Science, war, geopolitics and tale of a suicidal axe

Do not awaken the sleeping giant inside the lamp; instead of rewarding you, it might kill you! No, such a statement is not found in the tales of Alif Laila. But the sleeping giant that humanity has awakened makes the genie in the lamp seem insignificant.

Why did the United States suddenly attack Iran, why did it wage war on Iraq, and crush Libya? And why does that same United States not attack North Korea, which constantly threatens it? The answer to all these questions is interconnected. And the thread tying them together is the nuclear bomb. Its beginning was marked by the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945.

Did people not know how terrible the consequences would be if the monster called the nuclear bomb was awakened? They did, yet knowingly they drank the poison. At that time, an environment was created where the fear of the bogeyman named Hitler had made the entire world feel so threatened that even the peace-loving Albert Einstein wrote a letter to US President Roosevelt requesting the development of a nuclear bomb. That request haunted Einstein with regret for the rest of his life.

It all started with Einstein himself. In 1905, he published five research papers in the renowned German journal Annalen der Physik. One of these five was a mathematical proof of atomic theory, and another established the mathematical foundation of quantum theory. The remaining three led to the formulation of the Special Theory of Relativity.

The process of converting mass into energy was one of the predictions of the Special Theory of Relativity. Einstein stated this in his famous equation, E=mc². The essence of this equation was that it is possible to convert mass into energy. If that were possible, an enormous amount of energy could be extracted from even a small piece of matter. For almost three decades, this process of energy production remained limited to pen and paper. Even Einstein himself did not believe that energy could actually be produced this way. But several nuclear physicists proved that powerful nuclear reactions were taking place inside the Sun, exactly as predicted by Einstein’s famous equation. Even the neutrons and protons inside an atom’s nucleus followed Einstein’s equation, ensuring the proper balance of energy. Otherwise, atoms could not have formed stable nuclear bonds.

The Sun is 150 million kilometres away from us, and the proof of atomic stability would only be realised when nuclear energy could be released by splitting an atom. However, the proof of atomic fission had already been provided by Kiwi-British scientist Ernest Rutherford. He demonstrated how radioactive atoms could split their nuclei to generate energy. Later, nuclear scientists like Henri Becquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radioactive elements like uranium, radium and polonium.

The discoveries of Rutherford, Becquerel and the Curies were related to the spontaneous fission of radioactive atoms. But no one was certain whether energy sufficient to make an atomic bomb on a large scale could actually be produced. Einstein certainly was not.

The year was 1939. Hitler was at the peak of his power. Having healed the wounds of the First World War, he now dreamt of subjugating the entire world. He started with Poland, then conquered Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and even France; only his eternal enemy, England, remained. Hitler knew that if he could drive the final nail into Britain’s coffin, the rest of the world would naturally fall under his dominion. But in the battlefield, he faced the mighty military of Russia and the technologically advanced and well-armed United States. Still, could Hitler be stopped? His navy had established a reign of terror across the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing could stop them. With precise attacks, they were devastating Allied bases one after another. The top brass of the Allied forces could not figure out why Hitler’s forces were unstoppable. But a small group of engineers did. The group was led by one of the pioneers of modern computing, Alan Turing. Turing realised that the main strength of Hitler’s Nazi forces lay in their powerful radio communication system, operated through complex codes. Turing and his team jumped into the task of deciphering Hitler’s ciphers and succeeded. From then on, the Allied forces began to foil Nazi plans one after another. Gradually, the Germany-Japan-Italy alliance fell behind.

The only way to recover was through the atomic bomb; something Hitler was quite hopeful about. His country’s scientists had led in nuclear physics, and now was the time for them to do something for their nation. So, in addition to attacks by land and sea, he set up nuclear labs and deployed a team of scientists. But before that, he had already swung the axe at his own feet, crippling himself significantly. A large portion of his country’s renowned scientists were Jewish. And it was in his war against Judaism that he had triggered the Second World War. So how could those scientists remain in the country? Einstein, whose theories would underlie the making of nuclear bombs, had moved to the United States, while Enrico Fermi, another titan of nuclear physics, had fled from Italy. Scientists from other European countries also crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the United States one by one.

Yet Hitler still had a chance. Under the leadership of Werner Heisenberg, a legend in quantum mechanics, a group of scientists and researchers were assigned to the nuclear bomb project. Intelligence of this quickly reached the other side of the Atlantic.

A nuclear bomb in Hitler’s hands! Naturally, it made the thinkers across the world worried. Experts were already seeing evidence of Hitler’s madness on the battlefield. If this psycho-type man developed the nuclear bomb first, the entire world would be at risk. The Allied powers had to act before that. Britain was not in a position to start a nuclear programme. Russia? Was the Soviet Union that advanced in modern physics? So, the Americans were the only hope. Their geographical location still kept them out of Hitler’s reach. Their universities and laboratories opened their arms wide for Europe’s finest minds. High salaries, houses, cars, advanced labs—everything was there! Europe’s top scientists flocked there in droves. That’s why Einstein wrote to Roosevelt, urging immediate action to stop Hitler. That is, nuclear weapons had to be used to counter Hitler’s nuclear weapons. But even then, Einstein was not convinced that something like an atomic bomb could be made in a laboratory. So, he wasn’t too worried.

