Atomic Scientist Research Articles

Broadcasting the ‘Voice of Science’ on America’s Town Meeting of the Air: Public Education, Popular Entertainment, and Post-World War II Scientific Ambivalence

This article examines the relationship between radio broadcasting and post-World War II discourses of scientific and technological ambivalence, specifically looking at a special broadcast of the America’s Town Meeting of the Air radio discussion program conducted at the 1946 George Westinghouse Centennial Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Titled ‘Science: Salvation or Destroyer of Mankind?’, the broadcast posited that there were two possible paths for science – one leading to future peace and prosperity, and the other bringing about world catastrophe. Here, the ‘voice of science’ – atomic scientist Harold C. Urey, microbiologist Selman A. Waksman, science reporter William L. Laurence, and medical doctor Herman N. Bundesen – addressed the new scientific challenges facing society after World War II, where the question of humanity’s future was presented as a matter of life and death. An examination of the rhetoric of this broadcast within the broader historical context of the George Westinghouse Centennial Forum demonstrates how the liberating or dangerous potentials of science intersected with the challenges of presenting science on the air, revealing some of the inherent contradictions in broadcasting’s relationship to science and placing radio itself in a position that parallels the ‘two sciences’ question posed on Town Meeting.

TRAINING OF SPECIALISTS FOR THE SOVIET ATOMIC INDUSTRY IN THE MEMOIRS OF CONTEMPORARIES

The article considers the training of specialists, who worked in the Soviet atomic industry, covering the period from 1945 to the 1960s — from the initiation of the Soviet Atomic Project until the establishment of atomic energy as one of the leading branches of the Soviet industry. The present study is based on published memoirs of students majoring in atomic physics and biographical narrative interviews of atomic scientists who studied at the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in the 1940s–1960s, conducted by one of the authors of the article. The training of atomic scientists consisted in the development of theoretical knowledge, as well as engineering and practical skills. The training was provided at various universities of the country, among which a prominent place was occupied by the Moscow State University, the Saint Petersburg State University, the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the Ural State Technical University along with the specialised faculties of other Soviet universities. The public mood (onset of the Cold War, romanticised image of an atomic scientist) and personal aptitudes of applicants (engineering and technical aptitudes) influenced the career choice. When selecting future atomic specialists, a number of «filters» were used, narrowing down the number of prospective candidates. Ideology, latent anti-Semitism and gender influenced student selection. The training of atomic scientists was conducted in secrecy, which was offset by various financial (high scholarship and, later, high salaries) and non-financial (being trained by outstanding scientists, professional fulfilment, patriotic feelings) incentives. The involvement of students during training in scientific and industrial activities resulted in an effective corps of atomic specialists. Following graduation, they worked in restricted-access cities (Arzamas-16, Chelyabinsk-70, etc.), as well as at research institutes exploring atomic issues.

Desert Oracle

Reviewed by: Desert Oracle James Craine Desert Oracle Desert Oracle PO Box 1735 Joshua Tree, CA 92252 $25 for four issues. www.desertoracle.com For many of us APCG folks, the desert holds a special place in our geographical hearts. While there is certainly much to be said and written in terms of arid lands research, there is always a mysterious and wondrous aspect to the desert that calls us to explore these regions and delve even deeper into their secrets. For some, it might be Coachella or the Desert Trip music festivals, or even Burning Man; it might be Joshua Tree or White Sands. For me, it was always the desert landscapes of Coconino County found in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat cartoon strip. One can always rely on a textbook to provide the academic knowledge of the desert. Sometimes, however, we need to go a little further to find the true nature of those landscapes, and for that we now have Desert Oracle magazine, the self-described “Voice of the Desert.” And what a voice it is. Issues generally begin with an “Our Desert Friends” section, which has covered the common desert centipede (which always has an odd-numbered set of leg pairs), the ring-tailed cat (aka the “Miner’s Cat” and the official state mammal of Arizona), the great desert horned owl, and Gambel’s quail, among other desert animals. There is a “These Desert Lands” section that highlights various, little-known factoids related to our deserts: filming the new Twin Peaks, Iggy Pop jogging in Joshua Tree, creating the cover of the first X album (lots of plywood and rubber cement), how The Eagles got their name (which of course involved a variety of substances), the famous Star Trek “Arena” episode filmed at Vasquez Rock (as was the famous “Zanti Misfits” episode of the original Outer Limits) [the place is, after all, named after Tiburcio Vasquez, one of California’s “most notorious bandits”]. Then there are, of course, stories on The Great Mojave Phone Booth (760-733-9969), Roswell, Area 51, Groom Lake, the Phoenix Lights, the Krill Papers, and all kinds of other UFO stories (go to the Sedona New Age Store for a UFO Sightseeing Tour). There is a great story of NASA astronauts undergoing “desert survival training” (just in case their returning capsule [End Page 260] missed the Pacific Ocean and landed in the desert); the mysterious Yucca Man (the California Sasquatch living in Joshua Tree National Park), and, of course, the fabled Jackalope. There are desert shaman and Dr. Curtis Springer’s Zzyzz mineral springs and the Mojave tui chub fish, “strange radio signals” (using the SW1 band of a shortwave radio, try 4078, 4089, 4096.6, 4097.25, and 6626.2), and, for Manson conspiricists, the “Satanic” legacy of the Amboy Crater. Most issues include a profile of some sort, such as Edward Abbey and his journeys through the Southwest deserts, how the lives of beat author William Burroughs and atomic scientist Robert Oppenheimer intersected in Los Alamos, and the story of Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads” album. Then there are the “advice”-type stories: how to buy desert land at auction (make sure you know the Assessor Parcel Number, and look out for past liens), how to “car-trip” in the desert, and getting ready for spring (basically how to scorpion-proof your desert home). My favorite line: “There are roadrunners and creosote, abandoned meth shacks, Mad Max characters bouncing down washboard roads in barely operable jalopies, low-altitude drones blinking in the sky by night, and towering thunderheads on a September day.” Somehow, these words bring the desert to life much more than any textbook. Desert Oracle is paperback-sized, and each issue runs around forty pages, complete with many archival photos and maps. [End Page 261] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 262] James Craine California State University, Northridge Copyright © 2017 Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

