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The question was: could you expect to explain an atomic bomb and its power to someone at the turn of the 20th century? The answer is clearly: yes. Knowing the

by evgen 3y ago

The question was: could you expect to explain an atomic bomb and its power to someone at the turn of the 20th century? The answer is clearly: yes. Knowing the specific structure of the atom is _not_ required for this. The point was to prove that something was not necessarily 'magic' and the example selected was a bad example, because we can actually show that people were on the cusp of figuring it out themselves and would not have a hard time following an ELI5 overview. Are you providing information they do not have at hand? Yes. Will a reasonably well-read person of the era understand your explanation of how such a device would work? Yes.

somenameforme 3y ago
Don't be simple. You obviously know that's not what I said, it's like a quarter of a page above where you're posting! What I said: --- "Imagine telling something at the turn of the 20th century that soon a weapon the size of a small table would have a kill radius of multiple miles. I mean you can obviously imagine it, but it seems kind of silly to think about being actually real, until it turns out it is." --- So yes, give somebody from an era an absolute ton of information on things they had 0 knowledge of and 0 reason to think existed, and sure - they can begin to understand how a nuclear weapon might actually be viable. And that's the point. And the same will undoubtedly be true for countless other discoveries as we continue to advance our understanding of the universe. Something like e.g. faster than light travel is obviously easy to imagine today, but we still have 0 knowledge of anything* that might enable it, let alone how such things might work, and so it remains strictly in the domain of fantasy. Yet 50 years from now, it might simply be something everybody takes for granted. Because we don't know what we don't know. * - not strictly true, but you probably think it is - and this is outside the context of this post in either case.

by evgen 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

Don't be simple. You obviously know that's not what I said, it's like a quarter of a page above where you're posting! What I said: --- "Imagine telling something at the turn of the 20th century that soon a weapon the size of a small table would have a kill radius of multiple miles. I mean you can obviously imagine it, but it seems kind of silly to think about being actually real, until it turns out it is." --- So yes, give somebody from an era an absolute ton of information on things they had 0 knowledge of and 0 reason to think existed, and sure - they can begin to understand how a nuclear weapon might actually be viable. And that's the point. And the same will undoubtedly be true for countless other discoveries as we continue to advance our understanding of the universe. Something like e.g. faster than light travel is obviously easy to imagine today, but we still have 0 knowledge of anything* that might enable it, let alone how such things might work, and so it remains strictly in the domain of fantasy. Yet 50 years from now, it might simply be something everybody takes for granted. Because we don't know what we don't know. * - not strictly true, but you probably think it is - and this is outside the context of this post in either case.