Posted by: Dr Churchill | April 29, 2024

Why is the Atomic clock ticking forward ?

Israel’s April 19 strike on the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Iran reportedly damaged a S-300 missile defense system (shown here during a test in 2017) deployed to protect the nearby nuclear sites.

This is why:

Because Iran is accelerating its nuclear program, and Israel is tempted to attack it

On April 19, Israel carried out a strike deep inside Iranian territory, near the city of Isfahan. The attack was apparently in retaliation for a major Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel a few days earlier. This exchange between the two countries—which have historically avoided directly targeting each other’s territories—has raised fears of a potentially serious military escalation in the region.

Israel’s strike was carried out against an Iranian military site located in close proximity to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, which hostsnuclear research reactors, a uranium conversion plant, and a fuel production plant, among other facilities. Although the attack did not target Iran’s nuclear facilities directly, earlier reports suggested that Israel was considering such attacks. The Iranian leadership has, in turn, threatened to reconsider its nuclear policy and to advance its program should nuclear sites be attacked.

These events highlight the threat from regional escalation dynamics posed by Iran’s near-threshold nuclear capability, which grants Iran the perception of a certain degree of deterrence—at least against direct US retaliation—while also serving as an understandably tempting target for Israeli attack. As tensions between Israel and Iran have moved away from their traditional proxy nature and manifested as direct strikes against each other’s territories, the urgency of finding a timely and non-military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue has increased.

tempting target. While the current assessment is that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic maintains a very advanced nuclear program, allowing it to develop a nuclear weapons capability relatively rapidly, should it decide to do so. Iran’s “near-threshold” capability did not deter Israel from undertaking its recent attack. But Iran’s nuclear program is a tempting target for an attack that could have potentially destabilizing ramification: The program is advanced enough to pose a credible risk of rapid weaponization and at a stage when it could still be significantly degraded, albeit at an extremely high cost.

Iran views its nuclear program as a deterrent against direct US strikes on or invasion of its territory, acting as an insurance policy of sorts against invasion following erroneous Western accusations over its nuclear program, ala Iraq in 2003. That’s to say, during an attempted invasion, Iran could quickly produce nuclear weapons. This capability allows Iran’s leadership to engage in destabilizing activities in the region with a (perceived) limited likelihood of retaliation against its own territory. Concerns over escalation and a potential Iranian push toward weaponization of its nuclear program may have been one of multiple considerations that contributed to the US refusal to take part in Israeli retaliatory action following Iran’s April 13 strikes on Israel.

Israel sees the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat and has long sought its elimination. For this reason, reports that Israel might have been preparing to target Iranian nuclear sites as retaliation for Iran’s strikes against its territory came as little surprise. Israel’s attack on military installations near Iranian nuclear facilities—and against an air defense system that Iran has deployed to protect its nuclear sites—appears to have been calibrated precisely to make the point that Israel has the capability to directly attack heavily-protected nuclear sites deep inside Iran. Some commentators have speculatedthat subsequent strikes on Iranian nuclear sites may still be desirable or necessary.

Iran’s nuclear facilities as of April 2024. On April 19, Israel carried out a strike on the Eighth Shekari Air Base, near the city of Isfahan. The air base is located only about 22 kilometers north from the Isfahan nuclear complex and about 105 kilometers south of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. (Credit: Map by Erik English. Sources: IAEA, Iran Watch, ISIS, NTI, WNA, WNISR)

In this context, Iran’s nuclear sites will continue to present a tempting target for Israel in any further escalation of the conflict between the two. Moreover, Israel may also conclude that its own undeclared nuclear capability has failed to act as a deterrent against two major assaults on its territory. The attacks by Hamas on October 7 and Iran on April 13 probably added to Israel’s sense of strategic vulnerability, although that perception may have been partly alleviated by the largely successful defense against Iran’s attempted drone and missile strikes.

Israel has historically targeted Iran’s nuclear program through relatively limited sabotage in the form of cyber-attacksassassinations of scientists, and bombs placed at Iranian nuclear facilities. This strategy has allowed Israel to repeatedly roll the clock back on Iran’s nuclear progress while maintaining some level of credible deniability and avoiding further military escalation, therefore largely remaining within the “rules” established by Israel and Iran in conducting their shadow war. Now, with both countries openly striking each other’s territory, Israel may see this as an opportunity—or feel compelled—to target Iran’s nuclear facilities directly.

A range of bad options. The possibility of Iranian weaponization and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites could lead to a serious escalation spiral and, potentially, a wider military conflict in the region.

Should Iran anticipate that Israel is preparing to carry out strikes against its nuclear sites, it may decide to rush toward producing a nuclear weapon before Israel has the time to inflict any significant damage on its ability to do so quickly. In turn, expecting an anticipatory push toward weaponization by Tehran, Jerusalem may be incentivized to carry out strikes to pre-empt Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The disparity in timelines here favors Israel and creates risk for Iran: The former could attempt a strike in a short period—maybe days or weeks—whereas it would probably take Iran several months to a year from the point of decision to have a viable weapon, although estimates remain uncertain. Yet, through the advanced state of its nuclear program, Iran may be able to make significant advances toward a deployable nuclear weapon before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—or indeed, Israeli intelligence—catches on to developments, which would limit the time Israeli planners would have to mount a pre-emptive response.

Tehran may make the decision to build nuclear weapons in response to a limited Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. The Iranian nuclear complex is too dispersed, key facilities too hardened, and nuclear expertise too consolidated to be eliminated through limited military strikes. Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, where Iran produces the fissile material needed to produce nuclear weapons, are either fully (in the case of the enrichment facility at Fordow) or partially (at Natanz) underground and are heavily defended. Any Israeli strike that would cause damage to other Iranian nuclear sites—such as its centrifuge production or uranium conversion facilities, or even the not-yet-operational Khonab heavy water research reactor—would set the program back but would ultimately leave Iran with the ability to keep ramping up its uranium enrichment, potentially moving toward the production of weapons-grade uranium (enriched to 90 percent uranium 235). Any work Iran may be currently conducting to weaponize its nuclear technology—even as the US intelligence community assesses it is not doing so—would probably be performed in dispersed and undisclosed locations, making military targeting very challenging.

Following past instances of Israeli sabotage against the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran has doubled down—rebuilding damaged sites, hardening facilities, and ramping up its nuclear activity. The same is likely to be true should Iranian facilities be targeted directly this time, only to a greater degree. The shift from a proxy conflict between Iran and Israel to a direct engagement will only increase the value Iran places on its nuclear program as a deterrent against further direct attack on its territory and US military intervention. Should Iran assess that its regional proxies and its missile and drone capabilities have been insufficient to deter Israel from conducting direct strikes against its strategically significant nuclear program, Tehran may see the actual weaponization of its nuclear program as the only option left that can guarantee the security of the Iranian regime.

Unfortunately, an Israeli attack on non-nuclear Iranian assets may lead the Iranian leadership to reach a similar conclusion. As others have discussed elsewhere, since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Iran’s weaknesses in deterring aggression against its assets in the region and capitalizing on the ongoing instability to advance its own security priorities have become apparent. Such weaknesses may be increasing the perceived strategic value of its nuclear program to Iranian leadership.

Short of developing a full nuclear weapons capability, Iran may first respond by enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. While weapons-grade uranium alone is not enough to produce a nuclear weapon, it would be a decisive step in that direction. Iran may also retaliate for further Israeli attacks by withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). A withdrawal would be followed by the exclusion of IAEA inspectors from the country. Although Iran has significantly restricted inspector access in recent years, the IAEA continues to monitor and report on key aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. An Iranian withdrawal from the NPT would leave the international community with no visibility of developments in the program apart from national intelligence collection or satellite imagery.

Such uncertainty—and a formal reneging of Iran’s commitment under the NPT to forego a nuclear weapons capability—risk seriously exacerbating regional instability. An Iranian withdrawal from the NPT may also incentivize nuclear proliferation in the region, with Saudi Arabia having previously threatened to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does.

All or nothing. The counterproductive effect of a limited strike on Iran’s nuclear program could lead Israel to consider a large-scale military operation to set the program back as decisively as possible. This option, however, would almost certainly result in an all-out, highly-destructive war between Iran and Israel, probably dragging other regional factions, the United States, and possibly others into the conflict.

To meaningfully roll back the Iranian nuclear program with a military operation, strikes would need to be carried out on facilities spread out across Iranian territory and would require the suppression of Iranian (and possibly Syrian) air defenses. The operation would also need attacks on ballistic missile and other military sites to be carried out, as they might otherwise be used in any immediate Iranian response. Attacks on underground facilities at Fordow and Natanz would require the use of weapons capable of penetrating several dozen meters of rock and reinforced concrete before exploding inside the facilities. The only conventional weapon that could plausibly achieve this is the American GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which—with over 12 metric tons and 6 meters long — can only be carried by large US bombers like the B-2 Spirit.

This tactical reality and the scale of the force required to hit so many targets nearly simultaneously suggest that a successful strike against the bulk of Iran’s nuclear program would require extensive US support, if not direct involvement. Even this sort of attack—which would inflict severe violence across Iranian territory—would not guarantee total destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.

In a more optimistic reading of current dynamics, Iran and Israel—recognizing the risks and drawbacks of limited or extensive strikes against Iran’s nuclear program—could help prevent precisely such an escalation. Both Israeli and Iranian leaderships could seek to find ways out of the retaliatory cycle while still being able to claim victory. Indeed, such de-escalating dynamics appear to be playing out, with Israel’s having responded in a limited and measured way to the earlier Iranian strikes on its territory and Iran downplaying the impact of Israel’s attacks. The desire to keep the situation from escalating further also clearly appears in US statements that draw a limit on its willingness to be involved in any attacks on Iran.

US political dynamics remain in the background, however. Should Donald Trump be re-elected to the US Presidency later this year, the Israeli position may harden, as a Republican administration is more likely to support an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear program and Trump allies have already called for such strikes. With US support, Israel may feel it has the military and political backing it needs to strike a decisive blow to the Iranian nuclear program and weather the consequences before Iran decides to weaponize.

Managing risks of escalation. Recent events—and whatever further retaliatory measures that follow—are likely to lead to an inflection point in the Iranian nuclear program, as Iran looks to maintain and rebuild whatever deterrent it feels it is lacking or has lost. Meanwhile, the program will continue to be a tempting target for Israel and a source of escalation risks.

The United States, which retains some leverage over Israel, could help reduce these risks significantly by continuing to pressure Israel to keep its retaliation proportionate and limited to non-nuclear assets. Washington should also continue to make it clear that it will not get directly involved in any offensive Israeli military operation and that it will place conditions on any future military support to Israel in its conflict with Iran.

However, even such a measured approach will only act as a palliative treatment to the enduring problem of Iran’s nuclear program. The current situation serves as a sobering reminder of the delicate balance between the deterrent power and destabilizing impact that even a near-threshold nuclear capability can provide. This reality further illustrates the inevitability—and urgency—of finding a negotiated, non-military solution to the Iran nuclear issue.

To be sure, the circumstances and conditions for a return to negotiations look as unfavorable as at any point in the last decade. Yet, they are far more desirable than the alternative: Gambling with the risk that Iran’s current advanced nuclear capability may be replaced by the even more destabilizing specter of a deployable nuclear weapon.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

NoblHouse Nuclear Safety Systems stands ready to deploy our protective anti-nuclear iron dome where it is needed and as soon as needed.

Posted by: Dr Churchill | April 23, 2024

Beijing Seder

Earth Day, Passover, Full Moon, they all came together this year in a rainbow of meaningful spiritual paradoxes, because when we share the Passover meal — the Seder — we are partaking in the most ancient tradition of Spring time resurrection, after the winter of discontent, as symbolized by the “Exodus.”

Exodus from the slavery of the most oppressive season of enslavement, exile, and complete lack of Growth, and that is what Exodus represents for us all, same as all previous generations have experienced, just as surely as the ones to come will live through it once again.

Of course even the word Exodus, has a different meaning for all of us, because it is such a personal experience shared by each one of us alone. And of course, it is not something for the faint of heart, since Liberation is a serious business — as was felt by the Israelites when during passover, fled slavery from Egypt under the cruel Pharaoh … utilizing the divine push channeled through the willful leadership of Moses.

Similarly, Nazi Germany’s “Great Purge” of all Jewish scientists in 1933 is considered another “Exodus” from slavery, as the Passover always has — yet it has also been described, as the best auto-goal in all the history of all self hating evil nations, and their eventual defeat, followed by debauchery and defacement.

As a matter of fact, methinks that Adolf Hitler & his good German Nazis, defenestrated themselves, while chasing away the Jews, and thus deserve to be posthumously awarded, with the “Ignoble prize” based on their stupendously stupid, hateful & evil quest, of riding Europe of Jews.

He claimed to be doing this for the Eugenics of a pure Aryan race, and yet the foolishness with which he pursued that pipe dream makes him a first rate loser, because by exterminating the Jews — he ensured Germany lost the war.

Any lesser fool could ave seen that because you remove Jews from the libraries, from Academia, and from German Life itself, ultimately choosing to even deprive them of their very Life through the mass murder of the whole grand total of them. All that because he was an idiot who couldn’t compete against the Jewish superior intelligence through his little pea-sized brain.

