Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Readings:

• Chapters 1 and 2

Discussion Questions:

1. Does Szilard’s “bund” have a place in Polanyi’s “republic of science”?
2. On page 35 we are told, “science succeeds… by severely limiting its range of competence.” What does this mean, and how does it work?
3. What were the arguments against atoms at the end of the 19th century? How did Rutherford’s work affect those arguments? And why might it be important for us to know these details?

Readings:

• Chapters 3 and 4

Discussion Questions:

1. Fritz Haber said that “a scientist belongs to the world in times of peace but to his country in times of war” (p. 95). What does that mean? Does Rhodes seem to have an opinion on this claim?
2. How is “the continuous process … [of] classical mechanics” (p. 76) like the licentiate’s endless ratiocination (p. 58)?
3. Do chemical weapons degrade the discipline of chemistry as Clara Haber said? What would it mean for chemistry itself to be degraded?

Readings:

• Chapters 5 and 6

Discussion Questions:

1. Rhodes refers to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as, “Heisenberg’s democratization of the atomic
   interior” (p. 130). What does he mean by “democratization”?
2. What is the “sturdiness at the core of identity” (p. 152) that Rhodes calls necessary for discovery? How is it related or unrelated to “discipline” as Oppenheimer conceives of it (p. 150)?
3. “‘And so,’ Chadwick concludes, ‘it was these conversations that convinced me that the neutron must exist. The only question was how the devil could one get evidence for it…’” (p. 155). Chadwick believed the neutron existed before he had found the evidence to prove it. What was it that convinced him that the neutron must exist, and why didn’t it count as evidence?

Readings:

• Chapters 7 and 8

Discussion Questions:

1. Chapter seven ends, “Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun”. How, more broadly, does Rhodes think freedom and science are related?
2. In Einstein’s eulogy of Marie Curie he calls her, “The only one whom fame has not corrupted” (p. 215). How is fame at work in the lives of the scientists we’re reading about?
3. Rhodes speaks in Chapter eight of “the end of one age and the beginning of another” (p.214). How do we see the passing of the ages, and what are its consequences?

Readings:

• Chapters 9

Discussion Questions:

1. “Bohr went on to say that the common aim of all science was ‘the gradual removal of prejudices,’ a complementary restorative to the usual pious characterization of science as a quest for incontrovertible truth” (p.243). What does Rhodes mean by “complementary” here?Can we see him depicting science this way in what we’ve read?
2. “Bohr perceived the institution of science… to be a profoundly political force in the world. The purpose of science, he believed, was to set men free. Totalitarianism, in Hannah Arendt’s powerful image, drove toward ‘destroying all space between men and pressing men against each other.’ It was entirely in character that Bohr, at a time of increasing public danger, publicly opposed that drive with the individualistic and enriching discretions of complementarity” (p. 243). How does complementarity resist totalitarianism?
3. Why does Rhodes choose to start this chapter with Lise Meitner?