[HN Gopher] Last surviving scientist on Japan's atomic bomb prog...
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Last surviving scientist on Japan's atomic bomb program tells his
story
Author : ta8645
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-01-13 12:22 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| dxs wrote:
| "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes, best
| nonfiction book I ever read. Covers German and Japanese efforts,
| as well as giving a history of modern physics, beginning way back
| in the 19th century.
|
| Did you know that Einstein was strikingly muscular, and at one
| point in his life had been deeply religious, until deciding that
| much of religion was "lies"?
|
| There is also a frightening history of World War I, of Jews in
| Europe, and biographies all the scientists involved in the US
| nuclear effort. Totally amazing.
|
| I also read "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb", and
| "Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the
| Holocaust". The latter is deeply, profoundly, sickeningly
| graphic, and contains more information than you ever knew
| existed.
| credit_guy wrote:
| Absolutely, Richard Rhodes's book is a gem. You not only read
| about the Manhattan project, you read about the entire history
| of Europe between 1900 and WW2, with a bit more focus on
| quantum physics developments.
|
| More specifically about the Japan's atomic program, I found
| "Atomic Adventures" by James Mahaffey to give a slightly better
| coverage. Bonus: you will also understand the origin of the
| UFOs. Bonus 2: you'll get a very funny/sad first hand account
| of the first cold fusion debacle.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Richard Rhodes' books are essential reading for anyone
| interested in the history of nuclear weapons and their
| development. I will add a second reference, "The First War of
| Physics" by Jim Baggott which covers the American, German and
| Soviet weapons programs. Not much on Japan's plans though.
| ahsteele wrote:
| I would include Command and Control on a list of essential
| nuclear history reading. Specifically US and post WWII but
| fascinating and enlightening.
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)
| miguelazo wrote:
| Recommend "The Bastard Brigade" (The True Story of the Renegade
| Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb) by Sam
| Kean. Crazy stories, larger than life characters.
| pcardoso wrote:
| Speaking of WW2 spies, this is a crazy larger than life
| character.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garcia
| selimthegrim wrote:
| How is Edwin Black on the Holocaust? I thought he was pretty
| good, but I caught him writing some terribly inaccurate stuff
| about early Islamic history recently, and was disappointed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
|
| What scares me most is that the political climate is such that
| I'm fairly sure that some country will go down this path again.
| Too many wannabe camp guards at large already.
| mock-possum wrote:
| I really feel like my childhood education did me a disservice
| by fostering the misconception that there was something
| special or unique about Nazis - there wasn't. Not only are
| there potential nazis everywhere, there are fractional and
| even full-blown-but-less-institutionally-powerful nazis
| everywhere. In our own country, in our communities, at work,
| on the bus, in the government.
|
| Wannabe camp guards indeed. It was a sickening and sobering
| realization as an adult.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| On one hand, what you say is the most important lesson
| IMHO, but I don't think it goes far enough down that path:
|
| You and I are biologically the same as people who became
| Nazis; we have the same potential in us. When we imagine we
| are not is when we do wrong. Lots of ordinary Germans;
| smart, sophisticated people; and other people in many
| countries supported the Nazis.
|
| At the same time, the people who embrace Naziism, or go
| along, or tacitly allow it, also have good in them. A
| tactic of such ideologies is a display of aggression, to
| scare you off; it's a political tactic that solidifies
| their movement by distancing members from everyone else; it
| also dehumanizes outsiders (also through disdain from
| them), allowing violence. In the end, it's a tactic, a
| display, a barking, scared dog. It may bite, but they are
| the same as we are, and have the same good inside, and have
| allowed themselves to be misled.
|
| The classic citation is to Hannah Arendt's 'banality of
| evil':
|
| https://iep.utm.edu/hannah-arendt/#H6
| wrs wrote:
| "Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to
| the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another
| 1/3, while 1/3 watches."