Persecution and Patronage: Oscar Buneman’s years in Britain

The German student Oscar Bunemann, in trouble with the Nazi authorities in the mid-1930s, chose to emigrate to Britain and pursue a PhD there. After emigration, his surname appears as Buneman. On the verge of completing his degree in 1940, he was detained as an enemy alien and spent almost a year in internment. Upon release, he found work as an atomic scientist in England, and went on to lead a post-war career as a pioneering plasma physicist in the USA.We study forced migration of European scientists before and during the Second World War, and scientific patronage in the host countries. Buneman’s case is interesting from several points of view. Being a non-Jewish, non-communist, anti-Nazi activist, he belongs to a group not much investigated by historians. His emigration from Germany was facilitated by his family’s business contacts in Britain. Being caught up in the wave of detainments of enemy aliens in 1940, he was assisted in pleading for release by the Society for the Protection of Science and Learn...

Seven Days to Noon: containing the atomic threat

AbstractThe 1950 Boulting Brothers film Seven Days to Noon is one of the earliest British films to engage with the atomic bomb and uses a number of strategies to contain the public fears of the super-weapon. When an atomic scientist steals one such device and threatens to detonate it in central London, an elaborate but efficient security system swings into action. Drawing on the imagery and practices of civil defence during the Second World War, central London is evacuated while the army hunts down the scientist, who is presented as undergoing a psychological crisis as a result of his work. Although he is finally located and the bomb disarmed, the film only achieves its reassuring message by suppressing the Communist threat from within (which would become the subject of Roy Boulting's 1951 film High Treason) and from abroad, which differentiates Seven Days from comparable American films of the period. Presenting an idealized version of Londoners' stoicism, the film actually shows the disproportion between the specifics of daily life in the city and the massive destruction the new weapon could wreak. The acquiescence of Londoners in their orderly evacuation is only possible because of their virtually total ignorance of the true nature of the bomb.

Nuclear scientists as assassination targets

Five scientists and engineers connected with Iran’s nuclear program have been killed or injured in recent confirmed or possible assassination attempts. It is unclear who is responsible, but the attacks raise unique policy questions about motives, effectiveness, repercussions, and legal and moral standards. Past assassination plots—including a US plan to kidnap or kill a German atomic scientist in World War II—suggest that such attempts are products of desperation: A nation tries to kill another country’s nuclear scientists when it sees no military or diplomatic options for addressing a perceived threat of existential proportions. The possible advantages of targeting another country’s nuclear scientists are modest at best, possibly delaying (but not halting) a nuclear weapons program while providing some deniability to the attacking country. The disadvantages are many, including the possibility that assassinations will inspire retaliation, reduce the likelihood of a diplomatic solution, and increase the difficulties international regulators face in monitoring a covert nuclear program. In the abstract, moral and legal strictures also weigh against such assassination efforts. As a practical matter, however, if the existential imperative is present, it will likely trump legal and ethical considerations when a nation contemplates assassinating nuclear scientists.

A Nuclear Narrative: Robert Oppenheimer, Autobiography, and Public Authority

This article explores the rhetorical strategies employed by Robert Oppenheimer in a personal narrative he wrote in 1954, defending himself against McCarthy-era charges that he was unfit for continued government employment. It argues that this personal narrative was central to establishing his public authority at this culturally tense moment, particularly in terms of his standing as a trustworthy atomic scientist.

