You can't blame the bomb on Einstein, beyond his signing a letter Szilard and Teller wrote for him to get Roosevelt's attention in 1941 or so. Although the bomb depended in principle on the equivalance of mass and energy stated in e=mc2, it was recognizable as feasible on particle-physics rather than relativistic grounds, as soon as Meitner and Hahn had correctly identified the ecay of uranium in 1938.
--jks
--jks
In a message dated Wed, 6 Sep 2000 5:46:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com> writes:
<< >Maybe they would have gotten there if he hadn't, but maybe not. E was one
>of those rare figures of genuinely outre genius, like Newton and very few
>others, that you get once every four of five centuries if you are lucky.
>--jks
Lucky, huh? Without Einstein there wouldn't have been any atomic bomb. I'd say once every four or five centuries for a gift like that is plenty.
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