Frases de Samuel Cohen

Samuel Theodore Cohen fue un físico estadounidense.

✵ 25. enero 1921 – 28. noviembre 2010
Samuel Cohen Foto
Samuel Cohen: 8   frases 0   Me gusta

Samuel Cohen: Frases en inglés

“Genius, when applied to human problems, can manifest itself in strange ways”

(Speaking about Edward Teller)
F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)
Contexto: He was all in favor of fighting an all-out thermonuclear war that might devastate a fair fraction of civilization, to settle an argument with the USSR, but was dead set against using discriminate nuclear weapons that could settle arguments on the battlefield without devastating everything in sight. Genius, when applied to human problems, can manifest itself in strange ways.

“Teller’s irascible behavior forced him out of the mainstream but not out of the lab, thanks to Oppenheimer who didn’t think we should be without geniuses, even those whose enormous egos caused serious friction. As bright and innovative as Teller was, his overall performance during the war left a lot to be desired. He was not content to be part of a team effort (like yours truly) and preferred to work off to the side on new and different and sometime pretty far-out ideas (like yours truly). This caused considerable resentment. After all there was a war going on and most people thought future nuclear weapon concepts should be worked on sometime in the future, after we had finished our primary assignment. Edward’s behavior was like a colonel on a planning staff during a military campaign who tells his commanding general that he’d like to plan for the next war. That would be the end of the colonel, who would be demoted and shipped off to some base in the Aleutian Islands.
[5]Oppenheimer, however, realized that guys like Teller, despite their shortcomings, were necessary to have around; one never knows when a guy like that can be worth his weight in gold, which to the best of my recollection never happened with Teller. So an arrangement was worked out where Teller and a handful of like-minded theoretical physicists, willing to put up with his domineering ways, formed a small group dedicated to doing what they pleased, realizing their efforts stood precious little chance of impacting on the project.
[5]The one idea dearest to Teller’s heart was the H-bomb. He and a couple of his cronies applied themselves to devising various schemes on designing such a weapon. All of them turned out to be impractical and most of them unworkable. Which never slowed him down in the slightest for reasons we’ll never know nor will he. I’ve known Edward for a very long time and although I’ve never known him well, one thing about him became clear to me from the very beginning: he was a creature possessed. By what? Again, who knows? Many, if not most, who have read about his life and what he has done, plus those who have known him directly and observed him close at hand and at great length, would say by Satan (which has been said all over the world about me). I wouldn’t go along with that and although I have seen Teller give some of the most impassioned statements morally defending his positions, some of which I have found deeply moving and thoroughly convincing, I would not say that the God I’ve been told exists has had a tight hold on him. If Edward has been possessed by anyone it’s been himself. I’d say the same for myself, and I’ve given you some reasons why, but hardly all of them. I don’t know all of them and would be ashamed to tell you if I did.”

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

“As you can well imagine, any nuclear bombing study that neglected to target Moscow would be laughed out of the room. (That is, no study at that time; 10 or 15 years later senior policy officials were debating how good an idea this might be. If you wiped out the political leadership of the Soviet Union in the process, who would you deal with in arranging for a truce and who would be left to run the country after the war?) Consequently, two of RAND’s brightest mathematicians were assigned the task of determining, with the help of computers, in great detail, precisely what would happen to the city were a bomb of so many megatons dropped on it. It was truly a daunting task and called for devising a mathematical model unimaginably complex; one that would deal with the exact population distribution, the precise location of various industries and government agencies, the vulnerability of all the important structures to the bomb’s effects, etc., etc. However, these two guys were up to the task and toiled in the vineyards for some months, finally coming up with the results. Naturally, they were horrendous.”

Harold Mitchell, a medical doctor, an expert on human vulnerability to the H-bomb’s effects, told me when the study first began: “Why are they wasting their time going through all this shit? You know goddamned well that a bomb this big is going to blow the fucking city into the next county. What more do you have to know?” I had to agree with him.
F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Autores similares

Arthur Compton Foto
Arthur Compton 2
Físico estadounidense
Steven Weinberg Foto
Steven Weinberg 8
físico estadounidense
Max Planck Foto
Max Planck 7
físico alemán
Niels Bohr Foto
Niels Bohr 12
físico danés
Robert Andrews Millikan Foto
Robert Andrews Millikan 8
físico estadounidense
Hannes Alfvén Foto
Hannes Alfvén 9
físico sueco
Richard Feynman Foto
Richard Feynman 64
físico estadounidense y premio Nobel
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli Foto
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli 7
físico austríaco
Louis de Broglie Foto
Louis de Broglie 10
físico francés
Albert Einstein Foto
Albert Einstein 275
físico germano-estadounidense, creador de la teoría de la r…