of the exposure. 00:54:23.080 --> 00:54:24.830 align:middle line:84% It was a very, very intense exposure right 00:54:24.830 --> 00:54:26.570 align:middle line:84% in his gut, which is not a good place 00:54:26.570 --> 00:54:28.530 align:middle line:90% to absorb lots of these things. 00:54:28.530 --> 00:54:31.040 align:middle line:84% And so Leonard, he got his belt buckle 00:54:31.040 --> 00:54:32.210 align:middle line:90% for the rest of his life. 00:54:32.210 --> 00:54:34.370 align:middle line:84% I only know the name because I heard about it, 00:54:34.370 --> 00:54:36.592 align:middle line:90% starting when I was about 18. 00:54:36.592 --> 00:54:37.550 align:middle line:90% But you're right, Alex. 00:54:37.550 --> 00:54:39.390 align:middle line:84% It's an amazing story about talking 00:54:39.390 --> 00:54:42.810 align:middle line:84% about cavalier, anything like a just shop level 00:54:42.810 --> 00:54:47.080 align:middle line:84% safety standards, let alone treat these things 00:54:47.080 --> 00:54:49.530 align:middle line:84% with some level of awe and respect because 00:54:49.530 --> 00:54:50.530 align:middle line:90% of the forces of nature. 00:54:50.530 --> 00:54:54.040 align:middle line:84% But just like don't prop stuff open with a screwdriver. 00:54:54.040 --> 00:54:54.910 align:middle line:90% Like, come on. 00:54:54.910 --> 00:54:58.750 align:middle line:84% Just basic level machine shop, let alone safe handling 00:54:58.750 --> 00:55:00.440 align:middle line:90% of nuclear materials. 00:55:00.440 --> 00:55:04.450 align:middle line:90% So that's another great example. 00:55:04.450 --> 00:55:05.540 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:55:05.540 --> 00:55:06.900 align:middle line:90% Any other questions? 00:55:06.900 --> 00:55:08.810 align:middle line:84% These are great topics, great questions. 00:55:08.810 --> 00:55:11.900 align:middle line:90% 00:55:11.900 --> 00:55:12.650 align:middle line:90% No, it was. 00:55:12.650 --> 00:55:13.320 align:middle line:90% It was definitely after. 00:55:13.320 --> 00:55:14.030 align:middle line:90% It's a good question. 00:55:14.030 --> 00:55:15.613 align:middle line:84% Because I don't know the fine details. 00:55:15.613 --> 00:55:18.140 align:middle line:84% Some of the TAs might remember better from recent readings. 00:55:18.140 --> 00:55:20.810 align:middle line:84% The rough story goes like this though. 00:55:20.810 --> 00:55:22.310 align:middle line:84% Soon after the end of the war, and I 00:55:22.310 --> 00:55:25.130 align:middle line:84% guess I'll talk about this briefly on Wednesday, 00:55:25.130 --> 00:55:28.100 align:middle line:84% it was signed into law I think August of '46, 00:55:28.100 --> 00:55:32.180 align:middle line:84% so roughly a year after Japanese surrendered, 00:55:32.180 --> 00:55:34.790 align:middle line:84% the US passed the Atomic Energy Act. 00:55:34.790 --> 00:55:37.640 align:middle line:84% And that was a sprawling piece of legislation 00:55:37.640 --> 00:55:40.490 align:middle line:84% that established the successor agency to the wartime Manhattan 00:55:40.490 --> 00:55:41.090 align:middle line:90% Project. 00:55:41.090 --> 00:55:43.713 align:middle line:84% Nominally civilian, it created what 00:55:43.713 --> 00:55:45.755 align:middle line:84% was called the Atomic Energy Commission, the AEC. 00:55:45.755 --> 00:55:48.500 align:middle line:90% 00:55:48.500 --> 00:55:51.350 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Tiffany. 00:55:51.350 --> 00:55:57.820 align:middle line:84% But it also made all things related to nuclear power, born 00:55:57.820 --> 00:55:59.770 align:middle line:84% secret and subject only basically 00:55:59.770 --> 00:56:02.710 align:middle line:84% to military or official government control in the US. 00:56:02.710 --> 00:56:06.010 align:middle line:84% So it had an unintended consequence 00:56:06.010 --> 00:56:10.330 align:middle line:84% of hugely stifling a private sector development 00:56:10.330 --> 00:56:13.210 align:middle line:90% of energy generation, reactors. 