What brand new weapon did Albert Einstein work on?

1 Answer

While Einstein is often associated with the atomic bomb, he didn't actually work on it.

Explanation:

Albert Einstein was a German Jewish physicist (1879-1955) was a pacifist and never worked on any weapons program. That said, he theorized in 1905, as part of his work in Special Relativity, that a huge amount of energy could be released from a small amount of matter in an atomic fission reaction. But he never imagined the reaction would be used as a weapon. His theoretical work is one reason is why he is associated with the atomic bomb.

Another is that he became aware that Germany had split an atom and released energy in 1938. Friends of his alerted Einstein about Germany's attempts to weaponize this new found ability and urged him to write a letter to President Roosevelt - not just to alert the President about German development of a bomb, but to urge that he spearhead research into developing a bomb for the Allies. The reason they asked Einstein is that he was politically connected - no one would listen to his friends but Einstein had connections - including the President of the USA. And so he is known for his connection to the initiation of the project in this manner.

Einstein and his friends also watched as the USA dragged its feet in starting the project - the feeling in the USA administration was that Germany wouldn't ever make the idea actually work and the war would be over long before they could have a chance of having a bomb that actually worked. Einstein wrote again in 1940 (this time probably just signing his name to a letter written by his friends) about the advances Germany was making in splitting uranium atoms.

When it came to the Allies developing an atom bomb, Einstein wasn't invited - he was deemed a security risk by US Army Intelligence and Vennevar Bush (one of the top administrators of the project). None of the scientists were allowed to discuss the project with Einstein nor were they even allowed to ask him questions about atomic physics.

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/peace-and-war/the-manhattan-project/
http://www.doug-long.com/einstein.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#Personnel