And if you don’t believe me that Herr Fuhrer, with the poopy pants, the extended arm in the Roman salute, and who was always seen wearing his funny face muff — was an idiot — here are his own words to prove it:

“If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years!” —Adolf Hitler

–Good Germans, Nazis, brownshirts, & ordinary students at the University of Göttingen burning books considered “Jewish”, “left-leaning” or “liberal” on May 10th, 1933.

The promulgation of the “Berufsbeamtengesetz Law” ordered the dismissal of all Jewish professors, administrators, & civil servants, from their positions in German Universities, under the guise of them being “Non-Aryan.”

The effects of that New Law in 1933, and the resulting Police Actions, were immediate, in the world of Academia, Scientific Inquiry, and Research, as well as in Society’s progress as demonstrated by the failure of Germany’s academic institutions, and its vaunted Physics universities to get up and rally in order to uphold their unusually “High Standards of Excellence” in research and success in all international competitions for top tier professors, talented graduates, brilliant PHDs, and of course Academic teaching staff recruitment.

Soon, the extent of the foolishness of the “Jewish Science Purge” masquerading as National Policy, was all too evident. Prior to the 1930s, Germany had dominated the natural sciences for more than one hundred and fifty years. Germany’s reputation for excellence in chemistry, physics, biology, medicine and mathematics was unrivaled. And if there was another claimant — was Great Britain and its incredible Commonwealth of Scientific minds and free thinking intellectuals roaming the halls of Oxbridge in flowing black robes and funny hats, like some strange Merlin men, the magicians of yore.

As a matter of fact, out of the 100 Nobel Prizes awarded between the years of 1901 and 1932, the year before Hitler came to power — 33 had been awarded to Germans and/or scientists working in Germany. By comparison, Great Britain’s scientists from British universities had won 18, and the United States a mere 6 Nobel prizes.

However, after the purge of jewish scientists from German Academia and Society — starting in 1933 with the Nazi party’s seizure of control amid Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany, and their passing of the “Berufsbeamtengesetz” the awfully racist law that was introduced by Adolf Hitler himself, and it was swiftly voted and passed in the Nazi Reichstang, for the so called “Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.”

Naturally the German machine turned into action and Jews, Progressives, and certain groups of liberal public employees were immediately dismissed, from all German universities. All the civil servants who did not fit the Nazi racial or societal ideal, where fired and had to leave their jobs, their homes, their pensions, and all of their belongings, in haste — all in the the name of “re-establishing a national and professional civil service”. In addition to bureaucrats, teachers, judges and other workers, scientists and academics were all immediately affected, including the ones at the world-leading institutions of the University of Göttingen and Humboldt Universities in Berlin, (Heims, 1980 p. 165).

As it seems, by the middle of April, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union proclaimed a nationwide “action against the un-German spirit”. Not long after, public Nazi marches on and around university campuses were taking place and “bücherverbrennung” book-burning ceremonies, were held in protest of literature found to be sympathetic with the socio-democratic, left-leaning and/or “Jewish values”. In a series of letters to a colleague in America, John von Neumann (1903-57) who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1930 wrote the following: “The news from Germany are bad: heaven knows what the summer term of 1933 will look like.”

The “term” as well as the coming years, became what has been called a “great purge” of world-renown scientists from Germany. A singular event, the likes of which the world had never seen before.

But what was the immediate outcome of this?

The most easily measurable effect was the rise of the United States as the world’s Top Center of scientific research and the “death” of the Universities of Germany as top tier research universities of any note…

Germany became overnight a parvenu, a has been, an issuer of useless diplomas based on NAZI party credentials, and not on intellectual prowess.

–Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, bows to President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg on March 21st, 1933, ready to usurp all powers and become the ultimate dictator.

Earlier, and specifically on January 30th of 1933, the President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg had reluctantly appointed Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler to be the Chancellor of Germany. After two months in office, following the burning of the Reichstag building, the German parliament passed what has later been called the “Enabling Act” giving Hitler full legislative power for a period of four years. Following the death of von Hindenburg the next year — Hitler exploited the “Enabling Act” to merge the offices of Chancellor and President for himself, thus creating the new office of “Führer and Reichskanzler” in which he was the total unalloyed Dictator.

Von Neumann, then in Budapest, described these events, in a letter, to his colleague, Mr Veblen who was already teaching in Princeton on April of 1933: “It seems, that this Summer will be a endless series of sensations – and not always of the agreeable kind. Please excuse in me that I am asking such a lot of questions. But you know, how these things interest me, and how little newspapers are worth, if you want to find out anything. The news from Germany are bad: heaven knows what the summer term 1933 will look like. The next program-number of Hitler will probably be annihilation of the conservative-monarchistic-party […] I did not hear anything about changes or expulsions in Berlin, but it seems that the “purification” of universities has only reached till now Frankfurt, Göttingen, Marburg, Jena, Halle, Kiel, Köningsberg- and the other 20 will certainly follow. […] It is really a shame, that something like that could happen in the 20th century.

–Von Neumann

Indeed, a lot more than 2,500 Jewish professors, employees, and administrators, were fired from the Universities of Berlin in 1933–34 and many more doctorates were withdrawn. In May, some 20,000 books written by “degenerates” and opponents of the Nazi regime were removed from the university library and burned in the Babelplatz . Reportedly, Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels gave a speech for the occasion, proclaiming the death of “Jewish intellectualism” (Isaacson, 2007).

Among the most prominent Jewish scholars forced to emigrate was, as von Neumann writes in his letter to Veblen, mathematician Richard Courant (1888–1972), one of Göttingen’s three institute heads. He left Germany for Cambridge in 1933, as he was dismissed from his position, not for being Jewish, since he was exempted, due to him being a veteran of the First World War, but due to his membership in the social-democratic political left (Schappacher, 1991). A former student of David Hilbert (1862-1943), Courant first accepted a position in Cambridge, but grew homesick within a year and returned to Germany, only to realize that there was no way for him to stay permanently. He thus re-emigrated, this time to New York University where he would remain for the rest of his life, building up a large and flourishing mathematics department (Medawar & Pyke, 2000) there. Other students of Hilbert at Göttingen, including Felix Bernstein (1878–1956) and Edmund Landau (1877–1938) were also forced out, as was Hilbert’s student Hermann Weyl (1885–1955), three years after being appointed his successor. Initially having been offered von Neumann’s position at the Institute for Advanced Study, Weyl changed his mind, as the political situation in Germany grew worse (Weyl was a Christian, but his wife Helene was Jewish), and joined the IAS in September of 1933 (see essay below).

The Birth of the Institute for Advanced Study (1930)

–University of Gottingen.

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) who openly opposed the Nazi regime, happened to be visiting the United States when Hitler came to power. A visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology on and off starting in December 1930, Einstein and his wife Elsa last left Germany for in December 1932, prior to Hitler’s ascension. Despite holding a chair as Professor of Physics at the University of Berlin, he feared for the safety of both himself and his family. That year, a German magazine printed a list of “enemies of the German regime” with an accompanying picture of Einstein marked “not yet hanged” with a $5,000 bounty (Jerome & Taylor, 2006). 

Einstein dismissed this action as “crazy talk” of German Nazi journalists looking for a scape-goat …

Einstein's Emigration to America (1932)
–Einstein in Norfolk England.
When they closed up their summer house in Caputh in 1932, Einstein reportedly turned to his wife Elsa and said “Dreh dich um. Du siehst’s nie wieder” :

“Turn around. You will never see it again”

Einstein would after asking for rescue from England – he allowed himself to be “kidnapped” by Churchill’s agents, in order to go spend a period of time in relative safety from Hitler’s assassins, under heavy guard in an estate in Norfolk in the UK, while sharing the “Tube Alloys” theories, experiments, and expected results to Churchill’s scientists, before setting off towards America, and settling for good, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

That’s where he worked till the end of his Life, alongside von Neumann and Weyl, as one of the IAS’ six founding faculty members. Albeit from afar, Albert Einstein, a devoted Pacifist, would come to play the key & instrumental role, in the rescue operations of Jewish scientists, children, and even more importantly, in the development of atomic weapons, that would take place throughout the 1930s first in Britain and subsequently in the United States.

Albert Enstein’s letters to Professor Max Born (1882-1970) who was still in Göttingen University, at the end of May 1933, exhibit the clear evidence of his mixed emotions of loss, trauma, & measured enthusiasm — aways alternating with his full desperation for the thankless mission afoot. His doubts about any positive outcome are quite apparent:

Dear Born,

Ehrenfest sent me your letter. I am glad that you have resigned your positions (you and Franck). Thank God there is no risk involved for either of you. But my heart aches at the thought of the young ones. Lindemann has gone to Göttingen and Berlin (for one week). Maybe you could write to him here about Teller. I heard that the establishment of a good Institute of Physics in Palestine (Jerusalem) is at present being considered.

Two years ago I tried to appeal to Rockefeller’s conscience about the absurd method of allocating grants, unfortunately without success. Bohr has now gone to see him, in an attempt to persuade him to take some action on behalf of the exiled German scientists. It is to be hoped that he’ll achieve something. Lindemann has considered London and Heitler for Oxford. He has set up an organization of his own for this purpose, taking in all the English universities. I am firmly convinced that all those who have made a name already will be taken care of. But the others, the young ones, will not have the chance to develop.

–Albert Einstein

The professor “Lindemann” that Einstein mentions in his letter to is Frederic Lindemann (1886–1957), the most influential scientific advisor to Winston Churchill. Despite his German name, Lindemann was English, and a physicist by training, and so got along famously well, with both Churchill & Einstein, as well as with their colleagues in Academia.

After being rescued by Churchill, Albert Einstein wanted a repeat performance for all of his German Jewish scientific colleagues, and thus hoping to appeal to his sense of humanity, statesmanship and military strategy — Einstein went to visit Churchill in the summer of 1933, asking, not begging, for his assistance to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany, and onto England as Churchill had already done for Einstein himself.

Naturally, Einstein’s “sales pitch” to Churchill, was that the Scientisats would devote their full powers to creating the new devastating weapons that would eventually win the Second World War.

As it seems Einstein’s clarion call, was fully heeded by Churchill, who intimately understood the valuable Human Capital, of the Jewish Scientific diaspora, that would be necessary and influential, in order to win the war.

Furthermore all the scientific advancements of Nuclear Physics, that were discussed personally with Einstein on their many secret talks about the new metallurgical science of “Tube Alloys” the codename used for the newfangled Atomic Nuclear Weapons, would be realized with the influx of the Jewish scientists from Germany.

The subsequent “Exodus” of German scientists to England and then to the US, was a great exercise in the phlegmatic English spirit of subterfuge, spycraft, and perfidy, by the willy Winston and his junior helper, Einstein, to fool the German intelligence through blind obedience to the Fuhrer, to let all these Great Physicists to escape Germany’s clutches.

As for Churchill and Einstein — they celebrated their Victory at Churchill’s lovely estate in the Kentish valley, Chartwell where Einstein stayed over for a few days to make solid plans for the secret rescue operation that I shall name “EXODUS.”

Exodus is a good name because ever since their first cooperation in “kidnap & save” the VIPs, all persons of high knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and Theoretical Physics interests, and all of them, Jewish scientists like Albert Einstein, who was first brought to Norfolk in England, terrified and broken of spirit, from the ravages he had suffered at the hands of the Nazis… and was allowed to recover sufficiently in order to start the “Applied Physics” description of the new manufacture of Churchill’s “tube alloys.”

These “tube alloys” were the greatest and most powerful weapon that the world would ever see, as was the red hot revenge that Einstein sought against the Nazis who had even destroyed his beloved violin…

He visited terror upon the German Nazis, by instructing British Scientists on how to produce Nuclear weapons that they could throw at the enemy unhesitatingly. and with immeasurably damaging consequences as was proven in both Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

Einstein with Churchill at ChartWell, Winston's country home-farm in 1933.

–Einstein & Churchill: In this photograph from the Chartwell days of Einstein — Churchill wore a large Stetson hat and Einstein had a wrinkled white linen suit, that looked like he had slept in it for a week, which he probably did.

The great men’s meeting between Churchill & Einstein, was held at Chartwell, where they cooperated for a fortnight, and it seems to have been characteristic of both men’s intellectual accuracy, vibrancy of action, and prophetic Visionary strategy.

Known for his decisiveness, Churchill responded immediately to Albert Einstein’s request, by sending his friend “The Professor” Lindemann to Germany on a rescue mission, to seek out and recruit Jewish scientists and offer them placements in British universities (Gilbert, 2007).

Subsequently, Professor Lindemann’s first visit to Germany, was to rescue physicist Max Born.

–James Franck and Max Born together in 1929 outside the Institute of Physics at Göttingen University in Berlin.

Born was one of six Jewish professors who in the spring of 1933 had been suspended from their positions in Göttingen University, as a result of the enactment of the Berufsbeamtengesetz law. At that time he was a vastly promising future Nobel Prize winner, because he was among the world’s foremost authorities on quantum physics, having supervised Pascual Jordan (1902-80), J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67), Enrico Fermi (1901-54) and collaborated with Heisenberg, Pauli and Bohr.