00:56:13.210 --> 00:56:17.050 align:middle line:84% That was then amended, a big amendment to the Atomic Energy 00:56:17.050 --> 00:56:19.485 align:middle line:84% Act in I think '53, again, others on the call 00:56:19.485 --> 00:56:20.110 align:middle line:90% might remember. 00:56:20.110 --> 00:56:22.360 align:middle line:90% I think was 1953. 00:56:22.360 --> 00:56:25.000 align:middle line:84% Which began to make certain kinds of-- we might call it 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:27.490 align:middle line:84% private-public partnerships, a kind 00:56:27.490 --> 00:56:30.610 align:middle line:84% of limited entrepreneurship possible in the power 00:56:30.610 --> 00:56:31.780 align:middle line:90% generation market. 00:56:31.780 --> 00:56:33.580 align:middle line:90% It still wasn't a free market. 00:56:33.580 --> 00:56:36.430 align:middle line:84% But it was no longer a felony to share 00:56:36.430 --> 00:56:39.010 align:middle line:84% certain kinds of documents of otherwise 00:56:39.010 --> 00:56:41.410 align:middle line:84% innocuous information, seemingly innocuous, 00:56:41.410 --> 00:56:44.180 align:middle line:84% with no direct weapons potential. 00:56:44.180 --> 00:56:51.340 align:middle line:84% So you start getting a more active what's the word? 00:56:51.340 --> 00:56:54.740 align:middle line:90% 00:56:54.740 --> 00:56:59.270 align:middle line:84% Sorry, trying to build up a kind of working 00:56:59.270 --> 00:57:01.880 align:middle line:84% quasi-market private-public partnership 00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:04.130 align:middle line:84% with major industrial contractors like General 00:57:04.130 --> 00:57:08.390 align:middle line:84% Electric, like Westinghouse, building commercial power 00:57:08.390 --> 00:57:10.940 align:middle line:84% reactors by the mid to late '50s. 00:57:10.940 --> 00:57:14.120 align:middle line:84% It doesn't take off the way other new technologies have 00:57:14.120 --> 00:57:15.680 align:middle line:84% done in history, because it still 00:57:15.680 --> 00:57:21.020 align:middle line:84% has a lingering period of not clear quite 00:57:21.020 --> 00:57:24.170 align:middle line:90% how to get this right. 00:57:24.170 --> 00:57:25.550 align:middle line:84% So over the course of '50s, there 00:57:25.550 --> 00:57:27.020 align:middle line:84% were power reactors actually coming 00:57:27.020 --> 00:57:28.650 align:middle line:84% online, ShippingPort news I think 00:57:28.650 --> 00:57:30.650 align:middle line:84% was the first or among the most famous somewhere 00:57:30.650 --> 00:57:32.610 align:middle line:90% in Pennsylvania, for example. 00:57:32.610 --> 00:57:34.520 align:middle line:84% So it didn't become ubiquitous right away, 00:57:34.520 --> 00:57:37.970 align:middle line:84% but they were coming into genuine civilian use 00:57:37.970 --> 00:57:41.840 align:middle line:84% in the outskirts of populated areas by the end of the 1950s. 00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:44.690 align:middle line:84% For the submarines and things, that was again 00:57:44.690 --> 00:57:48.290 align:middle line:84% I think a mid to late '50s development. 00:57:48.290 --> 00:57:53.390 align:middle line:84% Admiral Rickover, Hyman Rickover was I think the main moving 00:57:53.390 --> 00:57:57.030 align:middle line:84% force behind what was often called modernize the Naval 00:57:57.030 --> 00:57:59.842 align:middle line:84% fleet, including making reactor-driven submarines that 00:57:59.842 --> 00:58:01.800 align:middle line:84% could stay underwater much longer, for example, 00:58:01.800 --> 00:58:03.450 align:middle line:84% let alone armed with nuclear weapons. 