The Times MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1945. Atomic Possibilities Were Not So Very Secret

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 190, 13 August 1945, Page 4

The Times MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1945. Atomic Possibilities Were Not So Very Secret

On the eve of the outbreak of war the possibilities of the discovery of the atomic bomb were not so very secret. The British science journal “Discovery” of September 1939 contained the following editorial on the subject: “Some physicists think that, within a few months, science will have produced for military use an explosive a million times more violent than dynamite. It is no secret that laboratories in the United States, Germany, France and England have been working on it feverishly since the spring. It may not come off. The most competent opinion is divided upon whether the idea is practicable. If it is, science for the first time will at one bound have altered the scope of warfare. The power of most scientific weapons has been consistently exaggerated, but it would be difficult to exaggerate this. So there are two questions. AVI LI, it come off? How will the world be affected if it does? As to the practicability, most of our opinions are worth little. The most eminent physicist with whom I have discussed it thinks it improbable. I have talked to others who think it as good as done. In America, as soon as the possibility came to light, it seemed so urgent that a representative of American physicists telephoned the White House and arranged an interview with the President. That was about three months ago. And it is in America where the thing will in all probability be done, if it is done at all.

“The principle is fairly simple. ... Briefly it is this: A slow neutron knocks a uranium nucleus into two approximately equal pieces and two or more faster neutrons arc discharged at the same time. These faster neutrons go on to disintegrate other uranium nuclei and the process is self-accelerating. It is the old dream of the release of intra-atomic energy, suddenly made actual at a time when most scientists had long discarded it. Energy is gained by the trigger action of the first neutrons.

“The idea of the uranium bomb is to disintegrate in this manner an entire lump of uranium. As I have said, many physicists of sound judgment consider that the technical difficulties have already been removed, but their critics ask: If this scheme were really workable, why have not the great uranium mines (the biggest are in Canada and the Congo) blown themselves up long' ago? The percentage of uranium in pitchblende is very high, and there are always enough neutrons about to set such a trigger action going.

“Well, in such a scientific controversy, with some of the ablest physicists in the world on each side, it would be presumptuous to intrude. But on the result there may depend a good many lives and perhaps more than that.

For what will happen, if a new means of destruction, far more effective than any now existing, comes into our hands? I think most of us, certainly those working day and night this summer upon the problem in New York, are pessimistic about the result. We have seen too much of human selfishness and frailty to pretend that men can be trusted with a new weapon of gigantic power. Most scientists are by temperament fairly hopeful and simpleminded about political things, but in the last eight years that hope has been drained away. In our time, at least, life has been impoverished, and not enriched, by the invention of flight. AA r e cannot delude ourselves that this new invention will be better used.

“Yet it must be made, if it really is a physical possibility. If it is not made in America this year it may be next year in Germany. There is no ethical If the invention is not prevented by physical laws, it will certainly be carried out somewhere in the world. It is better, at any rate, that America should have six months’ start. But again, we must not pretend. Such an invention will never be kept secret. The physical principles are too obvious, and within a year every big laboratory on earth would have come to the same result. For a short time, perhaps, the United States Government may have this power entrusted to it, but soon it will be in less civilised hands.”

Writing on the subject in the same publication, Mr. D. AV. F. Mayer concludes an interesting article “ . . . Before optimistic speculators rush on ahead, however, let us point out that atomic power on a practical scale is still at present as far away a dream as ever, though we can, if we like, regard the first step towards the realisation of the dream as having been taken. Those who wish to speculate can _ ask themselves what society will make of atomic power should it come in the next century or so. Will it create a streamlined world where a pinch of salt is sufficient fuel for the Queen Mary, or shall we have a Wellsian chaos wdth each nation dropping bouquets of uranium bombs in a policy of encirclement?”