Einstein's Letter, The Gateway To The Nuclear Age

Albert Einstein (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The latest research on uranium in the 1930s really rocked Einstein. The discovery allows humanity to find a new source of great energy, but at the same time can create the most deadly tool of mass destruction: the atomic bomb. Einstein didn't want this discovery to fall into the wrong hands.

To follow up on the latest findings, Einstein sent a letter to the President of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt today, October 11, 81 last year or in 1939. He urged the US president to support the research as soon as possible. Because similar discoveries have been developed by Nazi Germany.

Four months earlier, physicists had created an innovation that succeeded in formulating a way to create a nuclear chain reaction on a large scale. This in turn can create great power and produce new radium elements in large quantities.

"This new phenomenon will also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable - though not yet certain - that a new type of bomb that is very powerful can be built," Einstein wrote in his letter .

Two more paragraphs in the letter outline steps that need to be taken to accelerate uranium research. Einstein also noted a warning that sales of uranium had stopped in Czechoslovakia, a region that contains uranium minerals in good quantity and quality. Einstein also divulged a secret, similar research is being pursued by Germany.

Einstein never expected that he would write such a letter. Despite the fact that he was a pacifist --a pacifist--, he did not believe that energy from atoms would actually be created.

Even when the neutron in a new atom was discovered in 1932 he had said "there was not the slightest indication that this energy could be obtained. This means that the atom should not be broken at will," he said as written in The New York Times .

But Einstein's hopes were dashed. In 1938 German scientists succeeded in cleaving the uranium atom. They immediately created a blueprint for their discovery in late January 1939.

It made Einstein afraid, because Germany was led by a fascist Adolf Hitler. Fear that had been harbored even before the Nazis swept through his homeland.

Einstein and physicist Niels Bohr were of the view that they did not support research into uranium fission --the knowledge that later gave birth to the atomic bomb. Scientists are worried about the progress of German scientists. They were worried that if Hitler got the atomic bomb first, he would have super weapons to increase his power domination in the world.

On that basis, Einstein asked President Roosevelt to immediately intensify their research. From several studies, finally the Manhattan Engineering District project was built which aims to develop the first atomic bomb.

Regret 💦

The nuclear bomb-building project did not turn out to be what Einstein had hoped for. America did not use the atomic bomb against Germany.

Three nuclear bombs created from the project detonated in various places. First as a trial in Alamogordo, New Mexico. And two more were detonated in Nagasaki City and Hiroshima Japan.

The atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki witnessed the enormity of the bombs with a magnitude of 13 and 21 kilotons, respectively. The explosion destroyed both cities and killed about 200 thousand people instantly.

After learning about the Hiroshima bombing, Einsten then expressed his disappointment. "I could burn my hand writing letters to Roosevelt," Einstein said.

But that regret is useless. Einstein indirectly opened the gates of entry to the world in the nuclear age. After America, its rival Soviet Union began testing its first nuclear explosion in 1949.

After Russia, the third country to develop nuclear technology is France. The development of nuclear technology was followed by China, Britain, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.