ATOMIC FORCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 200, 24 August 1945, Page 5

ATOMIC FORCE

USE IN PEACETIME

Immediate Prospects Not Promising Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, Aug. 23. Sir George Thomson, head of the British scientists who worked on the production of the atomic bomb, said he could not see atomic force being used in motor cars and aeroplanes for about a century. Sir George added that moralists who were proclaiming against the wickedness of the bomb's use were wrong. It was much better that the atomic bomb should have been used and its power shown than that it should have been developed by the various Governments in competition and made secretly without any knowing whether a rival was on the point of success or if the weapon really had the power expected from it. Now it was at least known what could be expected and that knowledge would be the greatest force for peace and sanity. He did . not agree that these advantages could be possessed if scientists had refused to develop it. They pressed on with desperate energy to develop their knowledge, the object being to finish off the Japanese war. Except for local radio activity, the effects of the atomic bomb are completely harmless until the moment of detonation, says the New York Herald-Tribune; in an editorial. There would seem to be no way in which the defender could explode them prematurely. There was no technical reason why the United States should not manufacture and store enough of them to blow half the world's cities to bits at a few hours' notice. Peaceable uses for the new power were less immediately promising. There was no present prospect of chaining and utilising the energy released by the bomb.