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he Bomb and Civilization (1945)
I
t is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and
horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political
and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the
destruction of Hiroshima. From the scientific point of view,
the atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination of
genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of
mankind.
Atoms
are so minute that it might have seemed
impossible to know as much as we do about them. A
million million bundles, each containing a million million
hydrogen atoms, would weigh about a gram and a half.
Each hydrogen atom consists of a nucleus, and an electron
going round the nucleus, as the earth goes round the sun.
The distance from the nucleus to the electron is usually
about a hundred-millionth of a centimetre; the electron and
the nucleus are supposed to be so small that if they could be
crowded together it would take about ten million million on
end to fill a centimetre. The nucleus has positive electricity,
the planetary electron an equal amount of negative
electricity; the nucleus is about 1850 times as heavy as the
electron. The hydrogen atom, which I have been
describing, is the simplest of atoms, but the atom used in
the atomic bomb is at the other end of the scale.
Uranium, the element chiefly used in the atomic
bomb, has the heaviest and most complex of atoms.
Normally there are 92 planetary electrons, while the
nucleus is made up of about 238 neutrons (which have
mass without electricity), 238 positrons (which have
positive electricity and very little mass), and 146 electrons,
which are like positrons except that their electricity is
negative. Positrons repel each other, and so do electrons;
but a positron and electron attract each other. The
overcrowding of mutually attracted and expelled particles
in the tiny space of the uranium nucleus involves enormous
potentially explosive forces. Uranium is slightly
radioactive, which means that some of its atoms break up
naturally. But a quicker process than this is required for the
making of an atomic bomb.
Rutherford
found out, about thirty years ago, that little
bits could be chipped off an atom by bombardment. In
1939, a
more powerful process
was discovered: it was
found that neutrons, entering the nucleus of a uranium
atom, would cause it to split into two roughly equal halves,
which would rush off and disrupt other uranium atoms in
the neighbourhood, and so set up a train of explosions so
long as there was any of the right kind of uranium to be
encountered.
Ever since the beginning of the war, the
Germans on
the one side, and the British and Americans
on the other,
have been working on the possibility of an atomic
explosive. One of the difficulties was to make sure that it
would not be too effective: there was a fear that it might
destroy not only the enemy, but the whole planet, and
naturally experiments were risky. But the difficulties were
overcome, and now the possibility, which scientists have
foreseen for over forty years,
has entered into the world of
practical politics. The labours of Rutherford and
Bohr
, of
Heisenberg
, and
Schrödinger
, and a number of other
distinguished men, the ablest men of our time, and most of
them both high-minded and public-spirited, have borne
fruit: in an instant, by means of one small bomb, every
vestige of life throughout four square miles of a populous
city has been exterminated. As I write, I learn that a second
bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki.
The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all
precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative:
either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some
slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new
political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be
averted.
For the moment, fortunately, only the United States is
in a position to manufacture atomic bombs. The immediate
result must be a rapid end to the Japanese war, whether by
surrender or by extermination.
The power of the United
States in international affairs is, for the time being,
immeasurably increased;
a month ago
, Russia and the
United States seemed about equal in warlike strength, but
now this is no longer the case. This situation, however, will
not last long, for it must be assumed that before long Russia
and the British Empire will set to work to
make these
bombs for themselves.
Uranium has suddenly become the
most precious of raw materials, and nations will probably
fight for it as hitherto they have fought for oil. In the next
war, if atomic bombs are used on both sides, it is to be
expected that all large cities will be completely wiped out;
so will all scientific laboratories and all governmental
centres. Communications will be disrupted, and the world
will be reduced to a number of small independent
agricultural communities living on local produce, as they
did in the Dark Ages. But presumably none of them will
have either the resources or the skill for the manufacture of
atomic bombs.
There is another and a better possibility, if men have
the wisdom to make use of the few years during which it
will remain open to them. Either war or civilization must
end, and if it is to be war that ends, there must be an
international authority with the sole power to make the new
bombs. All supplies of uranium must be placed under the
control of the international authority, which shall have the
right to safeguard the ore by armed forces. As soon as such
an authority has been created, all existing atomic bombs,
and all plants for their manufacture, must be handed over.
And of course the international authority must have
sufficient armed forces to protect whatever has been
handed over to it. If this system were once established, the
international authority would be irresistible, and wars
would cease. At worst, there might be occasional brief
revolts that would be easily quelled.
But I fear all this is Utopian. The United States will
not consent to any pooling of armaments, and no more will
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