Meanwhile, the US government and military leaders took the matter very seriously. Thus began the Manhattan Project led by astrophysicist and nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer. That was in 1941. That same year, on December 1, the United States entered the war. They then formally launched the Manhattan Project.

In 1937, Niels Bohr and Archibald Wheeler published a foundational research paper on nuclear fusion in the famous American journal Physical Review. Even then, whispers about the feasibility of the nuclear bomb began circulating among scientists.

Experiments on nuclear fission began in various European countries. In France, the work was started by Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie, daughter and son-in-law of Marie and Pierre Curie; in Germany by Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann and Lise Meitner. In 1938, Hitler began the most horrific genocide in history against the Jews. Jewish by birth, Meitner fled to Sweden in fear of her life. There she continued her research with her nephew Otto Frisch. On the other hand, she maintained regular contact with Hahn and Strassmann.

April 30, 1945. Facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler shot himself in the head and committed suicide. After that, Germany was devastated and scattered. American and British forces flooded into the country. One of their teams was tasked with finding traces of Germany’s nuclear bomb project—whether Hitler had actually initiated such a programme, and if so, how far it had progressed. The team did indeed discover Hitler’s nuclear laboratory. Ten nuclear scientists associated with it were captured: Erich Bagge, Kurt Diebner, Walther Gerlach, Paul Harteck, Horst Korsching, Max von Laue, Karl Wirtz, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Werner Heisenberg, and Otto Hahn. They were detained in a house named Farm Hall in an English village.

However, the American soldiers did not treat these scientists like other prisoners. They weren’t even interrogated in that way. Instead, a spy microphone was installed in the room where they were detained. The scientists would discuss among themselves, and surely, they would talk about their work and progress. The Americans’ strategy worked very well.

December 1945. Hitler had died long ago. But the war had not yet ended. Japan was continuing the war alone. Just then, America had completed all preparations for the atomic bomb. On July 16 of that year, the first atomic bomb was detonated in the Jornada del Muerto desert in the state of New Mexico. In history, this is known as the Trinity Test. After this successful explosion, it was time for the real field test, and revenge also. Exactly five years earlier, on December 6, 1941, Japan had attacked the US airbase at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,400 people. Five years later, on December 6, 1945, the US dropped the first atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Hiroshima; and on December 9, Little Boy was dropped on Nagasaki. Instantly, 214,000 people were killed. Due to radiation, another 200,000 died later from various illnesses.

Whether this nuclear bomb, earned at the cost of over 400,000 lives, is a blessing or a curse is still hard to say. For example, about 20 days before this event, following the Trinity Test, the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Otto Hahn. At the time, he was still imprisoned at Farm Hall in England. Though he received the award, after the Hiroshima-Nagasaki incident, Otto Hahn wanted to commit suicide, horrified by the devastating consequences of his discovery. Guards had to intoxicate him with alcohol to calm the situation.

Walther Gerlach also wanted to commit suicide, though perhaps not because of the Japanese deaths. As a scientist on the losing side of the war, he feared public condemnation. On the other hand, von Weizsäcker said, “America has shown the pinnacle of brutality. Simply barbaric behaviour.” In reply, Heisenberg said, “This is the fastest way to end the war.”

The order for the atomic bombing of Japan came from then US President Harry Truman. He had no remorse. In fact, he took pride in it. On the other hand, Oppenheimer was crushed by the horror in Japan. He rushed to Truman and said, “The hands of scientists are stained with blood today.”

Smirking, Truman pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Oppenheimer, saying, “Wipe it off.”

Needless to say, Truman was furious with Oppenheimer after this incident. Later, he told military official Lilienthal, “Make sure that this son of a bitch never comes near me again. That crybaby scientist!” Thereafter, Oppenheimer came under the cursed gaze of the US administration. That is a story for another day.

In fact, Oppenheimer had become like the proverbial axe that strikes its own foot. Was Einstein not another such axe? It is said that a journalist once asked Einstein, “The Second World War ended with the nuclear bomb. What do you think humans will use in the Third World War?”

Einstein replied, “I don’t know what weapons will be used in the Third World War. But in the Fourth, humans will have nothing left but sticks and stones.”

This is a terrifying indication of humanity’s regression. Scientists make discoveries for the welfare of humanity, but the powerful use those discoveries to sketch blueprints for human destruction. To them, science is a kind of commodity. A product to be sold, a tool for killing people under the guise of establishing peace, and ultimately a suicidal axe striking its own foot.

Abdul Gaffar Roni: Science writer