In his 1971 book. “The Born-Einstein Letters,” Max Born recounted his own version of the events that had led to his rescue operation by Winston Churchill’s agents:

“One day (at the end of April 1933) I found my name in the paper amongst a list of those who were considered unsuitable to be civil servants, according to the new “laws”. After I had been given leave of absence, we decided to leave Germany at once. We had rented an apartment for the summer vacation in Wolkenstein in the Grödner valley, from a farmer by the name of Peratoner. He was willing to take us in immediately. Thus, we left for the South Tyrol at the beginning of May (1993); we took our twelve-year old son, Gustav, with us, but left our adolescent daughters behind at their German schools.”

The Born-Einstein Letters* by Max Born (1971)

On his way to Tyrol, on May 10th Born witnessed the book burnings first-hand and despite his typical quiet and calm demeanor reacted so furiously that his wife Heidi had to restrain him from intervening (Medawar & Pyke, 2000). Shortly after arriving at their destination, Lindemann visited, attempting to entice Born to accept a position at Oxford University. Having spent time in Cambridge in the 20s, Born instead chose to accept a position as a “research student” at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Later, in 1936, he accepted a position as the Tait professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, where he remained until 1952 before retiring to Göttingen.

–Max Reich (1874–1941) , Max Born, James Franck and the “Father of Solid State Physics” Robert Pohl (1884–1976) from a 1923 ceremony in honor of Franck.

As Einstein’s letter to Born recounts, Lindemann also considered recruiting Born’s former students Walter Heitler (1904–1981) and Fritz London (1900–1954). Heitler was a German physicist who made contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory and had worked for a time as assistant to Schrödinger. Following his “habilitation” in 1929 under Born, he remained at the University of Göttingen as a “privatdozent” until 1933, when he was finally fired. Safely in the UK, Born, later arranged for him to get a position as a research fellow at the University of Bristol, working under Nevill F. Mott. London, also a physicist, similarly lost his position at the University of Berlin following the enactment of the Berufsbeamtengesetz. A collaborator of Heitler, London had helped redefine chemical bonds in the age of quantum theory. Following his dismissal, he took visiting positions in England and France before, like many others, emigrating to the United States just before the war, in 1939.

The Golden Age of Quantum Physics (1927)

–The other professor whom, Albert Einstein requested to be rescued in his letter to my grandfather Winston Churchill, was James Franck (1882–1964), who as it turned out was a German physicist and the 1925 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, that was won jointly with his scientific collaborator Gustav Hertz, for “their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom”.

At the time of this particular “EXODUS” of the Jews away from captivity, bondage, & real slavery in Germany, during the “Great Purge” of Jewish theoretical physicists, applied nuclear scientists, and public Jewish intellectuals and Professors, during the spring of 1933 — Franck was the head of experimental physics at the University of Göttingen in Berlin. This was a tenured teaching position he had held for over thirteen years. A full professor, he was also the Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics in Göttingen.

Alongside Born, Franck had built Göttingen’s physics department into one of the world’s finest (Rice & Jortner, 2010). Although exempt from the Berufsbeamtengesetz law as a veteran of the First World War, as Einstein recounts to Born, Franck nonetheless submitted his resignation at Göttingen, the first academic known to have resigned his position in protest of the NAZI anti-Jewish Science Purge law. After a brief visit to the United States, he later took up a position at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, before returning to the U.S. in 1938, accepting a job, at the University of Chicago, where as you might recall the first tests were to take place of the top secret “Manhattan Project.”

Physicist Hans Bethe (1906–2005) who was also dismissed from his job at the University of Tübingen in Germany, on account of being Jewish, left for England after receiving an offer for the position of lecturer at the University of Manchester through his doctoral advisor Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951) and his associate William Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971). After England, Bethe joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1935 and contributed to the Manhattan Project as head of the theoretical Physics division at Los Alamos. A nuclear physicist, throughout the course of his career, Hans Bethe also made important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid state physics, winning the Nobel Prize of Physics in 1967, for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis.

–Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilárd, who all left Germany in the early 1930s due to the Nazi Jewish Science purge.

Einstein’s letter to Born also mentions the young aspirant Edward Teller, (1907-2003), one of four prominent Hungarian physicists who, due to their Jewish origin and Hungarian universities’ openly antisemitic policies at the time, were compelled to leave Europe for America in the 1930s. Interestingly and consequentially, all four contributed significantly to the development of the first atomic bomb, alongside Franck, Bethe and others.

The Martians of Budapest

–Teller, who was an original student of Born — would later be known colloquially as the “Father of the hydrogen bomb.” Initially, he was in Copenhagen studying with Niels Bohr (1885-1962), until Hitler came to power, and stayed far too late because he was in Göttingen during the spring of 1933 and had difficulty escaping, and thus was traumatized with the effect that he became an irascible foe of Germany’s Nazis, and thereafter he wanted to get his revenge. He sought that revenge, by building a more destructive, far bigger and perhaps way-better killing machine, the Hydrogen bomb. That was the source of their conflict because Teller’s bomb was a far more devastating weapon, than the one Oppenheimer building in Los Alamos at the time. Yet, to remember his difficult and hugely traumatic stay in Germany, from where he escaped to England with the help of the International Rescue Committee — he always assisted thereafter this global humanitarian aid Society that was founded in 1933 through the encouragement of Albert Einstein’s famous speech at the Royal Albert Hall, in the evening of Einstein’s final departure from England, where he had found refuge in Norfolk under Churchill’s protection, hidden in an obscure hunting lodge.

It was then that Teller was welcomed at the University College of London, before being offered a full professorship at George Washington University in Washington DC, which he accepted in 1935. His friend and later Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner (1902–1995) had by that time, been in Princeton University since 1930. Before that, he too had been at the University of Göttingen, working both as an assistant to Hilbert and alongside Weyl, on “group theory” and its applications in quantum physics. Reportedly, when he was first recruited for a one-year lectureship at Princeton, his salary increased seven-fold from what it had been in Europe (Szanton, 1992). However, following the expiration of his term in 1936, Princeton chose not to renew his position and Wigner had to move to the University of Wisconsin. There he stayed for two years before returning to Princeton in 1938, to commence his pivotal work on the Manhattan Project. 

Leo Szilard (1898–1964) who is best known as the “Discoverer of the nuclear chain reaction” had left Germany for England in 1933. Reportedly, he transferred his savings of £1,595 (about £100,000) from Zurich to London and thus was able to live in fancy hotels without gainful employment or any kind of paid work for the first year. Yet he kept up with his pivotal Atomic chain reaction Nuclear Physics Research. He eventually took up new temporary work as a physicist in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, working on radioactive isotopes for medical purposes. Then when he travelled to U.S. as a visiting researcher in 1938–39 — he eventually settled at Columbia University in New York. In Columbia university and in collaboration with Walter Zinn (1906-2000), he took up the task of experimentally verifying “The News” brought to America by Niels Bohr in January 1939.

The “The News” that Niels Bohr brought forth, were so called, because when Otto Hahn (1879-1968) and Fritz Strassmann (1902-80) were in Germany — they had observed barium, in the residue, after bombarding uranium with neutrons. This was “The News” that conclusively demonstrated the previously unknown phenomenon of Nuclear Fission.

Heady stuff of legend, because as all know, Szilard and Zinn’s initial experimental tests, proved that the fission of uranium, produced more neutrons than it consumed. This helped Szilard later convince Fermi, and Herbert L. Anderson, (1914-88), to conduct large-scale fission experiments with Uranium, in order to verify the possibility of a sustainable nuclear chain reaction. The rest is History.

–Fermi, an Italian and Roman Catholic by origin, was forced to flee, much like his German colleagues, were forced to escape Nazi Germany — Fermi had to escape Mussolini’s fascist Italy in 1938, because his wife Laura was Jewish.

He is accepted today, as “The Creator of the world’s first Nuclear Reactor” and thus Fermi won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work on induced radioactivity.

Before the war, he had spent a semester studying under Born at the University of Göttingen. There, in the middle of the 1920s he first met the “father of quantum mechanics” Werner Heisenberg (1901-76) and his collaborator Wolfgang Pauli (1900-58).

After this and several other research visits, Fermi eventually settled at the Sapienza University of Rome, after obtaining a full professorship there in 1926, but then he had to flee for his and his wife’s life. England & America beckoned. After England and after winning the Physics prize, Fermi now a newly minted Nobel laureate, immigrated to America in 1939.

The competition for his recruitment was so fierce, that Fermi was offered several positions at five different leading universities, eventually settling on Columbia university, where he had given summer lectures in 1936 and thus was a familiar figure, enjoying the Italian immigrant community’s vivid appreciation of New York City and America at large.

It was right there, in upper Manhattan inside the laboratories of Columbia University, where Fermi conducted the first nuclear fission experiment in the United States. That was the single most notable development on the road to Nuclear weapons and the all too real Nuclear War…

It was in Manhattan where the “Manhattan Project” was conceived, run, and won, because at Columbia University in New York, Fermi and colleagues, alongside and with the crucial help and encouragement of Szilárd — the first large-scale fission experiment using 200 kilograms of uranium oxide was designed, performed, and perfected.

John von Neumann, alongside Wigner, was first recruited from Europe by Veblen to Princeton University in 1930. Him and Wigner had by that point collaborated on several papers and well before that, had attended the same Lutheran high school in Budapest, during the 1910s. According to Wigner, they were invited to Princeton together, on a recommendation from the university that they find and invite:

“..not a single person but at least two, who already knew each other, who wouldn’t suddenly feel put on an island where they had no intimate contact with anybody. Johnny’s name was of course well known by that time the world over, so they decided to invite Johnny von Neumann. They looked at who wrote articles with John von Neumann? They found: Mr. Wigner. So they sent a telegram to me also. —Excerpt, John von Neumann* by Norman Macrae (1992)

Of course Von Neumann’s considerable research output, scientific acumen, and voluminous authorship, were all taken into account, so despite his being only 30 years old, he was offered a lifetime professorship at the newly-founded Institute for Advanced Study alongside Einstein and Weyl in 1933. He would later be instrumental in helping Kurt Gödel (1906-78) escape occupied Austria. Although not Jewish, Gödel’s association with the Vienna Circle, and his doctoral advisor Hans Hahn (1879–1934) had made him a NAZI target. In a letter to the founder of the IAS Abraham Flexner (1866–1959), Von Neumann in September 1939 pleaded:

“The claim may be made with perfect justification that Gödel is irreplaceable for our education program. Indeed Gödel is absolutely irreplaceable; he is the only mathematician alive about whom I would dare to make this statement […] I am convinced that salvaging him from the wreckage of Europe, is one of the great single contributions anyone could make to science at this moment.” –Von Neumann

Immediately after Von Neumann’s letter was received — Gödel was offered a position at the IAS, which he assumed in 1940.

Many other scientists however stayed back in occupied Germany, mainly because all avenues of escape had been shit and even some friends of Freedom, such as Einstein’s friend Max Planck (1858–1947). Planck was ill at 74 years old, when the Nazis came to power. Although his friends and colleagues had fled, himself, a dour Lutheran, tried to “persevere and continue working” hoping the crisis would abate and the political situation ould somehow improve. So was the founder and first President of the Max Planck Society Otto Hahn (1879–1968), who despite having Jewish ancestry (according to Riehl & Seitz, 1996), also remained in Germany during the rise of the Nazis.

He later was credited with discovering nuclear fission in 1938, and during the end of the Second World War, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944. He was an opponent of national socialism,, up until the end and that is why Albert Einstein later wrote of Hahn that:

“Hahn was one of the very few who stood upright and did the best he could in these years of evil” —Albert Einstein

Indeed, the only known case of a German scientist refusing on moral grounds to succeed an expelled Jewish colleague was Otto Krayer (1899–1982), who in response to a job offering at the University of Düsseldorf wrote the following in protest of the purge of his colleagues (Medawar & Pyke, 2000): “I prefer to forgo this appointment, though it is suited to my inclination and capabilities, rather than having to betray my convictions, or that by remaining silent I would encourage an opinion about me that does not correspond with the facts” —Otto Krayer, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in Berlin

In response, Otto Krayer was dismissed from his post at the University of Berlin for refusing to accept the appointment. Wolfgang Haubner later reported about a meeting with Krayer in his diary on July 4th 1935, writing: “On the way I spoke with Krayer who justified his refusal to return to Germany with the impossibility of taking the Hitler oath”.

Two years later, in 1937, Otto Krayer was appointed as an Associate Professor at Harvard University. He was to lead Harvard’s Department of Pharmacology from 1939 to 1966, and to be awarded far too numerous academic honors. The news of his actions in 1933 became public in an article written by the son of Otto Krayer’s doctoral advisor Paul Trendelenburg (1884–1931), who closed his essay with the following words: “Considering the horrors of the Third Reich, Otto Krayer’s deeds should be a comfort to us. When looking for a role model for the young generation, it is found in Otto Krayer. May the memory of this one righteous person never fade.” —Ullrich Trendelenburg

Now, let us learn the old lesson, once again, because methinks we have forgotten the fact that we need not repeat the German NAZIS’ grave error in their ill advised “Great Purge” of the Jews, from all scientific posts in Germany’s universities.