00:58:03.450 --> 00:58:07.050 align:middle line:84% Which could the power come largely 00:58:07.050 --> 00:58:09.150 align:middle line:90% from nuclear reactors on board. 00:58:09.150 --> 00:58:10.890 align:middle line:84% For strategic reasons, it wouldn't 00:58:10.890 --> 00:58:13.210 align:middle line:84% have to surface as frequently or things like that. 00:58:13.210 --> 00:58:16.530 align:middle line:84% So again, I think those were being developed largely 00:58:16.530 --> 00:58:17.650 align:middle line:90% within the military. 00:58:17.650 --> 00:58:20.970 align:middle line:84% So it didn't have the same kind of public-private, same level 00:58:20.970 --> 00:58:23.280 align:middle line:90% of friction. 00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:24.840 align:middle line:84% But those were being, again, I don't 00:58:24.840 --> 00:58:26.850 align:middle line:84% know when the first one came into service, probably 00:58:26.850 --> 00:58:28.600 align:middle line:84% by the early '60s at the latest, certainly 00:58:28.600 --> 00:58:32.550 align:middle line:84% under active development and testing by the '50s, late '50s. 00:58:32.550 --> 00:58:34.680 align:middle line:84% And as we'll see in Wednesday's class, 00:58:34.680 --> 00:58:39.372 align:middle line:84% this also begins to coincide with growing concerns 00:58:39.372 --> 00:58:43.290 align:middle line:84% about fallout, so about above-ground nuclear weapons 00:58:43.290 --> 00:58:44.070 align:middle line:90% testing. 00:58:44.070 --> 00:58:46.470 align:middle line:84% Concerns about safety or otherwise 00:58:46.470 --> 00:58:49.590 align:middle line:84% of nuclear power generation was not 00:58:49.590 --> 00:58:53.558 align:middle line:84% the first topic of real kind of public consternation or debate. 00:58:53.558 --> 00:58:56.100 align:middle line:84% It really was about the fallout coming, back to the questions 00:58:56.100 --> 00:58:57.553 align:middle line:90% that Steven was asking earlier. 00:58:57.553 --> 00:58:58.970 align:middle line:84% What happens when you blow a bunch 00:58:58.970 --> 00:59:00.420 align:middle line:84% of these things of these things up 00:59:00.420 --> 00:59:03.130 align:middle line:84% in the atmosphere and stuff comes down? 00:59:03.130 --> 00:59:06.330 align:middle line:84% And so we will hear a bit about that in Wednesday's class. 00:59:06.330 --> 00:59:11.370 align:middle line:84% So the first public efforts, first widespread anti-nuclear 00:59:11.370 --> 00:59:16.080 align:middle line:84% mobilizations were really also starting by the late '50s. 00:59:16.080 --> 00:59:18.330 align:middle line:84% And they had these fits and starts 00:59:18.330 --> 00:59:21.750 align:middle line:84% of temporarily successful treaties that would stop, 00:59:21.750 --> 00:59:22.920 align:middle line:90% and then they'd go back. 00:59:22.920 --> 00:59:26.460 align:middle line:84% And so a lot of the kind of official treaty space, 00:59:26.460 --> 00:59:28.500 align:middle line:84% as well as more informal political organizing 00:59:28.500 --> 00:59:32.010 align:middle line:84% against certain aspects of nuclear technologies, 00:59:32.010 --> 00:59:34.050 align:middle line:84% that's also growing over the course of the '50s 00:59:34.050 --> 00:59:34.848 align:middle line:90% into the 1960s. 00:59:34.848 --> 00:59:36.015 align:middle line:90% They're growing up together. 