Invention Of Nuclear Weapons Research Articles

Stasis и политическая философия современной войны

In recent years, political philosophy has increasingly faced the question about the nature of the contemporary war. Despite the invention of nuclear weapons, war has not disappeared from the historical scene. However, has its essence remained unchanged? In an era of global political communication, when it is increasingly difficult to separate foreign policy from domestic policy, do the trends in the development of military conflicts correspond to the classical ideas about war? One definitely needs a clear paradigm that would help to trace the common logic behind the whole variety of such conflicts taking place in the world today. The article is devoted to the consideration of one of these paradigms, which is gaining momentum among political theorists. It concerns the conceptualization of all the modern military conflicts as a global civil war. Based on the works of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, the author outlines the general contours of this approach, after which he turns to the analysis of the phenomenon of s civil strife, described by the ancient Greek notion of stasis — a term that Giorgio Agamben put back to the current political vocabulary. His detailed study of the original meaning of stasis and its interpretation in the works of Nicole Loraux and Agamben reveals the potential of this concept to be a theoretical tool for understanding the logic of modern war.

Postcatastrophic Utopias

Space colonization and subterranean dwelling have been staples of speculative fiction since at least the nineteenth century, but the invention of nuclear weapons and the prospect of global environmental collapse have, certainly since the Cold War, made proposals offering vertical escape from the surface of the planet a matter worthy of serious consideration among engineers, planners, military strategists, and countercultural futurologists. The shift in the conception of utopia, from the lateral displacements typical of its classical formations to the vertical modes of descent and ascent considered in this article, suggests a structural relationship between utopia and catastrophe produced out of the new conditions of global threat inaugurated by atomic weapons. While the prospect of impending global catastrophe would appear to lead to a dystopian or even fatalistic acceptance of the limits of human life on Earth, the most devastating assessments of humanity’s future have also produced utopian proposals for the reimagining of human potentiality below and above the surface of the planet. In a real sense, then, catastrophe has become the precondition for the establishment of utopia, both as the compelling threat that demands a plausible response to impending annihilation and as the necessary event that apocalyptically clears the ground for new modes of living.

Sensitization: reciprocity and reflection in scientific practice

Bob Dylan sang that “the times, they are a‐changin'” with reference to the profound social upheaval of the 1960s in the USA and Western Europe; but he could just as easily have been referring to the changes in the perception and conduct of scientific research in that period. Before and throughout the Second World War, science was regarded to be a somewhat disconnected, exclusive activity. Scientists, so the thinking went, would be most successful if protected from the influence of social demands. However, the increasing impact of scientific discoveries on society—for example, the invention of nuclear weapons, the arms race with the Soviet Union and the perceived dangers of genetic engineering—profoundly changed this attitude and, with it, the role of science in and for society. > Science is no longer detached from society, as its products—both knowledge and technology—affect society in many ways In response, there was a shift in science policy to try to re‐connect science with society in an attempt to control and direct the perception of science's merits. Nowadays, scientists are aware of the changes that are taking place to the role that their research has in modern society; the ivory tower is crumbling before our eyes. As Frank Gannon put it in an Editorial in 2006: “the changes that are taking place now are the result of [a] recognition that the old ways are no longer good enough” (Gannon, 2006). Another indication of the increasingly intimate relationship between science and society is the space that leading scientific journals devote to discussing research budgets and national and international science policies. Today's science is in stark contrast to the ‘old’ image of scientists conducting experiments and acquiring knowledge out of sheer curiosity, free from the influences of societies or governments. Moreover, science is increasingly mobilized to address social …

Embracing Doomsday: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Nuclear Age

