Einstein and the Bomb

Article by CatholicTech Intern Dominic Andres

Today is a crucial date in the history of science! Exactly 145 years ago, a man was born who would permanently alter both science and the world: Albert Einstein. Read on to learn more about this great scientist, his successes and failures, and his legacy.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14th, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. A mathematical prodigy, he had taught himself algebra and Calculus by age 12, and formulated his own proof of the Pythagorean Theorem by 13. One tutor described his flights of mathematical thought as “so high I could not follow.”

One especially formative event in Einstein’s childhood occurred when his father, an engineer, showed him a compass. Einstein said later that, when his father showed him the compass, he realized “something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” It was a strong prefigurement of his later discoveries.

Upon completing secondary school, Einstein entered the federal polytechnic school in Zurich. He graduated in 1900, now certified to teach math and physics. Although he was unable to get a job teaching, he found work as a patent examiner. Some scholars speculate that his work in the patent office influenced the theory of relativity, as a number of patents which he evaluated involved the synchronization of clocks and transmission of signals, concepts mentioned numerous times in his writings on relativity.

In 1905, Einstein not only wrote his dissertation, he also published his famous papers on Brownian motion, mass-energy equivalence, and special relativity. Over the following years his accomplishments continued to mount. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, and became a sought-after speaker, lecturing everywhere from New York to Tokyo. He even met the emperor of Japan! In America he became friends with Charlie Chaplain, based on their shared pacifism.

In 1933, with the rise to power of the Nazis, Einstein realized that he couldn’t return to Germany. He continued traveling for some time, but offers of citizenship were flooding in. Eventually he returned to the United States, where, in 1940, he was granted citizenship. He remained an American until his death in 1955.

Einstein’s contribution to science was enormous. The theory of relativity was and is deeply influential. Scientific discoveries from black holes down to neutrinos, and technologies from GPS to precision timekeeping rely on Einstein’s discoveries. His ideas, however, were not his only influence on the world.

In 1939 Einstein co-wrote a letter to then-president Roosevelt, advising the United States to research atomic weapons, so that the Germans wouldn’t be the first to develop them. From this letter, at least in part, was born the Manhattan project, from which in turn came the atomic bombs. While Einstein could likely not have predicted that event, the situation still makes clear how important the role of scientists is in society, for better or worse.

200,000 men, women, and children died in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Technology, if abused, can lead to terrible things. While the benefits of technology outweigh the losses, still, those tragic events teach us that scientists bear a heavy moral responsibility. Once again, it’s worth reiterating: There is no substitute for the moral guidance of the church, guidance which science needs most of all. 

It would be remiss of me to end on such a sorrowful note, however. While nuclear energy was used once for evil, since then it has been used many times for good. Sustainable power, ever greater understanding of our world: These benefits would not have been possible without the same knowledge that contributed to the bombings. Technology can be used for good or ill, and it’s up to us to make sure it’s for good.

Let us pray for Einstein, for those who died in the bombings, and especially for all those who are in scientific fields, that those latter may contribute more and more to the immense good science has brought about in the world.