Albert Einstein was a significant person during World War II. According to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, no other scientist has contributed more to our perspective of reality, related to physics, more than Albert Einstein. Einstein spent his early life as a citizen of Germany and graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic, as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics, in 1990. Einstein worked primarily independently on completing a variety of publications in theoretical physics until 1909. The most well known work of his collection is a paper that Einstein produced in 1905 which discusses his famous theory of relativity.
Einstein spent much of his life as a citizen of Germany, he was one of the few scientists who stayed a pacifist and didn’t support the nation’s war goals. Even though the Allies excluded many German scientists from international meetings after the war, they included Einstein because they understood his perspective concerning the conflict. With his Zionist and Pacifist political views, the Germans labeled Einstein as a traitor. Einstein then left Germany and devoted his work to make contributions to the United States. Einstein agreed that Germany needed to put down using powerful weaponry. In 1939, Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to warn him that Germany was developing an atomic bomb and encourage Roosevelt to create an atomic bomb before Germany could. According to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia this was a factor in Roosevelt’s decision to fund the Manhattan Project. However, the United States Army Intelligence office didn’t allow Einstein to work on the project, due to security reasons. Scientists on the project were denied the right to even talk with Einstein.
Although Einstein never worked on the development, the association made between Einstein and nuclear weapons is often incorrect. The equation E=mc 2 serves as an explanation of the way that the atomic bomb works, but not the method to build it. Einstein stressed that constructing the atomic bomb would be a risk and must be done carefully. When Einstein was asked the reason for suggesting to Roosevelt that research should be done to develop the bomb, Einstein shared his regret. According to the American Museum of Natural History, if Einstein didn’t know that the Germans would not succeed in developing the bomb, then he would have never made the suggestion to Roosevelt to carry out the research and production.
The story of Einstein’s connection to the Manhattan Project should really serve as a model for people that have any sort of valuable intelligence. It’s important to be careful with making the decision to share that information. As easy as it is to trust humanity making the right decisions, we need to understand the fact that sometimes they really don’t. We have a responsibility, just as Einstein notes, for any outcome that we contribute to. We must take this seriously and realize that the thoughts that we express could lead to events come to define the relationship between nations.
Work Cited
“Albert Einstein.” About The Atom. Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1998. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. http://gk12.rice.edu/trs/science/Atom/einstein.htm
“Albert Einstein Peace and War”. American Museum of Natural History. Nov. 2002. Web. 18 Mar. 2012. http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/peace/manhattan.php