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- Title
Twaddle on the Atomic Bomb.
- Authors
Johnson, Alvin
- Abstract
The article reports that Samuel Johnson once remarked that a scientist, finding his happiness and greatness in electrifying a bottle, could but wonder how men everywhere found it possible to interest themselves in all the twaddle about war and peace. The scientists of today are quite different. Although they have climbed to a position from which they can see to the very heart of the material universe, and can demonstrate that there is no heart and no material universe; although they are able to pick up the original work of creation and destroy the indestructible atom itself and reconstitute it according to the heart's desire, they are not content with their own dazzling glory. They aim at a foremost place among the twaddlers on war and peace. There was never a better grounded ambition. In creating the atomic bomb they have provided the world with the mightiest instrument of destruction ever known. If it does not deserve the credit for bringing Japan to her knees, that is only because the knees of Japan were already flexing under the overwhelming blows of non-atomic bomb power, nonatomic ships and guns and above all, non-atomic American soldiers. The fact remains that if German science had been six months ahead the outcome of the war would have been entirely different.
- Subjects
JAPAN; GERMANY; PEACE; WAR; NUCLEAR weapons
- Publication
American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 1946, Vol 5, Issue 2, p201
- ISSN
0002-9246
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1536-7150.1946.tb01796.x