00:59:36.015 --> 00:59:38.700 align:middle line:90% 00:59:38.700 --> 00:59:41.460 align:middle line:84% There were efforts, by the way, throughout the early and mid 00:59:41.460 --> 00:59:45.330 align:middle line:84% '50s to try to so-called modernize the weapons side, 00:59:45.330 --> 00:59:46.800 align:middle line:90% so to shrink down. 00:59:46.800 --> 00:59:50.070 align:middle line:84% So both to make enormously humongous hydrogen weapons that 00:59:50.070 --> 00:59:51.960 align:middle line:84% were thousands, many thousands of times 00:59:51.960 --> 00:59:55.740 align:middle line:84% more powerful than the fission bombs of the Second World War, 00:59:55.740 --> 00:59:58.260 align:middle line:84% but also to miniaturize them, so that they 00:59:58.260 --> 01:00:00.990 align:middle line:84% would be more likely to be useful tactically, 01:00:00.990 --> 01:00:01.980 align:middle line:90% not strategically. 01:00:01.980 --> 01:00:04.185 align:middle line:84% Strategically was the lingo, Lucas 01:00:04.185 --> 01:00:06.810 align:middle line:84% you might know from talking with the folks in Security Studies, 01:00:06.810 --> 01:00:10.680 align:middle line:84% strategic is the idea that is roughly speaking symbolic. 01:00:10.680 --> 01:00:13.930 align:middle line:84% Would it be impossible for any enemy to attack you 01:00:13.930 --> 01:00:17.610 align:middle line:84% because they'd be assured of immediate annihilation? 01:00:17.610 --> 01:00:21.870 align:middle line:84% Because you have city leveling megaton bombs. 01:00:21.870 --> 01:00:24.210 align:middle line:84% So that was seen as strategic to have 01:00:24.210 --> 01:00:25.418 align:middle line:90% an unsteady balance of power. 01:00:25.418 --> 01:00:27.585 align:middle line:84% Because no one would be dumb enough to trigger those 01:00:27.585 --> 01:00:28.890 align:middle line:90% enormous things for use. 01:00:28.890 --> 01:00:31.380 align:middle line:84% Then there's tactical weapons that people might actually 01:00:31.380 --> 01:00:34.230 align:middle line:84% plausibly use on a battlefield, without 01:00:34.230 --> 01:00:37.870 align:middle line:84% the high-level hand-wringing about, oh my goodness. 01:00:37.870 --> 01:00:38.830 align:middle line:90% It's mega-tonnage. 01:00:38.830 --> 01:00:40.960 align:middle line:84% So people were making so-called Davy Crockett, 01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:43.330 align:middle line:84% basically like shoulder fired bazooka 01:00:43.330 --> 01:00:45.708 align:middle line:84% sized nuclear weapons, which were actually developed 01:00:45.708 --> 01:00:47.500 align:middle line:84% and deployed in the field, thankfully never 01:00:47.500 --> 01:00:50.180 align:middle line:90% used, but certainly tested. 01:00:50.180 --> 01:00:51.760 align:middle line:84% So there was both a miniaturization 01:00:51.760 --> 01:00:54.490 align:middle line:84% to make these things more ubiquitous in certain kinds 01:00:54.490 --> 01:00:58.240 align:middle line:84% of tactical US military planning, not only US, 01:00:58.240 --> 01:00:59.020 align:middle line:90% but including US. 01:00:59.020 --> 01:01:02.140 align:middle line:84% And then the enormity, the monsters 01:01:02.140 --> 01:01:07.990 align:middle line:84% that we'll talk a bit about in next class that were really 01:01:07.990 --> 01:01:11.530 align:middle line:84% just made the Hiroshima Nagasaki weapons look small. 01:01:11.530 --> 01:01:14.320 align:middle line:84% It was both these kind of fronts of development on the more 01:01:14.320 --> 01:01:15.710 align:middle line:90% weapons technology side. 01:01:15.710 --> 01:01:17.522 align:middle line:84% Those were actively under development 01:01:17.522 --> 01:01:18.355 align:middle line:90% throughout the '50s. 01:01:18.355 --> 01:01:22.410 align:middle line:90% 01:01:22.410 --> 01:01:23.670 align:middle line:90% Yeah, absolutely right. 01:01:23.670 --> 01:01:25.330 align:middle line:84% And again, we think back to that. 01:01:25.330 --> 01:01:27.810 align:middle line:84% And yet that was not sufficient to end the program, 01:01:27.810 --> 01:01:30.750 align:middle line:84% much is the fact that poison gas first deployed 01:01:30.750 --> 01:01:31.920 align:middle line:90% in the First World War. 01:01:31.920 --> 01:01:34.890 align:middle line:84% Also, the winds would change, and you would not infrequently 01:01:34.890 --> 01:01:37.080 align:middle line:84% wind up gassing your own troops inadvertently. 