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We got lucky that the nazis banned and expelled legitimate science and scientists on political grounds. This ensured that their science progress stagnated thus
by abraxas 6y ago
We got lucky that the nazis banned and expelled legitimate science and scientists on political grounds. This ensured that their science progress stagnated thus preventing them from acquiring nukes in time to change the course of the war.
- solarhoma 6y agoI’m not sure developing nuclear weapons by any nation was a good thing. We would be better off without nuclear weapons and the MAD associated.
- the_af 6y agoNot disagreeing with you, but I'm sure we can all agree nukes in the hands of Nazi Germany would have been an unmitigated disaster.
- hilbertseries 6y agoHard to say, nuclear weapons have also prevented WWIII so far.
- ezoe 6y agoI strongly doubt that. It's the global supply chain that prevent the another WW.
- hilbertseries 6y agoYou think the global supply chain is what prevented outright war between the US and Russia during the cold war?
- shadowgovt 6y agoIt's both. MAD gave breathing room for a global supply chain unhindered by another continent-consuming transnational conflict.
- diab0lic 6y agoWhile there have been conflicts and violence, and the period of time following the development of nuclear weapons has been too short to say definitively, we've had unprecedented levels of peace since the development of nuclear weapons.
- colechristensen 6y agoOne has to come to the conclusion that it was inevitable. The simplest fission bomb is trivially simple to describe once the physics are known. Not trivial to make without the resources of a major industrial nation, but the actual simplest mechanism is essentially just sufficiently purifying two lumps of a metal of sufficient size and quickly smashing them together. You don’t get modern technology, say the transistor, without nuclear inevitability.
- shadowgovt 6y agoIt's hard to imagine some country wouldn't have pulled it off. The physics were beginning to be understood (and it's worth remembering: until the first test detonations, the actual power of the weapons was not well understood. Granted, once it was understood, the country that developed them did choose to deploy them on a civilian populace...).
- sateesh 6y agoBut do remember an unknown number of them were persecuted and probably killed. We don't how better the world would have been if all those lives curtailed made their fullest contribution.