|
| -- William Pannapacker writing as @WernerTwertzog
| mistrial9 wrote:
| from a psychology point of view, a "warning" with scary
| words just adds fuel to crisis-mentality, the last thing
| that anyone wants in a general population. Literally,
| since the one-third plus one-third plus one-third equals
| "everyone" .. the quote instills fear. Though it may be
| insightful in an ugly way, repeating this kind of thing
| with emphasis is how to start fires IMHO
| krapp wrote:
| Some Americans are waking up to an awareness that many
| other Americans have had all along.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Wait till you learn how bad the Commies were! And there was
| nothing special or unique about them either.
| Snow_Falls wrote:
| Its always strange to me that as soon as fascism is
| mentioned, someone absolutely has to bring up communism.
| It's like clockwork.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Read more history.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I really feel like my childhood education did me a
| disservice by fostering the misconception that there was
| something special or unique about Nazis_
|
| The point of WW2 propaganda was to demonzie Nazis so much,
| and to distance them so much from the likes of you, me or
| your neighbour, in order to dehumanzie them in order to
| justify going to war with them and make killing them easier
| on the psyche for those who had to pull the trigger or send
| their sons on the battlefield to die fighting them, becasue
| in WW1 they discovered humans don't naturally want to kill
| other humans and will hesitate to pull the trigger making
| them shit soldiers, but if you demonzie and dehumanize the
| enemy enough, that hesitation loosens.
|
| It's basic war propaganda 1-0-1. You now just realized
| Nazis are literally everywhere, not just in 1939 Germany.
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| This. The more history you read the more it becomes clear
| that basically everyone was a Nazi before the 20th
| century. Even Marx and Lenin were white supremacists and
| FDR, Woodrow Wilson and other liberals were too or at
| least appeased Nazis. LBJ was probably the first anti-
| Nazi president
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| From what I can see, many of wannabe camp guards claim very
| loudly and aggressively to be anti fascist.
|
| But you better not question their ideals or beliefs or you're
| a nazi and "it's always morally ok to kill nazis", their
| words, not mine.
|
| What scares me is that it seems like actually believe these
| people when they say they are the anti-fascists. To me
| they're just goose steppers of another stripe.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| People like this scare me:
|
| https://wingolog.org/archives/2017/09/04/the-hardest-
| thing-a...
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| The far left are just as problematic as the far right, but
| the clear and present danger we are facing now is not from
| the far left - it wasn't them who stormed the Capitol.
|
| Edit: perhaps someone can explain to me the clear and
| present danger from the far left?
| krapp wrote:
| >The far left are just as problematic as the far right
|
| No, they aren't. It is virtually impossible for the far
| left to become as problematic as the far right, because
| the right wing in the US intersects with the vast
| cultural and financial power of the gun lobby and
| conservative Christianity, whereas the left is primarily
| composed of minority groups systemically oppressed and
| disenfranchised by the system. Unless you can drape your
| message in the iconography of the flag and the cross you
| can't have real power in American politics. That's baked
| in, down to the electoral college, which is designed to
| give rural American (more likely to be right-leaning)
| votes more power than urban (more likely to be left-
| leaning) votes so as to preserve the status quo, which is
| white, Conservative, capitalist and Christian.
|
| Every left-wing movement in the US has been infiltrated,
| undermined and eventually crushed by the right. Occupy no
| longer exists. BLM no longer exists. Go back to the 60s -
| MLK, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Weather Underground.
| Bernie, the closest thing the US has to a mainstream
| socialist, was quickly swept aside by his own, supposedly
| "leftist" party, meanwhile Trump is still the frontrunner
| to win in 2024 and QAnon is still a viable political and
| cultural movement. Native Americans protesting pipelines
| get beaten, white Americans showing up to the White House
| with guns and Nazi flags get welcomed in. Show me an
| anti-war protest in the US that mattered. Vietnam, Iraq,
| Israel, Americans protesting in the millions, all
| definitionally "leftist." none of it mattered.
|
| I mean, I _wish_ the far left were just as problematic.
| At least then we would live in a somewhat equitable
| society where all political points of view had equal
| weight, an actual marketplace of ideas. But we don 't,
| and really the only place the left is allowed to exist
| without facing the violence of the state is online, where
| it does far more harm to itself with endless infighting,
| purity spirals and factionism than to the system it
| opposes.