01:01:37.080 --> 01:01:41.130 align:middle line:84% So the competing calculations about what's 01:01:41.130 --> 01:01:44.790 align:middle line:84% going to be a worthwhile device to pursue, unfortunately 01:01:44.790 --> 01:01:45.960 align:middle line:90% that was not unique either. 01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:46.460 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:01:46.460 --> 01:01:50.800 align:middle line:90% 01:01:50.800 --> 01:01:54.520 align:middle line:84% Yes, it's an idea that comes and goes. 01:01:54.520 --> 01:01:58.810 align:middle line:84% As many of you may know, the US for the time being, 01:01:58.810 --> 01:02:04.360 align:middle line:84% is still subject to a limited test ban treaty, which 01:02:04.360 --> 01:02:07.030 align:middle line:90% suggests that there can be no-- 01:02:07.030 --> 01:02:10.690 align:middle line:84% I'm getting the wrong treaty, actually more recent treaty. 01:02:10.690 --> 01:02:12.760 align:middle line:84% There was a more complete test ban treaty 01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:14.867 align:middle line:90% the US signed starting in 1992. 01:02:14.867 --> 01:02:17.200 align:middle line:84% It was one of the last things that President George H.W. 01:02:17.200 --> 01:02:21.020 align:middle line:84% Bush signed before the Clinton administration. 01:02:21.020 --> 01:02:25.150 align:middle line:84% So the US presently, by treaty statute, 01:02:25.150 --> 01:02:28.570 align:middle line:84% is not allowed to test new nuclear weapon designs. 01:02:28.570 --> 01:02:31.420 align:middle line:84% And that led to an enormous multi-billion project 01:02:31.420 --> 01:02:34.150 align:middle line:90% called stockpile stewardship. 01:02:34.150 --> 01:02:37.630 align:middle line:84% So there was testing allowed, non-nuclear tests allowed 01:02:37.630 --> 01:02:43.000 align:middle line:84% to be performed to maintain the aging stockpiles of existing 01:02:43.000 --> 01:02:44.050 align:middle line:90% weapons. 01:02:44.050 --> 01:02:45.880 align:middle line:90% Epoxies dry out and change. 01:02:45.880 --> 01:02:48.490 align:middle line:84% All the kind of conventional materials 01:02:48.490 --> 01:02:51.390 align:middle line:84% don't have a shelf life of 10,000 years. 01:02:51.390 --> 01:02:53.510 align:middle line:84% So stockpile stewardship is meant 01:02:53.510 --> 01:02:56.840 align:middle line:84% to enable laboratory style testing for materials 01:02:56.840 --> 01:03:00.380 align:middle line:84% to maintain the existing arsenal, not to develop 01:03:00.380 --> 01:03:02.090 align:middle line:90% and perfect new weapons. 01:03:02.090 --> 01:03:03.572 align:middle line:90% And so some of these areas get-- 01:03:03.572 --> 01:03:05.780 align:middle line:84% some critics at least say there's a little gray area. 01:03:05.780 --> 01:03:07.322 align:middle line:84% Some things that some people will say 01:03:07.322 --> 01:03:09.718 align:middle line:84% are being used for stockpile stewardship might actually 01:03:09.718 --> 01:03:11.510 align:middle line:84% have implications to help with new designs. 01:03:11.510 --> 01:03:15.260 align:middle line:84% It's again, it's an area where there's ongoing debate 01:03:15.260 --> 01:03:19.280 align:middle line:84% and push-back largely away from full public view, 01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:21.350 align:middle line:84% because so much of it still remains classified. 01:03:21.350 --> 01:03:25.010 align:middle line:90% 01:03:25.010 --> 01:03:25.710 align:middle line:90% Yeah, Amanda. 