Outline for Disucssing the Atomic Bomb--I.I. Rabi, November 1945

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1793   Part of a series on development, use and control of atomic and nuclear weapons

[My apologies for the spacing below--Typepad has refused to allow paragraphs today for some reason.]

"As yet, if a man has no feeling for art he is considered narrow-minded, but if he has no feeling for science this is considered quite normal. This is a fundamental weakness."--I.I. Rabi  In Kermit Lansner, Second-Rate Brains: A Factual, Perceptive Report by Top Scientists, Educators, Journalists, and Their Urgent Recommendations (1958).

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1944 was awarded to Isidor Isaac Rabi "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei".--NobelPrize .org

"Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way into you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. You would wish it would stop; altogether it lasted about two seconds."
[Witnessing the first atomic bomb test explosion.] — Isidor Isaac Rabi  Science: the Center of Culture (1970).

"To me, science is an expression of the human spirit, which reaches every sphere of human culture. It gives an aim and meaning to existence as well as a knowledge, understanding, love, and admiration for the world. It gives a deeper meaning to morality and another dimension to esthetics." 1970

I came across this interesting sheet of paper in my files, a neglected part of a larger archive  of background and draft papers and proposals by the Vannevar Bush group working on the question of the control of atomic weapons and the formalization of the American position regarding the use and control of atomic weapons (and dated from October 1945 to February 1946).   (Other contributors to this archive include President Harry Truman, Secretary of State James Byrnes, Dr. Vannevar Bush, (future AEC director) Carroll Wilson, Alger Hiss, I.I. Rabi, William Shockley, Frederick Dunn, Joseph E. Johnson, Leo Pasvolsky, Philip Morrison, Col. Nichols, William McRae, Admiral W.H.P. Blandy, George L. Harrison, and others).  The archive (which I've written about elsewhere on this blog) are remarkable for their foresight and logic, and addressed the implications and future of the atomic bomb at the earliest stages of its existence.

Rabi was a great physicist (being awarded the Nobel for physics in 1944) who was of course deeply involved in the technical/scientific end of fighting World War II.  It was his conviction that his brain was best used  in the development of radar and could not be convinced to spend all of his efforts in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, feeling that the further development of radar was more important and more immediately applicable to the winning of the war than the longer-range prospects and use of the atomic bomb.  He worked at the MIT Radiation Laboratory working on radar for the duration--except (and this was a great exception) for being a frequent consultant and visitor to bomb works in the desert. (Access to Los Alamos during this time was extremely tight--there were very few other people among the many thousands who worked there who were able to simply "visit" the facilities as their expertise was needed.)

And so at the end of the war, Rabi became part of the Bush group that was given the task of trying to figure out what to do about the bomb--its control, its possible use, its proliferation, and so on). At some point, months into this process, it looks as though Rabi created a single-page outline of discussion points on atomic bomb issues.  It is very succinct and crisp, with nothing more than the bare essentials. This is a carbon copy of the original, and evidently was meant for Irving Langmuir.