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The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project

23 points by dsr12 8y ago

pjc50 8y ago
Executive summary: this is a pitch for the idea that Ashkenazni Jews are uniquely intelligent, and that this might be linked to certain genetic diseases. The latter should be food for thought for those people that want to CRISPR out poorly understood genetic diseases. The former, like all instances of "race science", should be regarded with extreme caution. "For centuries, Europe was sitting on this vast untapped resource of potential geniuses. Around 1880, in a few countries only, economic and political conditions finally became ripe for the potential to be realized. The result was one of the greatest spurts of progress in scientific history, bringing us relativity, quantum mechanics, nuclear bombs, dazzling new mathematical systems, the foundations of digital computing, and various other abstruse ideas I don’t even pretend to understand. This lasted for approximately one generation, after which a psychopath with a stupid mustache killed everyone involved."
- julienreszka 8y ago
  ok that's interesting
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- lowry 8y ago
  There is a lot in this article that explains the behaviour of the psychopath.
- jarfil 8y ago
  Moral of the story being that if people hate you, and you go on to prove that you're actually better that them... there will come some psychopath who will use their jealousy to make them kill you.
tzs 8y ago
The breakdown of famous Jewish Manhattan Project physicists by country of origin appears to only be looking at those born outside the US. But surely many of the US born Jewish physicists on the Project had parents who emigrated to the US. For example, Oppenheimer's parents came from Germany. Feynman's father came from Belarus. Olum's father was from Russia. For the purposes of the article, shouldn't these be counted as coming from those countries?
- dmurray 8y ago
  Well, the thesis of the article is that both nurture and nature contributed to the success of the Hungarian Jewish scientists. The author says Hungary had an excellent education system and Jews were no longer persecuted there, allowing their children to pursue a scientific education. For the "nurture" part of the argument, Feynman and Oppenheimer certainly count as American.

23 points by dsr12 8y ago

Executive summary: this is a pitch for the idea that Ashkenazni Jews are uniquely intelligent, and that this might be linked to certain genetic diseases. The latter should be food for thought for those people that want to CRISPR out poorly understood genetic diseases. The former, like all instances of "race science", should be regarded with extreme caution. "For centuries, Europe was sitting on this vast untapped resource of potential geniuses. Around 1880, in a few countries only, economic and political conditions finally became ripe for the potential to be realized. The result was one of the greatest spurts of progress in scientific history, bringing us relativity, quantum mechanics, nuclear bombs, dazzling new mathematical systems, the foundations of digital computing, and various other abstruse ideas I don’t even pretend to understand. This lasted for approximately one generation, after which a psychopath with a stupid mustache killed everyone involved."

julienreszka 8y ago
ok that's interesting
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lowry 8y ago
There is a lot in this article that explains the behaviour of the psychopath.
jarfil 8y ago
Moral of the story being that if people hate you, and you go on to prove that you're actually better that them... there will come some psychopath who will use their jealousy to make them kill you.

tzs 8y ago

The breakdown of famous Jewish Manhattan Project physicists by country of origin appears to only be looking at those born outside the US. But surely many of the US born Jewish physicists on the Project had parents who emigrated to the US. For example, Oppenheimer's parents came from Germany. Feynman's father came from Belarus. Olum's father was from Russia. For the purposes of the article, shouldn't these be counted as coming from those countries?

dmurray 8y ago
Well, the thesis of the article is that both nurture and nature contributed to the success of the Hungarian Jewish scientists. The author says Hungary had an excellent education system and Jews were no longer persecuted there, allowing their children to pursue a scientific education. For the "nurture" part of the argument, Feynman and Oppenheimer certainly count as American.