How European Scientists Saved The World?
Most of us know about Anne Frank. Many of us have read her book "The Diary of a Young Girl". Those were terrible days.
Meanwhile, the scientific heroes contributed in ending this great destruction and thus putting an end to the war started by Hitler.
In the years leading up to World War 2, many scientists, including 40% of the entire European theoretical Physicist fled from Europe. Among those who escaped were 14 Physics Nobel Laureates, including Albert Einstein, Neil Bohr, and Enrico Femi.
It is believed that the Nazis even offered a reward to anyone who killed Einstein, the most celebrated Jew.
Nobel Prize Saved Mrs Fermi's Life
The biggest achievement of any physicist's career would be a Nobel Prize. For Fermi, it was even more important.
Fermi’s wife was Jewish; which of course put her life at risk. Fermi brought his wife and children to the Nobel Prize Award ceremony in Sweden. After the ceremony, they escaped to the U.S. rather than return to Italy. Nobel Prize might have saved her life.
The Manhattan Project
In 1939, Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt informing that physicists still in Europe reported that Nazis were trying to develop a bomb base on nuclear fission.
Einstein told Roosevelt, such a weapon could be devastating and further advised the U.S. to start its own nuclear weapons program.
Roosevelt launched the Manhattan Project, to which many refugee physicists made essential contributions.
Fermi, who was the first to split the atom and the first to achieve a sustained nuclear chain reaction, played a major role in Manhattan Project.
Nazis Face Failure
Meanwhile, the German program failed (relief!), due in large part to a substantial miscalculation by its leader, Werner Heisenberg. He grossly overestimated how much Uranium was needed to sustain an explosion.
The amusing thing to imagine here is this question:
What if all the scientist of Europe, stayed back in Europe?
Good News for German Scientists!
After the War, many German scientists were accepted back into the world of Scientific Community of which Wernher Von Braun is an interesting example.
However, Heisenberg was not welcomed back into the fold. For many, trying to develop nuclear weapons for the Nazis was too much to forgive.
Thus European Scientists saved the world from further destruction. As we all know, Manhattan Project ended the world thus saving the world from more destruction.
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