La colombe et les mouches. Frédéric Joliot-Curie et le pacifisme des savants

The Dove and the Flies. Joliot-Curie and the Pacifism of Scholars Frédérique Matonti The political mobilization of scientists is paradoxical : while their discoveries are frequently used for military goals, they are also at the first rank of pacifist organization. Understanding this paradox requires to take into account the specificities of the political mobilization of scientists in comparison with the mobilization of intellectuals. Their pacifism appears as a consequence of the relationship of their profession with temporal power. This general hypothese has been tested in analyzing the exemplary political trajectory of the atomic scientist, Frédéric Joliot-Curie who was recognized by his peers as one of the most prominent scientist and who also was the President of the World Peace Council. Nevertheless, the « professional solution » that represents the pacifism can also lead to a devaluation of professional resources. It appears clearly in the fifties with the controversy about in the bacteriological war in Korea into wich many scientists, as Joliot-Curie, have entered.

The Atomic Scientist, Science Fiction Films, and Paranoia: The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, and Killers from Space

Journal of American CultureVolume 20, Issue 1 p. 31-41 The Atomic Scientist, Science Fiction Films, and Paranoia: The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, and Killers from Space Cyndy Hendershot, Cyndy Hendershot Visiting Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University. Her book Masculinity and the Gothic is forthcoming from The University of Michigan Press.Search for more papers by this author Cyndy Hendershot, Cyndy Hendershot Visiting Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University. Her book Masculinity and the Gothic is forthcoming from The University of Michigan Press.Search for more papers by this author First published: 04 June 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1997.00031.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume20, Issue1Spring 1997Pages 31-41 RelatedInformation

Environmental Disasters in the Western Republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States

In the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), there are about 300 regions where at the moment there are acute dangers to human life due to environmental pollution. These areas comprise about four million square kilometers, whichcorresponds to twenty percent of the former U.S.S.R. Boris Kochurov, a researcher at the Geographical Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, estimates that alreadyevery third citizenof the CIS lives in an ecologically critical region. In the overcrowded regions, where heavy industry is concentrated, people inhale industrial exhaust gases and drink polluted water. health of the millions of inhabitants of such big cities as Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the cities of the Donets Basin, the Urals, Azerbaijan and Krivoy Rog in Ukraine is directly threatened. But the catastrophe not only concerns the industrial areas. fifth edition of the document, The Most Critical Ecological Situations in the CIS, shows forty-seven sites of underground nuclear testing and twenty underground atomic waste disposal sites. Russian atomic scientist, Andrei Solotkov, maintained that for years the U.S.S.R. probably sank the atomic waste from the reactors of scrapped Soviet atomic submarines and ice-breakers in the Kara Sea, west of Murmansk. According to KGB documents, from 1964 to 1986, 17,000 containers were thrown into the sea. disposal, however, was not undertaken according to international rules for putting radioactive materials into a 'coffin' or a coat of concrete, by bitumenizing, or by vitrification.

Blackett and the Origins of Nuclear Strategy

I feel not only honoured but grateful to have been given opportunity to deliver this lecture. Patrick Blackett was a man to whom I owe a deep personal and professional debt of gratitude. Thirty years ago I was given task of creating what is now Department of War Studies at Kings's College London first of its kind in this country and indeed in world. With much trepidation I approached Blackett, then an apparently remote and awe-inspiring figure at Imperial College, and invited him to deliver a lecture in an inaugural series which was intended to define and publicize activities of new department. Not only did he agree and give a scintillating lecture which attracted much attention, but he took a deep interest in everything we were doing in Department and remained for rest of his active academic career unremittingly supportive and helpful. Four years later in 1958, when with a group of journalists, politicians and churchmen I was helping to establish what has now become International Institute for Strategic Studies, I again approached him, this time asking him to serve on our Council. Again he readily agreed and became one of our most valuable councillors, in particular finding premises in Adam Street, leased from Royal Society of Arts, in which Institute functioned for 20 years. Finally he enlisted me into British delegation to early Pugwash Conferences, where I found myself in company of such luminaries as John Cockcroft, William Penney, Solly Zuckerman, Hans Bethe, Leo Szilard and Henry Kissinger, trying to establish contact across cultural and ideological barriers with our colleagues in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. During those 10 years, therefore, between 1954 and 1964, which was when Blackett transferred his energies to Whitehall to become a close adviser to Harold Wilson's first administration, I was able to watch at first hand his development as one of leading thinkers in this country on problem of nuclear weapons and preservation of peace. The subsequent 20 years since 1964 have seen developments in weapon technology amounting almost to a further revolution, but problems with which Blackett then wrestled have remained as contentious in 1980s as they were for 1960s. Indeed much that he wrote has now become commonplace in British strategic thinking, and insofar as a consensus can be established in this country, excluding extreme unilateralists, it would be very much along lines that Blackett laid out a quarter of a century ago. Patrick Blackett's distinctive contribution to strategic thinking came less from his brilliance as a scientist then from his personal experience of war, and healthy scepticism which that experience had given him of all theories based upon either unstated or unverifiable hypotheses. Blackett claimed with some reason to have been the only atomic scientist brought up as a professional fighting man,' and eight adolescent years which he spent in Royal Navy between 1913 and 1919 equipped him not just with a stern sense of what was practically possible and necessary in warfare but with first-hand knowledge of what war was like; with an understanding of that Clausewitzian element of 'friction' without which all theories of war are meaningless. In his writings Blackett referred repeatedly to Battle of Jutland, when vessel on which he was serving, Barham, steamed past a great oily patch littered with flotsam and bobbing heads of survivors where battle-cruiser Queen Mary had been destroyed by a single German salvo a few moments before. There's something wrong with our bloody ships today, Chatfield, Admiral Beatty had calmly remarked about disaster. In fact there was something wrong with Royal Navy as a whole: way it designed its ships, way in which it thought about war, way in which it waged war. It worked too much on hiunches and unverified assumptions. It did not take enough trouble to find out about its enemy. It did not sufficiently base its tactics on hard reasoning from observable phenomena. When Blackett returned