America’s universities have started maligning the Jews wholesale, sidelining all competent and above the fold scientists, and yes, denying tenured track, and removing all Jewish scientists, researchers, teachers, academics, professors, and above all, academic institutions administrators, provosts and presidents from the lists for academic growth, tenure, & career, because these “unfortunates” happen to be Jews.

This travesty of racism, constitutes the latest chapter of Anti-semitism in America, and as you are well aware — we have seen this wave of painful anti-semitism being directed against even the most minor of Jewish students who dare to study at the Ivy League schools of all of America, and not just the most waspish academic institutions…

I ask you this:

What is wrong with that?

How stupid we got to be as Americans to put up with that?

What do we expect to gain at this time through this fallacy of Policy from our current administration?

Is there anyone alive today, who does not remember what happened to Germany a few short years after they called for the “Death of the Jews?”

Seems to me that the crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to the Jews, and from The River to the Shore,” are the prelude to the Crystal Nacht, the pogroms, and all the associated horrors of the Holocaust to follow.

Why does anyone believe that this will turn out any different?

Even the Good Germans could see well enough that the Horror of all this will not be overpassed, same like the Good American administration knows full well that Karma is a bad bitch and she always comes looking for the wrong-headed wrong-doers, to set them straight by banging their heads together…

Because we all know well enough, how swiftly Germany’s anti-semitism turned pear-shaped for Germany and the Nazis, as they were soon to discover to their horror, when they felt Just Retribution.

No German man or woman, escaped the horrors, or the wholesale rape of Germany from the Russian armies, and from the rest of their foreign occupiers, who had a serious ax to grind, and who turned Germany into the whore of Babylon … spread out amongst the rubble of her former glory, for all comers to take advantage of…

Where the Hitlerites blind?

Could they not glimpse into the future and see what’s coming after their day in the sun?

Doesn’t anyone in Germany understand that God blinds those he is willing to lose.

No Matter.

No matter what — stupidity and the lemurs jumping off the cliff is nothing new in the Mob driven “fashions” of the Day, stirring pogroms against Jews. Its being going on for millennia after all…

Mob mentality frothing over perceived Jewish injustices, national wrongs, and differing customs, beliefs & habits, causes terribly evil crimes to be committed against all persons who happened to be adherents of the Judaic faith.

How can America be so stupid today is beyond me…

Because, the same things we recount about the Good Germans, can be said today, about the Good Americans, who are responsible for the Anti-Semitic purges of Jewish Scientists, intellectuals, Professors, Academics, Students, Researchers and Administrators, from the august halls of America’s elite universities.

Mobs rule and mobs decide who is to teach at their school, and who is not to teach.

Yet, methinks that I’be seen this “movie” before and I don’t need any more showings of humanity tearing itself apart…

Because if we don’t stop tearing the fabric of our Academic Life asunder — we will soon get to see great schools like Columbia university, going fast down the drain, much like the University of Berlin, Gottingen, the university of Heidelberg, and all the other great German scientific research institutions did during the 1930’s after the involuntary expulsion of all Jewish scientists.

THEREFORE, IT MIGHT BE SMART to let the Jewish scientists, professors, students, Docs, & post-Docs, to continue to research, teach, study, reflect, and sit quietly in their corner doing their Calculations, instead of allowing the passions of the Mob drive them out.

Apparently though our current resident of the White House is impassive too the pleas of the Jewish scientists and of the State of Israel; and that is the vast difference between a Great Statesman like my grandfather Winston Churchill, and the geriatric President we unfortunately have today in the US, who cannot, nor does want, to raise his voice from the presidential “Bully-Pulpit” to stop today’s anti-semitic “woke” Nazis taking hold of America’s universities, colleges and research institutions, now that the neo NAZI woke Mob has gripped firm control of all institutions of higher learning in the US, as its now reaching into grasping for the levers of Power throughout the United States government…

Inevitably, invariably and unsurprisingly — we have started to see Jewish scientists flying to New Shores.

Young Jewish scientists, profs, and researchers, who are flee-footed and always ready with a prepared suitcase hidden under the bed, like Albert Einstein, have started to fly away towards China and the developing world, because they do not want to wake up unprepared like their grandparents who were woken in the middle of the night when the knock on the door from the Gestapo, arrived at 3 AM and they were ushered into waiting cattle cars, to be relocated to some “Safe Place.”

Today’s Jewish scientists of America, having all lost past members of their families in the Holocaust, and quite clearly remembering the “Shoah” in their epigenetic RNA protein biological library, that carries all memories since Adam and the generalized suffering of the Jews — are quite aware of the danger, and are fleeing the murderous Mob Rule, like Einstein did … yet they are traveling towards a different shore.

Because this time around; they are fleeing to China, since the invitation has been sent and well received, along with the promises of Gold Renumeration, Freedom to Experiment, and Freedom to Express their thoughts, along with unlimited resources at their disposal for their basic scientific research.

This invitation, is far better than the Passover invitation for the Jews to flee the exile of Egypt, American Pharaoh is a limp brisket, who invites all the pestilence, the horrors, and the seven curses to befall upon his people — now that the Jewish scientists of America are looking to cross the waters of the Great Pacific pond to the shores of a rather welcoming Asiatic global power looking to transform their Scientific and Technological status quo.

Now, you are a rather intelligent reader — since you made it this far, so please do tell me what do you think could go wrong in America after the Jewish exodus of University Research Professors, and Jewish Intellectuals, when the most keen Scientists of Academia, Industry and Government all leave America?

What is it that you see happening soon thereafter?

Do you understand me?

Am I being crystal clear?

YES ?

Ok…

You grog me…

So, now, let us have a moment of reflective meditation, and perhaps for the non-meditators amongst you; a mere mental exercise, and let us all try to think this problem through, as a strong thought, remaining with the problem long enough for it to become crystal clear, and the vision to clarify itself, as it always happens when our thoughts are allowed to reach their natural conclusion, no matter where that process takes us.

And if you are a serious thinker, you could maybe even answer the following question:

“What would Winston Churchill Do?”

–Churchill’s Great Wall.

My grandfather Winston Churchill & Einstein at the back garden of ChartWell, hanging out, talking, walking about, and no doubt, Winston explaining to the great Physicist Albert, his close friend and confidant by now — how he had laid up all the bricks and mortar, for his famous brick wall, that he built as a fully paid-up member of the Bricklayers Union of England, and that his friends rebuilt each and every afternoon, while Winston went to nap, in order to make it straight…

And that is how you do it — one brick at a time, you built your Scientific Inventions, Innovations and Applications as I have done with my discovery of the Nuclear Safety Systems that has finally demonstrated how to “put the Genie back in the bottle” using the equations that were dancing around in the head of Albert at his prime…

Similarly to my talking and walking with beneficial friends at the Beijing Passover Seder today — I wish everyone liberation from the Exile of ignorance, freedom from the distasteful Slavery of hate and above all else, I wish you to be free of mental slavery, which is the most awful thing we all experience today in this God’s forgotten, yet dearly beloved earth on they annual Spring Earth Day celebration of this green-blue planet, we call home.

Our planet Earth, that we occupy as children of the Almighty, until we are finally called forth & sprung up towards Heaven … up above.

L’Chaim

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

If you are in Beijing – please reach out to me because I have a lecture at Tsinghua University, about Higher Physics and would want to invite you to attend.

The subject is pretty well summarized in my earlier article here at the Bleeding Edge Blog, titled 90 seconds to midnight…:

https://beb.mobi/2024/02/28/90-seconds-to-midnight/

L’Chaim

Posted by: Dr Churchill | April 23, 2024

From the horse’s mouth…

I know that I now have less time to live than I have already spent living…

I also know that my light needs to shine for more friends to find their way, for more foes to see the error of their path, and utmost for my People to see their way home.

As for me — I need that light to shine my path to salvation.

I feel like all days ahead are nothing but the stuff of wisdom, the bricks & mortar of miracles, the sinews & bones of dreams, and the thoughts & actions of revelations.

Therefore, please forgive me if I don’t listen to you repeating yourself, and if I pay no heed to your errant emotional baggage, or if I get to forget your slights & insults.

I do this as self preservation, because I have no time for endless lectures by ideologues of any stripe, since we both know that nothing will change…

As for other people and their foolishness — well, we are all aghast.

Further, I have no desire to argue with fools who do not act according to their age. And there’s no time to battle the gray. I fear nothing more than an old fool convinced of her righteousness.

In the same vein — I don’t attend meetings where egos are inflated, showboats are lording it all over us, and the remaining banana boats cruise at flank speed.

You see, since I can’t stand manipulators — why even attempt to pretend to like them?

I am also a little disturbed by envious people, the garden variety of slugs, who try to spoil, cheat & vilify the most capable, in order to grab their positions, talents and achievements.

I have too little time to discuss headlines – my soul is in a hurry.

See…

There are far too few candles left in the box.

I’m interested in human beings. Serious people. People who have humility in spades and can laugh at themselves, at their errors, and learn from their mistakes…

My friends are not those who are successful, but only those who understand their calling and don’t hide from the responsibility of Leadership.

I am in the same foxhole with all those amongst you who choose to defend human dignity no matter what, and always want to be on the side of truth, justice, & righteousness.

This is what living is for.

I want to live a worthy life as I surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of others.

Sufferers, who became wise through the blows of fate, who earned their stripes of life, not by living long in comfort and fear, but those who risked it all and arrived in the other side, able to rise up from the human rot, the detritus, and the muck all around us — and yet my friends managed to maintain the softness of the Soul.

I owe you a debt of gratitude because my Soul sees your souls as equals walking the same path to redemption.

God Bless You

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Yes, I hustle, I hustle to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. I’ll eat all the candy I have left – they’ll taste better than the ones I already ate.

My goal is to reach the end in harmony with myself, my loved ones and my conscience.

I thought I had two lives, but it turned out to be only one, and it needs to be lived with dignity.

Same goes for you my dear…

Take it from the horse’s mouth :

Posted by: Dr Churchill | April 2, 2024

90 seconds to midnight…

“The mind can go in a thousand directions,

But on this beautiful path,

I walk in peace.

With each step, the wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Since the atomic explosions of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and countless other lesser known nuclear explosions in testing of nuclear weapons — the cherry blossoms of Japan have come to symbolize the silent yet deadly nature of nuclear radiation exposure as a cause of mass human death & destruction.

White is the funerary color in Japan, as in the white pinkish glow color of the cherry blossom flowers of the Sakura season of stillness, beauty and reflection … when after the early pink colours of the Cherry tree blooms ascent to life, they become increasingly white and fall like a rain of white butterflies fluttering like little white souls down to earth.

Happy Sakura, happy Spring, and happy Easter, and forgive me for being a bearer of sad tidings, but in the midst of our discourse — we have the Good News of our Resurrection, so let us be peaceful and meditative as we unravel our Gospel of Peace and Salvation in a few segments of my upcoming book, titled: “90 Seconds to Midnight.”

I wrote these thoughts as a collage from now to that day, when me and my colleagues who are actively building the “Noblhouse” of Nuclear Defenses, will turn theoretical Physics into Applied Physics, through our advanced and evolved understanding of Nuclear Explosions.

We seek top solve this giant problem because we seek to redress the effects of the Atomic weapons criticality and Nuclear chain reaction during the nanoseconds at the beginning of a nuclear explosion.

Indeed, we examine all fusion nuclear energy events, in order to harness, arrest and redirect all of that energy and mass, accrued at the moment of the nuclear explosion, through the massively critical black hole, acting as an electricity arrestor during a lightning strike of atmospheric cloud electricity, coming down from the charged clouds above.

Exposure Radiation, Irradiation, and DeRadiation all need to be harnessed right aways, because we have come to learn that we are again fast approaching Armageddon and the Nuclear Doomsday, as the Atomic Scientists have pushed the Nuclear Doomsday clock forward to 90 seconds before midnight…

So here we are, at 90 seconds to midnight, and as the Atomic clock inches forward to our eventual destruction, disappearance and delisting as a viable species in our planet — perhaps we need to have a serious noodling of our intentions for our Civilization and for the continued existence of the Human species.

From my perch, as a disruptive innovator and a serious strategic game changer — I now sow the “seeds of change” through the entrepreneurial mechanisms that motivate Innovation, Capital, People, Powerful syndicates, Governmental Treasure and Statecraft, to shift to a New Equilibrium, blessed with the Moral Compass of Ethical Leadership, Reverence for Life, Humility, Science, Statesmanship, and Faith induced Strategy for the continued existence of the Human family.

In science, technology, and business, “disruptive innovation” is a goal. But the same innovations that start in the Physics departments of our Academia, go to the fast track Military applications, to the DARPA, to the Pentagon, to the DoD, or to the general & never lasting sphere of our National Security apparatus, a space where the most destructive of the very disruptive innovations are commercialized for both dual-use and double-edged weapons production, but are most devastating as “First Strike” weapons.

And thus even the most Pacifist of our defensive weapons — not only can they go from civilian defenses to military applications, but they can also present new fangled opportunities to endanger the very Existence of Human beings upon this Earth. There is no stopping innovation, nor should there be. But it’s important to ask if innovators can create transformative technologies while not imperiling their country’s national security. In other words, can they be more mindful scientific stewards without compromising advancement?