01:03:25.710 --> 01:03:26.210 align:middle line:90% I agree. 01:03:26.210 --> 01:03:27.230 align:middle line:90% That is a chilling part. 01:03:27.230 --> 01:03:29.370 align:middle line:84% And that as I said, those lists were made. 01:03:29.370 --> 01:03:31.820 align:middle line:84% In fact, they were made I think by the so-called interim 01:03:31.820 --> 01:03:33.920 align:middle line:84% committee, which included Oppenheimer 01:03:33.920 --> 01:03:36.680 align:middle line:84% and a couple other physicists, as well 01:03:36.680 --> 01:03:39.840 align:middle line:84% as the Secretary of War, and other military leaders. 01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:42.513 align:middle line:84% It was a group of maybe a dozen people. 01:03:42.513 --> 01:03:44.180 align:middle line:84% And so for example, there was a decision 01:03:44.180 --> 01:03:46.580 align:middle line:84% made early on I think by that group or at least 01:03:46.580 --> 01:03:48.560 align:middle line:84% the recommendation from that group, 01:03:48.560 --> 01:03:52.790 align:middle line:84% not to bomb the city of Kyoto, either by conventional means, 01:03:52.790 --> 01:03:55.280 align:middle line:84% let alone with the newer weapons. 01:03:55.280 --> 01:04:00.320 align:middle line:84% Because that was seen as too culturally significant. 01:04:00.320 --> 01:04:07.550 align:middle line:84% It was a kind of millennium old city of art culture and kind 01:04:07.550 --> 01:04:10.547 align:middle line:90% of heritage. 01:04:10.547 --> 01:04:12.630 align:middle line:84% And that wasn't a kind of nukes versus incendiary. 01:04:12.630 --> 01:04:15.350 align:middle line:84% That was like, please don't bomb that city, 01:04:15.350 --> 01:04:21.022 align:middle line:84% the US committee advising the US military on that. 01:04:21.022 --> 01:04:22.730 align:middle line:84% I think it was part of that same exercise 01:04:22.730 --> 01:04:25.920 align:middle line:84% to say what cities would be so-called legitimate targets 01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:29.688 align:middle line:84% for use with the nuclear weapons versus other kinds of attack. 01:04:29.688 --> 01:04:31.230 align:middle line:84% And I don't know that means that they 01:04:31.230 --> 01:04:33.070 align:middle line:90% thought the bomb was special. 01:04:33.070 --> 01:04:34.690 align:middle line:90% I think they thought it was new. 01:04:34.690 --> 01:04:38.430 align:middle line:84% And I think that was the idea of, for any new element 01:04:38.430 --> 01:04:43.080 align:middle line:84% in the collection, so to speak, you want to understand, 01:04:43.080 --> 01:04:45.730 align:middle line:84% its parameters, its characteristics. 01:04:45.730 --> 01:04:48.090 align:middle line:84% So I don't know that they thought it was somehow 01:04:48.090 --> 01:04:50.130 align:middle line:90% in a category unto itself. 01:04:50.130 --> 01:04:52.998 align:middle line:84% I think my sense of that is that it's a new thing. 01:04:52.998 --> 01:04:54.540 align:middle line:84% We want to learn about it, because we 01:04:54.540 --> 01:04:55.707 align:middle line:90% intend to use it a lot more. 01:04:55.707 --> 01:04:57.750 align:middle line:84% At least we have the option open that this 01:04:57.750 --> 01:05:01.168 align:middle line:84% will become a more common element of the arsenal. 01:05:01.168 --> 01:05:02.710 align:middle line:84% We'll talk a bit about that actually, 01:05:02.710 --> 01:05:04.500 align:middle line:90% again, on Wednesday as well. 01:05:04.500 --> 01:05:07.260 align:middle line:84% That there were, even amidst the debates over whether or not 01:05:07.260 --> 01:05:10.320 align:middle line:84% the United States should pursue a hydrogen weapon so much more 01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:13.290 align:middle line:84% powerful, the debate was rarely as we now 01:05:13.290 --> 01:05:15.960 align:middle line:90% know nukes or no nukes. 