Atomic scientist to advise India's defence minister

Atomic scientist to advise India's defence minister

Observations on radiation exposure in dermatologic x-ray therapy.

Although for 50 years, since men began to use x-rays in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, the medical profession has been concerned with the safety of the patient in radiation procedures, it was not until recently that the extent of the radiation hazard became apparent to us all— physician, atomic scientist, and the public alike. This was in part due to a previous lack of accurate mensurating devices and a lack of basic standards. But, strangely enough, it was the alarm produced among the geneticists by the explosion of the thermonuclear bomb that drew attention to the radiation exposures which have long occurred in the practice of medicine. In 1956, two groups of radiation specialists, atomic scientists and geneticists, assessed the radiation dangers to the general public, particularly from the explosion and manufacture of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. The reports of these men

DANISH ATOMIC SCIENTIST AWARDED $75,000 PRIZE

School Science and MathematicsVolume 57, Issue 6 p. 506-506 DANISH ATOMIC SCIENTIST AWARDED $75,000 PRIZE First published: June 1957 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.1957.tb07862.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume57, Issue6June 1957Pages 506-506 RelatedInformation

Retail Trade Outlook

RETAILING IS PROBABLY one of the easiest industries for the analyst to understand. He does not need to be an engineer, chemist, metallurgist, doctor or atomic scientist, nor does he need to worry about such things as technological changes, new discoveries, patents and secret processes, exhaustion of reserves, etc. Retailing tends to reflect the state of general business rather than to be a prime mover of economic activity.

American Scientist Declared Security Risk

Last December the famed atomic scientist, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, was barred from further access to classified data pending a review of his case. The May Bulletin published the texts of General Nichols' letter (December 23, 1953) listing the allegations against Dr. Oppenheimer and Dr. Oppenheimer's reply (March 4, 1954). It was Dr. Oppenheimer's wish that these letters be made public, as was true in the case of the documents released on June 1 concerning the findings and recommendations of the United States Atomic Energy Commission's Special Personnel Security Board. These documents consist of a Majority Report signed by two members of the Review Board, Mr. Gordon Gray and Mr. Thomas A. Morgan; a Minority Report signed by Dr. Ward V. Evans; and a letter from Dr. Oppenheimer's chief counsel, Mr. Lloyd K. Garrison, to General Nichols requesting a reconsideration of the decision by the Atomic Energy Commission. We reprint in this issue these documents in their original text with the exception of part of t...

The Atomic Deadlock Could Be Broken—a Symposium

With the kind permission of the editors of DISCOVERY we reprint the following symposium which first appeared in the August, September and October issues of that magazine. For lack of space we have condensed Mr. Friedwald's excellent introductory summary and analysis of negotiations for international control. Mr. Friedwald is the author of “Man's Last Chance—A Survey of Political Creeds and Scientific Realities.” Professor Mott, of Bristol University, was formerly president of the British Atomic Scientist's Association. Dr. Oliphant, of Birmingham University, was technical advisor to the Australian Government's delegation at Lake Success. Dr. Urey is a member of the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago.

Foreword by An Atomic Scientist

Foreword by An Atomic Scientist

Atomic scientist's association

Atomic scientist's association

Atomic Scientist Warns against Misinterpretation

Atomic Scientist Warns against Misinterpretation