And what can today’s disruptors learn from yesterday’s innovators?

Answering those questions requires reflecting on historical instances of disruptive technologies in military and civilian innovation and invention of fresh brain products & perspectives that solve real problems and hopefully promote our Existence on this Earth.

Because as it turns out some of the scientists behind some of those dual use technologies did not intend to be disruptive. Alfred Nobel is the quintessential example. Nobel was curious, a “barefoot empiricist,” the type of scientist who learned by hands-on experimentation through trial-and-error. In 1847, a French chemist had discovered nitroglycerin, used as an antidote for angina. Nobel began studying the chemical’s homeopathic virtues but also recognized its volatile properties and ultimately developed the explosive and detonator that countries used in ways that he regretted. The Swedish innovator nursed his remorse by creating five Nobel Prizes, one a peace prize that would be awarded in Norway, a country that had previously demanded that its union with Sweden dissolve.

In 1897, two years after Nobel drafted his will that would create the Peace Prize, British physicist J.J. Thomson discovered the first subatomic particle when he observed streams of electrons deflected by electric and magnetic fields, implying they were comprised of negatively charged particles. The discovery unlocked the field of subatomic particle physics that led to Bohr’s model of the atom, the discovery of isotopes in the early 20th century, quantum mechanics in the 1920s and 1930s, and fission in 1938. These steps culminated in the making of the atomic bomb, which left its lead scientist guilt ridden. At the first detonation of the bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos laboratory that built the first two bombs, is said to have recalled a verse from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

As with nitroglycerin, atomic physics had salutary civilian applications. Nuclear medicine is crucial in diagnosing, staging, and treating cancer. But as with Nobel, Oppenheimer did not need a crystal ball to know these discoveries could also lead to destruction. Scientists Lisa Meitner and Joseph Rotblat found off-ramps, well before the culmination of the bomb. Meitner did not join the Manhattan Project and Rotblat left, once it was clear the Germans would lose World War II, before they developed the nuclear bomb. Rotblat later joined Albert Einstein in arguing publicly for arms control and creating an organization called the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs that would later win a Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts on nuclear disarmament. Rotblat’s resistance did not, however, stop the atom or hydrogen bombs from being built, or prevent an arms race in which the United States and Soviet Union built enough nuclear weapons to kill each other’s Citizenry many times over, and extinguish Human Civilization.

These historical examples raise vexing questions about technological imperatives. Once a technology becomes feasible, is it also inevitable regardless of its anticipated adverse consequences? Just because something is attainable technologically, does it mean it should be attained? And most important, what would a scientific conscience look like in a world of technological imperative, as technologies become larger than just one innovator and become part of a broader competitive ecosystem?

Surely there must be a better way than sleepwalking into harm, existential or otherwise.

Innovators can start by asking the right questions. “Deciding what not to do” Steve Jobs said, “is as important as deciding what to do.” This means asking what should not be done or how something can be done more ethically, sustainably, transparently, and responsibly, rather than focusing entirely on whether, or how fast, it can be done technologically. One of the common features of technological buyer’s remorse is that innovators did not seem to anticipate how their creations could be misused or how political actors could capture and use their innovations in new and unplanned ways. So the first step in ethical innovation is gaming out the possible consequences and misuses of the innovation. As people in the intelligence community say, it’s important to think like a terrorist and imagine not just the garden-variety intended uses or behaviors but the vulnerabilities — and not just of the current iteration, but also of version 20.0 of the technology.

The second step toward ethical and sustainable technological advance is to design some guardrails. The challenge is to figure out what guardrails mean short of banning a technology, which is neither practical nor terribly feasible. Some observers might suggest examining how a combination of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Wassenaar Arrangement on export controls, and the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls helped limit nuclear proliferation and the diffusion of sensitive military technologies. But these arrangements took decades to conclude, and were very targeted to nuclear weapons and specific to dual-use tech. That success story will be hard to replicate.

Contrary to popular proposals of Nuclear Ban Treaties that serve as examples of the type of thinking that engineers should do “ex ante” or before the event, rather than locking the barn door, after the horse has bolted…

And the same holds true, because we have been so careless about Nuclear weapons and their imminent use in this present day war of our own choosing, instigating and even commencing hostilities. Today, it is the threat of launching “theater nuclear weapons” in the Ukraine war, that makes the clock tick faster towards midnight, and is placed by the Atomic Scientists at 90 seconds to midnight — closer than at any other time in History to ending our Civilization along with our own lives, families, and dreams.

Mind you — your feelings about which side of the war you are on — do not significantly matter here, because they do not alter the balance of power nor the equation of inevitability. We hang by a thread, and we don’t even know it…

Because as long as you understand that this war was started by the United States and NATO — you are able to read the remainder herewith, with clear eyes and a cool head, seeing the perspective of reality.

Unfortunately and certainly mistakenly, we miscalculated, we accepted a foul “bill of sale” from an disreputable “tart” our CIA, and thus we bought this “tarred baby,” a tarted up fraction’s private war, and we have to deal with this foolish exercise in titanic Hubris.

And that is a fact of Life.

And yet, we still want to claim the immoral mantle of this debauchery, hoping to win some small concession in the battlefields of Ukraine — even though facts on the ground militate against us.

We stupidly started this war, with the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, in Scandinavia, and in Ukraine, through the CIA coup-removal of the Democratically elected president of the country, through the CIA led Maidan uprisings, through the enlistment of the First Clown as PRESIDENT, and through the whole operational fiasco, scripted & instigated by Hillary and her Neo-Con consorts, and the long unsavory list of neo-Nazis of Ukraine suppressing the Russian speaking territories and waging war against their own citizens with an army of fascists led by a real Clown. A petty clown, a comedian, an actor and a less than serious man, who has neo-Nazi sympathies and is also a stooge of the Neo-Cons of our government.

Funny, yet deadly serious business is afoot.

And when our President Biden in his geriatricaly limited mental acuity, approved of, and ordered the blowing up of the NordStream Russian gas pipelines to Europe, at the Danish island of Bornholmn — you would really expect the other shoe to drop.

Intuitive reflexive response came from the other side, as ought to have been expected when the Russian premiere in his State of the Nation address on February 29th — issued one of his most explicit warnings about the danger of nuclear war in Ukraine.

He unequivocally spoke about the Russian strategic nuclear forces “being in a state of full readiness” and able to hit all their targets in the West.

If you are keen on discounting the imminent and present danger — just consult the recently leaked, Russian military files from 2008 to 2014. This treasure trove of Kremlin intelligence was leaked recently to the Financial Times.

Product of espionage or not — these Kremlin Nuclear Files, unequivocally dictate that Russia’s threshold for first use of Nuclear weapons, is far lower than Western military experts had earlier always assumed. 

Assumption always makes an ass out of you so the 29 classified Russian military documents that were leaked prove the ass-umption, because they include discussions of war-gaming with live nukes, portray the use of theater nuclear weapons as an everyday occurrence, and also identify operational thresholds for first use of tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons.

It is notable, that when commenting on the secret Russian documents, Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, said: “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”

Coming on the heels of a suggestion by French President Emmanuel Macron that the option of sending NATO ground forces into Ukraine was under discussion within the alliance, the leaked documents on Russian nuclear first use; seem both timely and significant. 

On the other hand, in previous statements about Russian military doctrine for deterrence and possible nuclear weapons unleashed — many Russian officials have stressed that nuclear weapons would only be used in response to a nuclear attack on Russia or its allies, or in cases of threat to the survival of the regime and nation posed by a war with conventional weapons.

An official response to the leaked documents, came from a Kremlin spokesperson who ruefully commented: “The main thing is that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely transparent, and is spelled out in the doctrine. As for the documents mentioned, we strongly doubt their authenticity.”

Regardless of the authenticity of these documents, references to the possibility of Russian nuclear first use in Ukraine cannot be treated as idiosyncratic, or as a departure from the usually restrained Russian leadership’s turtle-like-speed precedent. 

Premier Putin himself has, on numerous occasions since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022, reminded NATO and the world that the nuclear option remains available should Russia choose to use it. He has also noted, in this regard, Russia’s superior numbers of non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons compared to the US tactical nuclear weapons deployed in other NATO countries.

Of course — Numerical Superiority means very little in the beginnings of a nuclear war, because once unleashed and commenced, nuclear war has absolutely NO WINNERS>

Observers of varying backgrounds have put forward explanations for Putin’s saber rattling, with some of them suggesting that the Russian president uses nuclear threats, to achieve some current or future tactical edge in his country’s continuing face-off with Ukraine, the United States, and NATO.

All that faulty reasoning however, cannot erase the present day REALITY>

Reality: Any Russian first use of tactical nuclear weapons would create unprecedented conditions that could easily lead not just to a regional Russian territorial advantage, but to a wider nuclear war, that would decimate the United States, England, France, Russia and shortly thereafter, all the rest of the world.

So what has brought us to this awful Armagedonnian stage?

Well, … since the Ukraine war in 2022, a variety of commentators have put forward quite a few explanations for President Putin’s propensity for nuclear saber rattling: First off, some people contend that the Russian Leader Mr Putin is bluffing. This is the argument of the First Ukrainian Clown / President Volodymyr Zelensky, who feels that Putin’s nuclear diplomacy is designed to intimidate NATO into backing off from its support for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence. Others in and outside of Ukraine are more fearful of attacks with conventional weapons on Ukrainian nuclear power plants — and the residual effects of such strikes on public health, infrastructure and climate — than an actual Russian nuclear weapons first use.

A differing explanation for Russian president’s nuclear threats, is that they constitute a probe. Russian leadership is, as it were, taking the temperature of the United States and NATO, to see their reactions. This presents a dilemma for American and NATO European leaders.  If they overreact to Putin’s intimidation, they appear fearful and potentially vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.  If they simply ignore his comments about nuclear war, they may come across as lacking in awareness of the risks of escalation as fighting continues.

Another perspective on Putin’s nuclear rhetoric, sees it as a response to Russia’s political and military setbacks since the war began in February, 2022. The initial objective of Russia’s so-called Special Military Operation was the prompt defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces and the abdication or surrender of its government, replaced by a Russian puppet regime. Instead, Russia found itself bogged down in a protracted war that has been extremely costly in both personnel and resources —hence the threat of nuclear weapons use, if the situation worsened. Putin has been dissatisfied with the performance of Russian armed forces on more than one occasion, and the weird attempt at a putsch by the erstwhile Wagner group created a temporary sense of chaos in the military chain of command. Wagner has since been scattered to the winds, and Russia’s military position relative to Ukraine has improved in the aftermath of the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of the summer and the fall of 2023.  Moreover, Russia’s superior numbers of available and potential military personnel and war-supporting industrial resources, relative to those of Ukraine, create the potential for an endless stalemate with outcomes favorable to Russia. But the situation remains uncertain, and so the nuclear saber-rattling continues.

Admittedly Putin’s nuclear diplomacy asserts, that he is laying the predicate for escalation to “nuclear first use” if unexpected battlefield reverses threaten to destabilize Russia’s operational-tactical position for the defense of important objectives. NATO support for Ukraine provides that county not only with military hardware such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, long range missiles and antimissile systems, and the like, but also with the “software” of warfare, including C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assistance with navigation, warning, special operations, and strategic deception.  On more than one occasion, Ukrainian brainpower has outmaneuvered Russian muscle. But the Russians are learning fast and have upped their game significantly since the embarrassing blunders of 2022. Moreover, Russian armed forces have demonstrated in training exercises superior understanding of the extreme complexity of modern airland battle and its potential risks and costs. They are also aware of the difficulties in operational-tactical maneuver on a nuclear rich battlefield.

In my mind, the most probable interpretation of Russian Leadership’s propensity for “No Fear” of first use of atomic weapons in the battlefield, is that it reflects the clearly rational nationalistic reasoning of the Top Russian Generalship, along with their Military and leading Political deciders; that the gradual management of escalation toward favorable outcomes by the manipulation and escalation of the nuclear exchange risk — is accorded a top placement on the menu, because the West is squeamish and unable to accept, let alone risk and deal with a single atomic detonation in its soil.

Accordingly when classic French chefs take to boiling the proverbial frog before he jumps out — they do so by gradually increasing the temperature of the water in the pot, to the point where the frog is incapacitated and boils to death. This is the technique that would surely render the bellicose chickenhawk squad of political-boys, Macron, Biden, Sunak, Scholz, and the rest of the baby chicks, to fall in step for the prep-line of reasonable accommodation with Russia, right after a demonstration of a “nuclear first use” of the detonation of an atomic weapon in the wilderness of Western Ukraine’s fertile soil, as close to Poland and Germany as possible. And of course this will surely happen on the exact moment that the seasonal direction of the winds and the rains — will assuredly carry the radioisotopes to the German-Polish stoop.

Then as a single point of coercion that has been structured and extended so far, from the lowest point of this conflict that we stupidly started — the spectrum of choices edges-up to the crossing of the threshold from conventional into nuclear war. Same outcome of the boiling frog, albeit with the intensity of ambient Radiation that will “school” the West to not be as adventurous with other people’s blood, DNA structural anomalies, and inevitably massive losses of lives — as those brass plated chickenhawks, hiding under their desks deep inside the Pentagon, have done, for far too long already. 

