Science is arguably one of the most pivotal disciplines we as
humankind have at our disposal. I am grateful to have had good
grounding and practice in it, as I labored at my PhD in clinical
psychology at Northwestern University. It has a prominent place in my
Theory of Algorithms and in The Tripartite Model in particular. So, for this week's articles, I share my posts on
Google+ about a household-name scientist and his
not-so-household-name colleague and how their fateful collaboration
staked a horrific pivot in human history. I had posted these as a
linear narrative, but here I thought I'd do so more (I hope) as a serial
drama, that is, in five parts.
Physicists bombarded the nucleus with alpha particles, and it wasn’t working. Szilárd came up with a brilliant alternative (rf. Part 2: Einstein's Equation of Life and Death).
Szilárd thought neutrons, which had no electric charge, would not be deflected by the positively-charged nucleus.
Szilárd expected his method to produce more neutrons, and thereby start massive chain reactions of energy release.
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