On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 11:16:38 -0500 ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> writes:
> Hakki Alacakaptan wrote:
> > || From: ravi
> >
> > || hakki, || || i posted y'day a link to the actual letters
> > themselves from the bohr || archive. i do not see, from a reading
> > of the letters, how the || controversy is any further resolved
> than
> > before.
> >
> > The letters are only part of the story.
> >
>
> my point is an extension of that. there is a story that tries to
> show
> that heisenberg's version is wrong and further, as you seem to
> claim, he
> was an enthusiastic nazi. these letters dont reveal anything more
> than
> what is already stated in that story (the letters confirm what is
> stated
> as bohr's view in the various versions of the incident).
>
>
> > Maybe Heisenberg was out of practice. In 1935, the Nazis declared
> > quantum physics and relativity "Jewish science" and banned it.
> > Werner didn't object or leave. Not surprising, since Werner was a
> > fascist since 17. He'd taken part in the bloody suppression of
> the
> > Bavarian soviet in 1918.
>
>
> can your provide more details on this and H's fascist connections?
Heisenberg himself made mention of his participation in the Freikorps at the time of the abortive 1919 revolution, in his memoir *Physics & Beyond*. Although, many of the early Nazis were recruited from the Freikorps, it doesn't necessarily follow that Heisenberg himself was a Nazi. As far as I can tell, he was in terms of his politics, basically a rightwing nationalist. I don't get the impression that he was ever an antisemite, and he was always pretty open, even at the height of the Third Reich, about his admiration for Einstein. On the other hand he was certainly well connected to leading people in the Third Reich. His family had long been close terms with the Himmler family. And during the war, the Nazi regime did not seem to hold his refusal to join the Nazi Party against him, when they appointed him to head their atomic bomb project.
I am rather skeptical of the claim that he deliberately sabotaged the German a-bomb project. I think he very much wanted Germany to win the war. I think that the project failed, primarily because the German government was unwilling to commit to it the sorts of resources that the US government committed to the Manhatten Project. And I also, think while Heisenberg, was certainly one of the 20th century's greatest physicists, he was not especially talented as a project leader. Whereas, in contrast, with the Manhatten Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, while an excellent (but not quite Nobel Prize caliber) physicist, truly excelled as a project leader. The fact that Heisenberg may have made some mistakes in his equations is not in of itself all that important. Everybody, even the greatest, make mistakes. But in a properly led and coordinated project, mistakes ought to be readily detected and corrected, without crippling the project. I suspect that it was the lack of resources combined with Heisenberg's failings as a project leader that doomed the German a-bomb project.
> lot
> of people did not up and leave but is that reason enough to call
> them
> nazi? where do you stand on the nazi accusations against the other
> H:
> heidegger?
At this point can there be much doubt about Heiddeger's Naziism?
>
>
> > But Bohr's letter catches Werner at his game, and nails down his
> > position for all to see: Heisenberg was trying his damnedest to
> make
> > an A-bomb to win the war for Hitler. He just wasn't any good at
> it.
>
>
> again, i do not see how bohr's letters does this. bohr says:
>
> a) H and W's visit was clearly motivated by their concern for bohr
> and
> co's well-being.
>
> b) H believed that the nazis would win the war and felt that it
> would be
> better for bohr to be more receptive to them.
>
> c) H says he was working on the german a-bomb project and was aware
> of
> the necessary details (H has not denied that he was working on the
> project). further H says that he believes if the war lasts long
> enough
> it will be resolved by means such as the use of an a-bomb.
>
> d) bohr finds that there was no indication in H's words that he (H)
> was
> working to retard the german project (a view that bohr has stated
> before
> and is documented i.e., the letters do not introduce this view of
> bohr's).
>
> e) in a later visit to copenhagen jensen informed bohr that the
> german
> physicists were looking for radioactive elements for energy
> generation
> purposes.
>
> f) W made some remark about how H's work would lead to the german
> victory (this is the only damning piece i see).
>
> so we are left with W's remark and bohr's feeling that H said
> nothing
> that conveyed to bohr that H was attempting to slow down german
> a-bomb
> research.
>
> --ravi
>
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