Being an American vampire is not a Hollywood story, but a Pentagon stupidity born & bred out of the State department’s Neo-Con wet dreams of world domination, and the weed smoking foolish boy’s trust in the American Exceptionalism, sitting pretty on the inside of the Atlantic & Pacific moats.

This is not a scenario for the faint of heart, but as a serious Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov’s essay, “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” has long argued — is simply a realpolitik script, that a Russian tactical nuclear first use somewhere in Europe might be the necessary “stick” to shock NATO back into its senses. And the subsequent irradiated rains on Western Europe, will provide the lull after the storm, that will serve as the “carrot” to lead the Western Europeans like good horses, to concede to Russia’s suzerainty over Ukraine. And because of the Europeans’ continued need to keep doing their yoga, their Swedish massages, their advancing queer Europeans’ sexual quest for more queerness, transgenderism, and cross-dressing in their militaries; their squabbling over idiotic agricultural quotas, their economic central planning, their endless and rather pointless debates, Germany’s 2.0 supremacy over the rest of Europe.

Forget about, the European sad beltching in Strasbourg, Brussels & Berlin, about the methane coming out of both ends of the multitude of European cows, and some people too, continuously belching, farting and pooping at will, in the fields of Europe.

Let us not forget about the Europeans’ continued discourse over eating their radioactive yet uber-organic foods, their radioactive yet Uber-healthy sausages, their glowing, yet uber-crisp pome frittes, their multicolored chippies, and their glow-in-the-dark sauerkraut, and their basic call for trying to survive with plenty of growing blood cancers, tumours, and skin diseases.

Somehow, methinks that the simple use of nuke in Ukraine — will surely dissuade the baby frogs, the chickenhawks, the Seig-heil brigades of NeoNazi Germans, and their ilk in Poland and the Norway-Swedish combine — to return to their domestic duties, clean outside their front door, and shut the fvck up, about threatening and poking the “Bear” or mixing themselves up in whatever happens in that family feud, that Ukraine and Russia have engaged into, much like a belligerent clownish child fighting against it’s own Mother, for a few years now…

According to noted military theorist Dmitry Adamsky, Russia offers a cross-domain cocktail of conventional war-fighting and nuclear deterrence options. Crossing the nuclear threshold would most likely occur when Russia felt that its nonnuclear escalation options have been exhausted, and its nuclear rhetoric had thus far proved futile.

Signs of that have come on board already, ever since Russia pulled back from the Start Treaty earlier this year…

Even then, prior to actual nuclear first use, a “muscle-flexing” phase of gradually increasing “strategic gestures” will be used to communicate resolve and capability to climb the escalation ladder, Adamsky writes.

So it comes as “No Surprise” that my piece, alludes not just to the story of the race to build the bomb but also to the subsequent debate over whether to go beyond the development of fission weapons to create the “Super” or hydrogen bomb, based on nuclear fusion.

Notably, J. Robert Oppenheimer fiercely opposed the development of the Hydrogen-bomb, not on moral grounds, but because he hoped that the Baruch plan might work and he did not want to hinder that possibility for long term atomic detente Peace, after the war. In his and the other critics’ view — the H-bomb’s capacity for nearly unlimited explosive power, rendered it useful only for the mass murder of civilians. The concern—that the H-bomb development hinders international control of atomic energy, as it failed to respond to the first Soviet atomic test of August 1949, raises the ante for “arms talks.” Yet by then, all knew that negotiations were a lost cause, owing both to the US’s commitment to keep on charging and thus stay ahead in the nuclear arms race.

This is the key role that the H-bomb played in the expansion of the US nuclear weapons program. The early 1950s American development of the so-called tactical nuclear weapons, that is, weapons intended not to be dropped on cities but rather employed against targets of military relevance, is why we have come to worry today, about Russian military threats of using nuclear weapons to alter the course of the war in Ukraine.

And even more worrisome is the fact that the heavily nuclear weaponized & armed with “battlefield theater nukes” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will respond in kind, is what became known as “nuclear plenty

In the wake of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the US common view was that the weapons’ only purpose was to inflict mass casualties on civilians by attacking cities.

Operational testing and development of H-bomb and theater nukes, went ahead at flank speed, and coincided with the presentation at the United Nations by Bernard Baruch of the US plan for preventing a nuclear arms race. Based on the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, Baruch’s plan eliminated the provision for international control of uranium deposits and emphasized instead the punishment of countries that sought to use atomic energy for military purposes. Baruch insisted that the United States maintain its monopoly on nuclear weapons until intrusive inspection procedures had assured that no other countries possessed them — clearly a nonstarter for the secretive Soviet Union.

The failure of international negotiations to control further developments of Nuclear weapons, tactical, strategic and theater, along with the H-bomb’s completion — brought back the US military’s attention to accelerating US production of fissile material and developing bomb designs that would use it more efficiently.

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The US General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), oversaw three major expansions of atomic production facilities in 1949, 1950, and 1952. The Sandstone series of nuclear tests in April and May 1948 — follow up of the 1946 Operation Crossroads — had demonstrated the success of new designs of smaller, more efficient nuclear weapons than had previously been available. At this point, US strategy for a potential war with the Soviet Union — including a feared invasion of western Europe — focused entirely on attacking Soviet cities with atomic weapons.

Could nuclear weapons though play a more direct role in defense ?

The “long-range objectives” for the Pentagon’s Research and Development Board of Nuclear Energy weapons systems, recommended in August 1948 that nuclear weapons be developed for use on a battlefield.

Norris Bradbury, Oppenheimer’s chosen successor as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, accordingly, submitted a request in October “that a complete small weapon be readied for test early in 1951.”

He relayed an order to the Sandia Laboratory, responsible for the weaponization of nuclear devices. Sandia was already at work on the “Mark 4” bomb, which consisted of an improved version of the Mark 3 “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Mark 4 was the first US atomic weapon to go into mass production and eventually came in a variety of yields, including one kiloton (1,000 tons of TNT equivalent), considered at the time small enough to use for tactical purposes.

In 1949, following the shock of the first Soviet nuclear tests, the US redoubled efforts to promote tactical uses for atomic weapons. A seriously fast crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb promoted by Edward Teller and Lewis Strauss, then-chair of the AEC, in favor of “bringing the battle back to the battlefield” was inaugurated. The October 1949 report of the AEC’s General Advisory Committee, where Oppenheimer and his colleagues came out against the Super, included a section on “tactical delivery.” The committee recommended to the AEC “an intensification of efforts to make atomic weapons available for tactical purposes, and to give attention to the problem of integration of bomb and carrier design in this field” in ways that could have had contributed to the postwar atomic arsenal for use in the battlefield.

Oppenheimer had “become convinced that nuclear weapons had a tremendous field for tactical application, in fact, in the long run, probably the most promising field of all.” Oppenheimer’s promotion of such tactical applications put the proponents of the larger H-bomb on the defensive — to the point where they started singing the praises of hydrogen bombs for battlefield use. AEC chair Strauss, for example, wrote to President Harry Truman in November 1949 that “unlike the atomic bomb, which has certain limitations, the proposed [hydrogen] weapon may be tactically employed against a mobilized army over the area of the size ordinarily occupied by such a force.”

Oppenheimer had made it possible for the United States to pursue both fission and fusion weapons for any possible use by securing the expansion of production of atomic materials and advocating more efficient weapons. But if Oppenheimer thought he could defeat the “Super” (H-bomb) by promoting tactical nuclear weapons, he was quickly disappointed. His fellow enthusiasts for battlefield nuclear weapons, including General Gavin, came out in favor of the H-bomb.

When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, Gavin worked with Gen. Kenneth Nichols to urge the Army’s chief of staff to recommend to President Truman “that we use nuclear weapons against the North Korean forces.” 

General Nichols role during the Manhattan Project and later, as general manager of the AEC, along with general Gavin, both famous for their efforts to remove Oppenheimer’s security clearance in 1954, believed, that “the situation in the summer of 1950 offered us a number of well worth-while tactical nuclear targets, if we had had the moral courage to make the decision to use them.”

Oppenheimer made his views on the tactical use of nuclear weapons public in a speech to the New York Bar Association in January 1951, where he said that given “the extent of our investment in the atomic field — we cannot ignore what the atom can do for military purposes.” When he was then asked the question of using or not the atomic bomb, in the Korean War, he said, that he had raised the issue of “atomic weapons in warfare” and “their use against military targets” and declared that atomic weapons “are an integral part of military operations,” but should be used “only as adjuncts in a military campaign, which has some other components, and whose purpose is military victory.”

Although Oppenheimer seemed to favor the use of tactical nuclear weapons in a future war, his remarks were sufficiently ambiguous as to leave unclear his views on their relevance for Korea. General Gavin wrote a piece entitled “Tactical Uses of the Atomic Bomb,” which originally appeared in the Combat Forces Journal, where it appeared as if Gavin’s views were perhaps not shared by his superiors, but that “it is conceivable that the situation might present itself in a different light, when, in the course of military operations, a very large concentration of enemy troops might be forced to assemble in a limited area.”

The Korean War gave rise to fears of “another Korea” in Europe: a Soviet invasion across the inter-German border. Here, the proponents of tactical nuclear weapons found their most promising scenarios. Between the spring and fall of 1951, the California Institute of Technology, where Oppenheimer had worked before the war, hosted a large top-secret government study called Project Vista. The study focused on ground and air tactical warfare in European defense. Although Oppenheimer was not among the more than a hundred specialists who participated in the research, he was invited to draft one of its key chapters and to brief General Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s supreme commander, on its findings. Vista’s recommendation to develop a range of atomic weapons suitable for use on a European battlefield proved highly threatening to the US Air Force, whose Strategic Air Command sought a monopoly on nuclear warfare. Air Force officials joined the H-bomb proponents, including Teller and Strauss, to help secure Oppenheimer’s downfall in the 1954 security clearance hearings.

Whatever happened afterwards, it was not Oppenheimer’s moral qualms about nuclear weapons that incited such strong opposition against him, because it was his singular challenge to the city-busting strategy of the Air Force, and his advocacy of widening the range of uses for atomic bombs in the battlefields around the world.

And it was in that respect that he succeeded, because during the Cold War, the United States deployed thousands of nuclear weapons for use in Europe, and the Soviet Union quickly followed suit deploying many more thousands of weapons across all of the Warsaw pact…

The end of the Cold War led to vast reductions in the US and Soviet arsenals. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has again raised the specter of nuclear war. Reported US plans to integrate new B61-12 nuclear weapons onto US- and NATO-operated tactical aircraft in Europe — to be used on the battlefield, just as Oppenheimer envisioned nuclear weapons could be used — will only make matters worse. The paradox of tactical nuclear weapons—clear already in the 1950s—remains the same today: Their use will destroy what they are intended to defend. And probably very much more.

Today, a Russian decision for the “First Use” of conventional theater nuclear weapons use, in their war tactics, or even the strategic nuclear escalation without reference to the possibility of a Russian-Chinese coordination of tactics and strategy in an episode like the Cuba crisis — is unthinkable.

Or is it?

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons against NATO members that deploy forces to Ukraine in his annual State of the Nation address in the Kremlin palace in Moscow, on Feb 29 of 2024, where President Vladimir Putin delivered his televised annual state-of-the-nation address on Thursday to the Russian people, updating them on the State of the Russian Union, the war in Ukraine, Moscow’s nuclear capabilities, the Russian economy and relations with the West.

The more than two-hour-long speech contained one of Russian President Putin’s most explicit nuclear warnings yet, against the West when he proffered this unequivocal piece of resolute advise towards the Eastwards expansionist NATO after the thoughtless remarks by French President Macron, that he would send French troops to fight against RUSSIA in Ukraine.

“All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization. Don’t they get that?

February 29th, 2024, Kremlin State of the Union address, including Nuclear First Use ref…

Perhaps, President Putin’s state-of-the-union speech, serious retort & reference to French President Emmanuel Macron suggesting that NATO should not rule out deploying foreign troops to Ukraine and enlarging the war ought to be seen in light of how the folly of sending troops to Russia, played out for Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler at the height of their respective power… Less than 10% of these invading armies ever returned back to their homelands.

Trying to reel back the NATO aggressive remarks of the current French egomaniac, the collected leaders of other Western powers, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and senior U.S. officials, quickly rejected the possibility of sending any troops towards Russia, especially because in his state of the union speech, President Putin, wholly dismissed the idea that Russia would spread the conflict into other European countries, calling it “nonsense,” but he added that “tragic consequences” would occur if NATO troops were to become involved in the war.

Still, my question remains:

Are we approaching another Cuban missile crisis moment?

Are we double dealing with our collective misfortune, in our reckless brinkmanship of expansion into the backyard of the Russian Federation, right smack inside the House of the Rus peoples of Kiev, & the ancient seat of Russian Tsars of a Thousand years past?