| dgfitz wrote:
| As soon as the far-$party figures out they "win" when
| moving more towards the center, is when the 2-party
| system implodes.
|
| Fortunately, far too many people in "power" have ego
| problems for this to ever actually become a problem.
|
| Until then, we will continue to get action/reaction like
| has happened in American politics for the past few
| cycles.
| bequanna wrote:
| > Occupy no longer exists. BLM no longer exists.
|
| Are you implying those groups were infiltrated and
| sabotaged by the alt right baddies and that is why they
| failed?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Whether or not that's true, I think it does support the
| claim that the far left is not as dangerous as far right
| groups of similar popularity - the latter appear to
| endure for much longer and have much more political
| impact.
| krapp wrote:
| Not by the "alt-right baddies" per se, but the history of
| infiltration against "subversive" groups by American law
| enforcement and intelligence - in particular against
| black activist groups - is long and well documented. When
| it comes to leftist activism in the US I assume
| COINTELPRO by default.
|
| Similar effort against right-wing groups is more limited
| and politically difficult because such groups would be
| considered militias protected by the Second Amendment.
| It's much easier to get away with suppressing left-wing
| speech than right-wing violence in the US.
|
| - https://www.nlg.org/cointelpro-disrupting-resistance-
| movemen...
|
| - https://www.democracynow.org/2023/2/7/alphabet_boys_pod
| cast_...
| whynotminot wrote:
| Kill you with what? A butter knife? The far left has
| crazies. The far right has crazies with guns.
| horeszko wrote:
| > Kill you with what? A butter knife? The far left has
| crazies. The far right has crazies with guns.
|
| History has shown time and again that when motivated it
| is not difficult for any side to acquire arms.
|
| So your comparison is irrelevant in that as soon as
| someone wants arms they will acquire them.
|
| Ultimately crazies are dangerous either way. It is
| dangerous to underestimate them or to say one crazy is
| better than another crazy. Comparing crazies is like
| saying one poison is healthier than another. Poison is
| poison.
| whynotminot wrote:
| > Ultimately crazies are dangerous either way.
|
| 100% true, but false equivalence can cause you to mis-
| prioritize a more pressing danger.
|
| People on the right are worried about the crazies on the
| left canceling them for using the wrong pronoun.
|
| People on every other part of the spectrum are worried
| about the far right literally ending our democracy. To be
| clear this is not hyperbole. Just watch a Trump rally
| these days--he has upped the rhetoric, even for him, to
| an alarming degree. And it's met with the frothing cheers
| of his followers.
| butterknife wrote:
| Hey! No need for name calling. :) I jest, I jest.
|
| There is a very long history of "left" bombings, going
| all the way to French Revolution. Did the modern left
| somehow lose the ability to inspire people capable of
| such actions?
| pharmakom wrote:
| Is there good evidence behind this view? I don't mean to be
| rude, but I've only seen it from reactionary commentators
| and right-leaning news outlets.
| logicchains wrote:
| Did you not see antifa going around attacking people and
| buildings in the 2020 George Floyd riots?
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I saw them attack empty buildings, I never saw them
| attack people. I did see people attack antifa, and antifa
| did not fight back.
| atq2119 wrote:
| I think the view may technically be true, though of
| course the term "many" is very squishy. The best evidence
| for this is probably that (in countries with multiparty
| systems) you can often see surprisingly strong voter
| movement between the extreme parties.
|
| That said, to think that this matters is pretty nuts. In
| the entire western world today, the structural
| environment on the extreme left is strongly opposed to
| the idea of campus, while on the extreme right the idea
| is welcomed by a critical mass.
|
| In other words, the left polices itself. The right
| doesn't.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Did you know that Einstein was strikingly muscular_
|
| Any refferences in the book on how much he benched? Asking for
| a friend.
| presidentender wrote:
| Bench press wasn't a popular lift until the late 50s, so it's
| unlikely the man ever performed the motion, much less in such
| a way that anyone wrote down a PR.
| dekhn wrote:
| See also: Operation Paperclip https://www.amazon.com/Operation-
| Paperclip-Intelligence-Prog... although that mainly focuses on
| German military research and production of missles.
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