Two Who Launched the Nuclear Age
JOSEPHSON, BEN Jr.
Two Who Launched the Nuclear Age Atomic Quest. Atoms and People. By Arthur Holly Compton. By Ralph Lapp. Oxford. 370 pp. $5.00. Harper. 299 pp. $4.00. Reviewed by Ben Josephson Jr. Physicist;...
...Lapp see the same basic issues in the political and moral questions that confront them, and their formulations of them have much in common...
...During the war, he served as director of the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project, and in his own words "was one of the handful to whom fell the responsibility for initiating and carrying through the American wartime atomic project...
...He was also associated with the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project, and since the war, among other things, he has been head of the Nuclear Physics Branch of the Office of Naval Research and director of the Nuclear Science Service in Washington...
...Compton, whose upbringing as he relates it inclines him to a strong moral bias against mass destruction, concludes that since the use of the bomb saved countless lives its use was justified...
...Lapp, whose background one might think would make it easier for him to justify the use of the bomb to himself, decides that "the decision to use the bomb will rank as one of the greatest errors in judgment on the part of U.S...
...For those who wonder how scientists think about the non-scientific implications of their work, these books should be of great interest...
...In Dr...
...Compton's conclusions reflect a greater understanding of the human aspects of the problems discussed, and a more realistic approach to their solution...
...Lapp is one of the group of younger physicists who rose to prominence during the war...
...Compton is a physicist of worldwide reputation whose prewar researches in atomic physics brought him the Nobel Prize in 1927...
...it is, in fact, no more immoral than any other weapon of war...
...The description of technical matters should baffle no one...
...Compton's words: "The important thing is not the state, nor the power of the atom, nor the mighty machines of industry...
...Both Dr...
...Although both authors display admirable clarity and consistency in their arguments, my overall impression is that Dr...
...Both volumes are quite readable...
...Compton's arguments seem more profound...
...Compton and Dr...
...Lapp have interesting things to say about the political and moral problems arising out of the coming of the atom, and both tell of those incredible wartime years which led to the development of the bomb...
...I should add that they agree on many points, such as the futility of limited or small-scale atomic wars, but even here Dr...
...The plagues and pestilences released when this Pandora's box was opened are still with us, but among them we glimpse a few of the benefits which controlled atomic energy can bring to the world...
...graduate student at MIT More than ten years have passed since the searing powe of uncontrolled atomic energy was employed against Japan at the close of World War II...
...The note on which the two books end is one of hope: hope for greater understanding between scientists and the people they serve, and above all hope that the peoples of the world will grow to understand themselves and each other and thus avoid destroying themselves in an atomic war...
...Lapp in particular has the gift of describing the technical aspects of his material in an exceptionally clear, interesting way...
...Both Dr...
...Compton and Dr...
...officials...
...The public suddenly discovered that scientists harbored in its midst h the searing power of unconad labored and brought forth the atomic age...
...As the only eyewitness account by one of the scientific leaders of the project, his book has a unique place among the many accounts of the development of the bomb...
...One which illustrates this is the old problem of whether the United States was justified in using the A-bomb when eventual victory over Japan was practically assured...
...it is the heart of man...
...Some striking differences arise, however, in their resolution of these questions...
Vol. 40 • March 1957 • No. 10