As one who has read the fundamental history books knows — of course the Russian people will no more tolerate this NATO incursion into their traditional territories, than we accepted the existence of Nuclear weapons in Cuba during the JFK administration, or the Russians accepting to surrender their Capital to Napoleon in 1812, or to Hitler in 1942. Still some rather entrepreneurial NATO shysters couldn’t fail to spread a red flag propaganda warning, that Russia would test the alliance’s collective defense clause (Article 5) within the next few years, falsely claiming that if that were to occur — Russia might seize NATO territory in one or more of the Baltic states, and then stare NATO down, so that they back down and walk backwards from their gains of the previous three decades — for fear of Nuclear First Use, by Russia in retaliation to NATO’s aggression.

This is also borne out by the recently leaked trove of Russian classified intelligence papers that somehow strangely were revealed by the Financial Times after President Putin’s speech, and they showed that Russia’s threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons is way lower than previously estimated, stated, or publicly revealed.

Obviously this is critical information, because tactical nuclear weapons are designed to be used on the battlefield and are quite smaller than the so-called strategic nuclear weapons, such as the nuclear warheads that are placed on the cone-heads of the intercontinental ballistic missiles known colloquially as ICBMs. However, today’s tactical nuclear weapons or theatre nukes, are far greater in megaton power, and release far more energy than the Strategic Nuclear Weapons that the United States dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to conclude the Second World War.

As confirmatory evidence goes, the Russian Nuclear treasure trove of intelligence based on the 29 secret military files that were created between 2008 and 2014; Russia would consider launching a nuclear strike, if there was any enemy incursion on Russian soil, or if 20 percent of its strategic ballistic missile submarines were destroyed, or if their Ukrainian ambitions were threatened by foreign troops — among other triggers. The documents show that Russia has rehearsed launching tactical nuclear weapons against a major power at a conflict’s earliest stages, with no serious provocation or prolonged negotiations.

“Russia’s “strategic nuclear forces are in a state of full readiness” and can hit all of their targets in the West” according to President Putin. These include the hypersonic nuclear weapons that Putin first mentioned in 2018. Last year, Moscow also transferred tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus in a move that shifted the region’s security status, and further increased the number of members of the Nuclear Club. Add that to the two other nations where Russian Nuclear weapons are also deployed, and the fact that in recent weeks, all reports indicated that Russia may have deployed a low earth orbit nuclear Satellite, to be employed as a space weapon that could destroy Western satellites, target spaceships, and bring down high flying ICBMs.

Additionally, the ultimate test of “First Use,” is the military use of battlefield “theater nukes” in regional wars, which makes the concept of strategic detente and the tactic of US deterrence for defense requirements against a simultaneous Russian / Chinese / Iran / Belarus / North Korea, etc, regional aggression — assume a semblance of closely held hyper dystopian reality.

Because indeed a greater need for forward-deployed forces and power-projection capabilities than hitherto existed has caused the thoughtless NATO expansion in the offensive zone close up to Russia’s strategic territorial existence. The final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States warned that US objectives must include “effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces” and that, if existing conventional forces were inadequate to this objective, US strategy would have to be adjusted to increase reliance on nuclear weapons “to deter opportunistic or collaborative aggression” in the other theaters of Conflict and Competition in arms…

One should be cautious, however, in estimating the sizes and capabilities of future Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. Nor can it be assumed that the current rapprochement between Russia and China will be everlasting, or apply to all issues of military significance. China and Russia have a history of border conflicts and Cold War disagreements, and China’s world historical view is ways apart from Russia’s strategic view.

William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, has provided a concise description of the possible roles for non-strategic nuclear weapons in Russian military strategy: “deterring unwanted conflicts; coercing adversaries; shaping the battlefield for planned conflicts; controlling escalation within conflicts to protect the Russian homeland; preventing outside powers (the United States & Western Europe) from intervening in its conflicts; and ensuring that it prevails in war.”

Notwithstanding this rationale, the decision to move from nuclear deterrence to nuclear first use in Europe or Asia would be a world-changing historical marker — and not at all indicative of progress, but rather hastening the inevitable MIDNIGHT strike, because the firebreak between non-strategic and strategic nuclear warfare, has never been tested under exigent conditions, and indeed, part of the deterrent efficacy for tactical nuclear weapons lies in their potential coupling to strategic nuclear war. 

Obviously, Russian president Putin’s assertive nuclear rhetoric is a nationalistic stunt, a strategically helpful military ruse, and also a very real-political maneuver that is both terribly dangerous, when applied in the battlefield as part of the General Staff’s arsenal, but also a jingoistic false flag operation, when seen through the eyes of a smart operative understanding deceit…

Unfortunately the US response has also been of the “First Use” variety, ever since well before the Hiroshima – Nagasaki bomb drops.

America’s Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) for General Nuclear War — which was devised in the 1960s, is more of a recipe for the “End of the World” than a reasonable hope for any type of Victory against our adversaries.

And that is the official military process to be followed blindly by our men in uniform — but it is also a disastrous scenario that explicitly shows how a single battlefield nuclear launch can escalate into a Nuclear World War III, at dizzying speed.

And that is exactly what Nuclear War is: One bad assumption, one shot, one retaliation, and it’s unstoppable. Today’s posturing of the Biden administration in Ukraine, coupled with the “fire and fury” rhetoric from the President to the high STRATCOM commanders and deputy commanders who prepare the New Sequence of the Strategic Arsenal, as they also seen speaking on C-SPAN about the dangers therein, makes you wonder:

My god, what would happen if deterrence failed ? 

Once began, the terrifying process that nuclear war is, it becomes abundantly clear that in its bare essence, it is an unstoppable sequence of events, that once it starts it almost certainly will not stop.

And if this understanding makes You want to move to Mars with Elon, or to the Antipodes risking life with the Ozzies and the sheep … I can’t blame you a bit.

Because it doesn’t take but one weapon to set off a chain reaction to unleash the current arsenal, which is forward deployed in launch-on-warning positions and could be fired in as little as a minute—15 minutes for the submarines. There are enough weapons in those positions right now that when unleashed, they will surely destroy half the earth, and then usher a nuclear winter that would kill the remaining 5-7 billion people, who survived the first wave attacks.

So the question that begs to be asked is this: Are there too many nuclear weapons in existence right now ?

Absolutely.

Have we made progress?

The all-time high in 1986 was 70,481 nuclear weapons…

But more to the point, there are today thirteen nuclear-armed nations, not just two or three superpowers. And that presents a lot of randomness, uncertainty and doubt, that really create the serious unease we all feel right now, and allows huge room for an accidental, an incidental or a well planned and orchestrated nuclear catastrophe.

As an example North Korea and Iran do not announce any of their missile tests, whereas most other countries do. North Korea has launched 100 missiles since January 2022. And now you realize what happens to the US nuclear command and control apparatus in the seconds and minutes after a launch is “discovered” by the advanced super satellite system we have.

Maybe, you can imagine what goes on in those command centers, because the “watchers” know that North Korea has a totemic decision making system, that allows them even less flexibility to find cause or correlation in order to interrupt let alone stop the Sequence of Doom in the event of an actual Nuclear attack initiated by friend or foe…

As for theocratic Iran — the belligerence of their talk is ample evidence of what is afoot, and their procedural Command structure is so faulty that they have shot down their own citizens in their own airplanes, before attempting to verify the identity of the potential threat, or the need to pull the trigger against any target they are ordered to shoot down…

As for American nuclear weapons — when deterrence fails, it all unravels, in seconds and minutes — not hours, not days, nor weeks and months.

Last time in Hawaii when the threat of a missile came — all we had was twenty minute to midnight.

Richard Garwin, who is now 95 is arguably the most knowledgeable person about nuclear weapons on the planet, and he probably knows more about policy over the long lens of history because he was 23 years old when he designed the first thermonuclear bomb.

In the “Ivy Mike” test, it exploded with 10.4 megatons of power — about 1,000 Hiroshimas. Garwin said to me that his biggest fear was now, and always had been, the madman theory you referred to. He used the French phrase Après moi, le déluge — after me, the flood — referring to this idea that a maniacal, egotistical, narcissistic madman leader could launch a nuclear weapon for reasons no one would ever know.

And to counterattack North Korea, the US would need to send missiles over Russia, which has a very unreliable early warning system. However, the technological and redundancy limitations of the Russian advance warning systems is just as terrifying as any other part of the Nuclear escalation problem, because detection, identification and response are all woven intricately so it’s almost as if we would want to reach out to the Russians and give them far more advanced detection, identification and response technology so that they will not launch a Nuclear First Strike under false pretenses, or respond in kind with a responsive nuclear launch, because of a faulty alarm system, a misidentification, or because of a tragic serpentine ouroboros, & colloquial error.

There have been many opportunities to have a dialogue with the Russians — but we always blew them as unreasonable, from a position of a warm & comfortable Complacency, such as when Russian President Putin inquired about joining NATO, back during the Clinton administration. Obviously, we have to really lean upon our leaders to think about communicating with other, and not demonizing all others, and carrying on with the most unproductive practice, that of the constant saber-rattling. , because I hope that this essay demonstrates in appalling detail how horrific nuclear war has been and how more devastating the next one would be. And we know from the “Proud Prophet” war games that no matter how it begins, it always ends in nuclear apocalypse.

“Proud Prophet” was a classified series of war games President Ronald Reagan ordered in 1983. Civilian and military planners convened for two weeks to run through scenarios that could spark a nuclear war and see how they played out… 

The fact that Proud Prophet was declassified is interesting, because Nuclear war games are among the government’s most jealously guarded secrets. Just to see what a couple pages of the declassified war game Proud prophet look like — 95 percent is redacted. It’s literally a couple of headers and a few numbers.

But when something like that gets declassified, it becomes very valuable to the people. An individual like Paul Bracken — a civilian professor at Yale who participated in Proud Prophet — can now speak about it in general terms. He wrote in his own book that everyone left very depressed, because no matter how the nuclear scenario begins — if NATO is involved or not involved, China is involved or not — it always ends the same way, the most terrible way, because America has a “launch on warning” policy.

“Launch on warning” policy simply means that we do not wait to absorb a nuclear blow, before we respond in force with nuclear weapons, therefore, once an enemy missile is on the way towards our shores, and there is secondary confirmation from ground radar that it is indeed coming — then, the president is asked to launch a counterstrike immediately. The President asking about his options, he says: “How do we know it’s a nuclear weapon?”

We do not.

That is a fact.

How do we know it’s a nuclear weapon?

The answer could well be something like this: it could be a biological weapon.

So it logically follows, that no one launches a ballistic missile at the United States unless they’re expecting a counterattack.

So now you are looping into the Orwellian world of: “This is deterrence.”

Deterrence will hold. Don’t you dare launch at us or else … this scenario will play out and you and your Country will revert to the Stone Age. A reasonable scenario which becomes part and parcel for why the counterattack is required, per the deterrence doctrine. There is no room for saying, well, maybe we’ll wait and see.

Once you break deterrence, everything else goes out the window. 

Correct. The deputy commander of STRATCOM, Lt. Gen. Tom Bussiere, had an unclassified discussion with insiders, and the quote is along the lines of “when deterrence fails, it all unravels.” 

General Kehler was not speaking hyperbolically when he said: Thousands of years of civilization — all extinguished in a few minutes.

 Paul Nitze, a former defense secretary and later presidential adviser, called the policy “inexcusably dangerous.” Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden wanted it scrapped. So why is it still in place?

William Burr, who runs the National Security Archive at George Washington University, where many of those quotes and documents come from, since his organization, made them accessible to journalists, was one of the biggest hawks across the length of the Cold War. To have a guy like that go on the record and say this is inexcusably dangerous says a lot.

Multiple presidents have campaigned on the promise that they will change this dangerous policy, but then they become president and you never hear of it again. That speaks to the kind of secret-keeping that is dangerous and can be changed. This is an issue everybody should know about. Because only in knowing about it, makes any change possible.

As evidence, we can look to The Day After battle, which is known in the State Department, in the White House & deep inside the Pentagon’s inner circles, as the Reagan Reversal policy of 1983, because back in 1983, then President Reagan, watched the ABC movie The Day After. The movie is a fictional account of a nuclear war between America and Soviet Russia, and half the country watched it. Interestingly, behind the scenes, ABC got a lot of pressure not to air it. Well, one very important American watched it: Reagan had a private screening at Camp David. His chief of staff tried to suggest that he shouldn’t watch it, but he did. And he wrote in his diary that he became “greatly depressed,” and he picked up the phone and called then–Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and the two leaders communicated — which is really the only solution for any of this.

Because of those communications and because of their conference and because of the treaty, the insane nuclear arsenal has been reduced to the approximately 12,500 we have now, which is a considerable reduction. The president’s position prior to seeing “The Day After” was a much harder, more saber-rattling approach. He changed his position and became much more dovish.

“Launch on warning” puts extraordinary pressure on a president. The scenario is pretty harsh on the President who is usually really clueless about it all, since he hasn’t even rehearsed. Nobody told him he’d have just six minutes to choose from a Denny’s breakfast menu of existential options in response to what may or may not be an incoming nuke. It’s hard to believe the Pentagon doesn’t put every new president through a series of war games.