Beliefs and narratives about the end of the world have fascinated people throughout history. In nearly every culture, sacred narratives are told about worldly cataclysm, the regeneration of the earth, and the creation of a terrestrial paradise (Talmon 1968:349-351; Thrupp 1970:11-15).1 Until recently, the end of the world has been interpreted as a meaningful and supernatural event, involving the annihilation and renewal of the earth by deities or divine forces. During the last half of the twentieth century, however, widespread beliefs about a meaningless apocalypse have emerged and now compete with traditional religious apocalyptic worldviews. The creation and proliferation of nuclear weapons, in particular, have fundamentally altered contemporary apocalyptic speculation, fueling fears of global annihilation and evoking widespread fatalism about the future of humanity. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 initiated an era of nuclear apocalypticism that has flourished in American religious culture, folklore, and popular culture; the most widespread and persistent belief that emerges from both religious and secular speculation about nuclear weapons is that they will be used to bring about the end of the world (see Wojcik 1997). Since the mid-1940s, folk beliefs and assorted religious traditions have reflected the view that the invention of nuclear weapons is a fulfillment of divine prophecies. The prospect of nuclear annihilation has been readily incorporated into various apocalyptic belief systems and mythologized as a meaningful event that is an part of a preordained plan for the redemption of the world. The extent to which visions of nuclear catastrophe are found to be compatible with prophecy beliefs about a fiery conflagration at the end of time is indicated by a Yankelovich poll taken in 1984, in which 39 percent of a sample population agreed with the statement When the Bible predicts that the earth will be destroyed by fire, it's telling us that a nuclear war is inevitable (Jones 1985:67). If this sampling of the populace is representative, then as many as eighty-five million Americans may believe that nuclear apocalypse is foreordained (Halsell 1986:10). Despite the end of the Cold War, beliefs about the inevitability of nuclear apocalypse persist today, stemming from the magnitude and seeming uncontrollability of nuclear weapons and the likelihood that they will be developed and used by hostile nations or extremist organizations in the future. Although other disastrous scenarios involving environmental destruction, the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, and deadly viruses have become increasingly emphasized in current endtimes thought, prophecy beliefs about nuclear Armageddon continue to thrive in assorted apocalyptic traditions as the year 2000 approaches. This essay initially discusses apocalyptic beliefs as a folk religious phenomenon and then examines premillennial dispensationalism, the most pervasive form of apocalyptic prophecy belief in the United States today. Focusing on the ways that dispensationalist beliefs have been adapted to reflect the concerns of the nuclear age, I explore how the concept of fatalism-commonly understood as the belief that certain events and experiences are inevitable, unalterable, and determined by external forces beyond human control-is central to the dispensationalist tradition. The term fatalism is not used here in a pejorative sense; fatalistic thought is an enduring and widespread means of understanding the world. The idea of fate embodies the sense of inevitability that is inherent not only to dispensationalism but to other contemporary apocalyptic traditions as well. From the dawn of the atomic age, the belief that nuclear annihilation is foreordained and unavoidable has been a feature of dispensationalism and remains an important part of this prophecy tradition in the post-Cold War era. APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS AND FOLK RELIGION Although most mainstream churches in the United States today deemphasize prophecy and reject outright the practice of predicting events relating to the end of the world, numerous surveys indicate that apocalyptic speculation flourishes at a popular level, with millions of Americans of all backgrounds currently embracing beliefs which assert that worldly destruction is imminent and part of a divinely preordained plan for collective salvation (see D. …

Theology after Hiroshima

The year after Hiroshima the American theologian Henry Wieman wrote, ‘The bomb that fell on Hiroshima cut history in two like a knife. Before and after are two different worlds. That cut is more abrupt, decisive and revolutionary than the cut made by the star over Bethlehem. It may not be more creative of human good than the star, but it is more swiftly transformative of human existence than anything else that has ever happened.’ One might not expect many Christian theologians to agree too readily to such a statement of the significance of Hiroshima, but it illustrates the challenge which Hiroshima and its implications constitute for Christian theology. Hiroshima revealed a radically new possibility in human history: the possibility that human beings themselves might put an end to human history. Jonathan Schell, whose brilliant book The Fate of the Earth contains the most extensive attempt so far to think through the implications of the radical novelty of the human situation since the invention of nuclear weapons, wrote that by inventing the capacity for self-extinction as a species, ‘we have caused a basic change in the circumstances in which life was given us, which is to say that we have altered the human condition’.

How physicists can contribute

It is part of the folklore of physics that physicists can not only do anything, but that they can do it better than anyone else. This modest appraisal is a direct outgrowth of their stunning performance during World War II, in which the development of radar and the invention of nuclear weapons were unmistakably physicists' accomplishments. In the past 25 years physicists in general (and many of those who were involved in the radar and bomb projects) have played anomalously important roles as advisors to the government and industry on problems quite outside their technical specialities. One should not then be too surprised that a number of physicists have become seriously involved with environmental problems.