01:05:15.960 --> 01:05:18.029 align:middle line:90% It was fission versus fusion. 01:05:18.029 --> 01:05:20.700 align:middle line:84% And one leading reason not that was put forward not 01:05:20.700 --> 01:05:23.160 align:middle line:84% to pursue fusion weapons, because it 01:05:23.160 --> 01:05:26.880 align:middle line:84% would slow down the production of lots more fission weapons. 01:05:26.880 --> 01:05:30.160 align:middle line:84% Because the idea, at least among certain influential people, 01:05:30.160 --> 01:05:32.070 align:middle line:84% including Oppenheimer, was that the US 01:05:32.070 --> 01:05:34.198 align:middle line:84% should have hundreds and thousands of these things 01:05:34.198 --> 01:05:34.740 align:middle line:90% at the ready. 01:05:34.740 --> 01:05:38.790 align:middle line:84% Because at the time, they were very, very few in a stockpile. 01:05:38.790 --> 01:05:40.587 align:middle line:84% So the concern wasn't these things 01:05:40.587 --> 01:05:42.420 align:middle line:84% are so terrible we should never use anything 01:05:42.420 --> 01:05:44.279 align:middle line:90% in this whole category again. 01:05:44.279 --> 01:05:47.460 align:middle line:84% People had that concern, but not these groups behind the fence 01:05:47.460 --> 01:05:49.110 align:middle line:90% advising we now know. 01:05:49.110 --> 01:05:51.930 align:middle line:84% Their concern was making these things which might not even 01:05:51.930 --> 01:05:53.610 align:middle line:84% work anyway will interrupt too much 01:05:53.610 --> 01:05:55.527 align:middle line:84% making the things that we now know more about, 01:05:55.527 --> 01:05:59.430 align:middle line:84% because of these things like the usage against actual cities 01:05:59.430 --> 01:06:03.570 align:middle line:84% and the fact that they were not previously destroyed 01:06:03.570 --> 01:06:05.010 align:middle line:90% targets, environments. 01:06:05.010 --> 01:06:07.680 align:middle line:84% So you could learn a lot from these post-bombing surveys. 01:06:07.680 --> 01:06:12.158 align:middle line:90% 01:06:12.158 --> 01:06:13.950 align:middle line:84% Yeah, anyway, so that's a bit of a preview. 01:06:13.950 --> 01:06:16.075 align:middle line:84% We will talk a bit about that in Wednesday's class. 01:06:16.075 --> 01:06:19.260 align:middle line:90% 01:06:19.260 --> 01:06:20.670 align:middle line:90% Yep, yep, yep. 01:06:20.670 --> 01:06:24.320 align:middle line:90% No, that's an excellent point. 01:06:24.320 --> 01:06:25.870 align:middle line:90% Good, I think we'll pause there. 01:06:25.870 --> 01:06:27.578 align:middle line:84% That was a really interesting discussion. 01:06:27.578 --> 01:06:29.160 align:middle line:84% Thank you all for taking the time. 01:06:29.160 --> 01:06:31.260 align:middle line:84% It was an option during a busy part of the term. 01:06:31.260 --> 01:06:34.587 align:middle line:84% So I hope it was an interesting and worthwhile discussion. 01:06:34.587 --> 01:06:37.170 align:middle line:84% If you have other questions, of course, please don't hesitate. 01:06:37.170 --> 01:06:40.232 align:middle line:84% I'll have my regular office hours on Wednesday morning. 01:06:40.232 --> 01:06:42.440 align:middle line:84% Feel free to email me to make a separate appointment, 01:06:42.440 --> 01:06:43.970 align:middle line:90% of course, at any time. 01:06:43.970 --> 01:06:46.880 align:middle line:84% And otherwise we'll meet at our regular class time 01:06:46.880 --> 01:06:47.570 align:middle line:90% on Wednesday. 01:06:47.570 --> 01:06:48.990 align:middle line:90% So stay well, everyone. 01:06:48.990 --> 01:06:50.680 align:middle line:90% See you soon. 01:06:50.680 --> 01:06:57.730 align:middle line:90%