And that’s coming from multiple secretaries of defense and national security advisers — people in a position to advise the president on a nuclear counterattack. The secretary of defense felt the weight of it all, when he spoke about visiting missile silos, submarine bases, and nuclear command bunkers, because once you go to places like that, your entire perspective changes. And that is why Defense Secretaries were willing to go on the record, and say that You really get the sense that things are precarious once situations like that begin, unscripted actions follow, entropy takes hold, and spotty decisions follow that take the decision matrix out of anyone’s control.

And now we find ourselves in the precarious position where our continued existence depends on our intransigence, on our internal communications and processes, and on our deep understanding of what is a Nuclear First Strike, and how it leads into Nuclear War and Nuclear Winter in a seamless continuum of consequentially falling dominoes; because the game of Nuclear Extemination is our own invention along with the exact same actions of our adversaries…

Perhaps the silver lining here is that we are dealing with adversaries who fear us, just as much as we fear them — and that is a good starting point for understanding one another, because our Safety is their Safety and vice versa, and as our Nuclear Defense systems originating with those of the NOBLHOUSE organization, become the safety outriggers of the Ship of State — all of our Nuclear and Atomic Weapons arsenals, stockpiles, and atomic installations, will start losing their shine, their importance, and their value for all adversarial Nations.

Then we can reap the peace dividend of the Two Trillion Dollars, not being spent on faster, better, killer nukes — but being utilized to fight Poverty, offer Health, and bring up Children that will live lives free of Nuclear nightmares.

And that would be a good day to be alive.

But in the real world we have options, choices, and alternatives, and the tow most distinct scenarios are Win or lose for Humanity.

My writings, in describing these alternative scenarios, will surely inspire and captivate you, as the readers, and my book shall be a testament to the power of human resilience and cooperation. Remember, the clock is ticking and it could just as easily tick away from midnight, where a brighter future awaits, or it can keep on ticking inexorably forward.

Let us take care to direct the movement of the clock away from Midnight and towards the sunny uplands of tomorrow.

I hope “90 Seconds to Midnight” becomes a bestseller with your help — so please keep reading here the segments of the book, spread the word by mouth or mouse, preorder a copy, and as soon as we go to print — I shall deliver you a signed first edition copy along with a digital one. PM me with here at Comments with your name, email address & number, to be counted as early readers, and adopters of Humanity’s Mission to Exist.

Yet for now, the two most likely visions of the future as I visualize our Common Destiny are these polar opposites and it will take a lot of specific and forceful organization to

Vision One:

The Dystopian Future has a 90% chance of becoming our reality … seeing as we already are at 90 seconds to Midnight.

The world teeters on the brink of catastrophe as nuclear tensions escalate between superpowers. The Atomic Scientists’ Clock inches closer to midnight, signaling the impending doom of human civilization. Nuclear weapons exchanges devastate the globe, causing widespread destruction and radioactive contamination. The consequences are dire: 7 billion lives lost, and the human species faces extinction. The once-thriving world descends into chaos, and the clock strikes midnight, marking the end of humanity.

Goodbye & Goodluck.

Vision 2:

The Hopeful Future has a 10% chance of becoming our reality, because we put all of our money, our attention and our thoughts on the dismal, dystopian, & apocalyptic future.

So I invite the whole world to turn their eyes and minds away from Catastrophe and focus on Rebirth, Regeneration and Life ever-after for our Humanity.

Please focus on positive outcomes because wherever your mind goes, that’s where your energy goes and your thoughts become actions, things and realities…

So, please follow me here down the garden path … full of Spring blossoms.

In a remarkable turn of events, World leaders come together to address the nuclear threat. The NoblHouse nuclear defenses are installed in all the major cities, towns and both Civil & Military infrastructure installations, all across the World.

A rethink occurs amongst all of our Military and Political leaders. Congresses, parliaments, summits, and Civil Society organizations hold open public meetings where the Doves outweigh, outnumber, and out-win the Hawks.

Democratically elected governments change their composition to reflect the New Thinking, and all of our diplomatic efforts intensify, with nuclear limitation talks yielding positive breakthroughs. More NoblHouse nuclear weapons safety measures are deployed, and nuclear explosion arrestors are developed everywhere in order to prevent catastrophic detonations. Disarmament efforts lead to the gradual reduction of atomic weapons stockpiles. Countries work together to secure a future free from the shadow of nuclear war. The clock reverses its course, moving away from midnight, and humanity breathes a collective sigh of relief, as the threat of nuclear annihilation recedes.

As the clock recedes from midnight, the world witnesses a new era of cooperation and progress. Scientists and engineers redirect their focus towards harnessing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, driving innovation and sustainable development. The threat of nuclear winter lifts, and the environment begins to heal. International relations strengthen, and diplomacy triumphs over the saber-rattling of the past.

Humanity awakens to a new dawn, where the specter of nuclear war no longer haunts every decision. Generations to come inherit a world where scientific discovery serves the betterment of all, not the destruction of some. The atomic scientists, once keepers of the clock, now dedicate their expertise to advancing human knowledge and well-being.

In this future, the world recognizes the devastating consequences of nuclear conflict and works tirelessly to prevent its recurrence. Historical lessons learned, humanity forges a path towards a brighter, nuclear-free horizon. The clock, once a symbol of impending doom, now stands as a testament to human resilience and the power of collective action.

As the years pass, the world witnesses a remarkable transformation. Former nuclear weapons facilities are repurposed as hubs for sustainable energy innovation. Scientists who once worked on weapons development now collaborate on groundbreaking projects in renewable energy, advanced medical research, and cutting-edge technology. The global economy flourishes as resources are redirected towards progress, not destruction.

The legacy of the nuclear age serves as a cautionary tale, reminding future generations of the devastating consequences of scientific discovery without moral responsibility. Museums dedicated to the history of nuclear weapons display stark reminders of the past, while educational institutions emphasize the importance of ethical scientific inquiry.

In this future, international cooperation has become the norm, and diplomacy has replaced the threat of force. Conflicts are resolved through dialogue and mutual understanding, and the concept of war seems anachronistic. Human beings, nations, tribes, & peoples, have rediscovered their shared humanity, recognizing that common progress and collective prosperity are intertwined with peace and cooperation.

The world has transformed into a beacon of hope and cooperation, where nations work together to address global challenges. The United Nations has evolved into a more egalitarian, robust, and effective organization, freed of corruption, and really capable of resolving conflicts and promoting sustainable development.

The International Court of Justice has become a powerful tool for holding nations accountable for their actions, ensuring that justice and human rights are upheld.

As the years go by, the world witnesses unprecedented progress. Poverty and hunger are eradicated, and education and healthcare are universally accessible. Catastrophic climate change is stopped, and even reversed through concerted global efforts, while sustainable energy sources energize people’s lives, and power the economies of all the various countries of our planet. The world has become a true global community, where diversity is celebrated, understanding transcends borders, and multinationalism brings beauty, peace, and joy to all.

In this future, humanity has rediscovered its sense of wonder and curiosity, driving science, exploration, and discovery, that benefits all humanity.

Space exploration has become a global effort, with nations working together to establish a human settlement on Mars.

The mysteries of the universe are being unlocked, and humanity is no longer bound by the constraints of a single planet.

As humanity explores the cosmos, we discover new worlds and civilizations, fostering a new era of intergalactic cooperation and understanding. The universe, once a vast and intimidating expanse, has become a frontier of endless possibility and discovery. Humanity has transcended its terrestrial bounds, becoming a truly cosmic species.

On Earth, the legacy of the nuclear age has been relegated to the history books, a cautionary tale of a bygone era. The world has moved beyond the destructive impulses of the past, embracing a future where science and technology serve the betterment of all humanity.

The world has entered a new era of enlightenment, where scientific discovery and technological advancement are harnessed for the greater good. The once-ominous Atomic clock tower now stands as a beacon of hope, its faceplate replaced with a gleaming portal that symbolizes the gateway to a brighter future.

In this future, humanity has transcended the petty squabbles and conflicts of the past, uniting under a shared vision of progress and prosperity. The divide between nations, races, and ideologies has been bridged, giving rise to a global community that celebrates its diversity and promotes understanding.

As we look out into the cosmos, we realize that our journey has only just begun. With the nuclear shadow of the past lifted, humanity can now boldly explore the vast expanse of the universe, driven by curiosity, wonder, and a shared sense of purpose. The clock that once threatened to strike midnight now stands still, a relic of a bygone era, as humanity forges a new path forward, guided by the light of hope and the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

In this future, the clock that once threatened to strike midnight has been dismantled, its components transformed into a symbol of hope and resilience. The atomic scientists, once keepers of the clock, now serve as guardians of a new era, ensuring that humanity never again teeters on the brink of self-destruction.

That truly should be our Future…

Good luck and God Speed for our continued Human Survival.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

Posted by: Dr Churchill | March 31, 2024

HAPPY EASTER — Go to the Galilee — Pray for Peace.

Existence is the principle tendency of the Way of Physics, the Way of Faith, and the Way of the Middle Path.

Spring is such time of meddling sorrow and joy.

Happy Easter my friends.

Happy Easter we heard from Pope Francis and all around the Earth our sentiments rose.

Pope Francis, brilliant, old, and wise, more so now than ever before, because his lifelong suffering has shaped his wisdom, his character, and his advice.

So let us hear this small homily from Pope Francis, given in the small chapel inside Vatican, a few days ago.

Please pay attention, because it is simply glorious work of wisdom.

Francis went on to say:

“You can have flaws, be anxious and even be angry, but don’t forget that your life is the greatest business in the world.

Only you can stop it from failure. You are appreciated, admired and loved by many.

Remember that being happy is not having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, a job without effort, relationships without disappointments.

Being happy is to stop feeling a victim and become the author of your own destiny.

It’s going through deserts, but being able to find an oasis deep in your soul.

It’s to thank God every morning for the miracle of life.

It’s kissing your children, cuddling your parents, having poetic moments with your friends, even when they hurt us.

To be happy is to let live the creature that lives in each of us, free, joyful and simple.

It’s having maturity to be able to say: “I made mistakes”.

Having the courage to say “I’m sorry”. It’s having a sensitivity to say “I need you”.

Is having the ability to say “I love you”.

May your life become a garden of opportunities for happiness… that in spring I can be a lover of joy, and in winter a lover of wisdom.

And when you make a mistake, start over.

Because only then will you fall in love with life.

You will find that being happy doesn’t mean having a perfect life.

But she uses tears to irrigate tolerance.

Use your defeats to train your patience.

Use your mistakes with the serenity of the sculptor.

Use pain to tune into pleasure.

Use obstacles to open the windows of intelligence.

Never give up …

Above all, never give up on the people that love you.

Never give up on happiness, because life is an amazing show. “

–POPE FRANCIS

Love this.

I read it thrice, before I was able to see, and continue reading clearly, through the mists my eyes felt coursing in my soul….

Few words, from a selfless Father to his children, full of “Tender Agape’s” remorse for the broken beings — we all are.

Yet our Souls remain unharmed…

Love each other — go to Galilee.

Still Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Francis’ love of Humanity, informs his clarion call for nuclear disarmament.

And so is his call, for the “Courage of the white flag.”

his call for the Courage or the discontinuity of the war in Ukraine are legend, as is his strong proposal for the continued Existence of Human Beings.

This obviously stems from his deep seated Faith and his Obedience to the one true God, the benevolent Creator of Life, and his command and convocation that we are to be Good Stewards of Life and not the opposite, as many of our people seem to think by deluding themselves greatly that there is no punishment when performing Evil’s labors…

The Pope’s call for nuclear disarmament finds me in complete agreement as this Easter season, we stand closer to the precipice of Nuclear Armageddon, than at any other time in history.

And how can we not cry for help from Heavens above when on this gorgeous Spring Day of Easter and Resurrection — we are besieged with thoughts of impending doom, amidst the joy of falling Sakura Cherry blossoms, dressing our trees like beautiful brides in their finery, celebrating the rebirth of Life?

And we keep walking in gloom, fully knowing that we are there out of our own doing, because NATO’s encroachment towards the East, carrying on a misguided offensive posture while ostensibly being a defense alliance, because of our constant and unceasing saber rattling over Ukraine, because of the insidious nature of the Pentagon’s brass profiting from war, because of the Executive wing’s incredulity, because of the State Department and the White House’s myopic selfish willful blindness — we have reached the unimaginable Crescendo of Dr Strangelove, our very own President trying to project his macho geriatric image, as a cowboy buck riding atop ICBM missiles — leading the Cacophony of Atomic Weaponry targeting some other human beings, upending children’s lives & homes, at ground zero, fully forgetting that the proverbial “chicken” always come home to roost.

Hubris, Anger, Violence, Leader’s Alzheimer, & loads of Bad Karma — all mixed-up, make for a dread disease: The total Metastatic Cancer of a New Nuclear Arms Race and an impending Armageddon.

Unsurprisingly our $2 Trillion US Dollars in special hastily approved Congressional appropriations, are all targeted for the preparations for hypersonic renewal, readiness, and redeployment of the whole fleet of our ICBMs, and for the totality of our Nuclear weapons Arsenal, is a massive spending of monies that we don’t have… Mind you that this is far above the almost One Trillion that is the annual budget for our Permanent Offense department.

Incredible waste of Human Blood, Toil & Treasure, all burned at the altar of the Temples of the Gods of War.

All up in smoke, just in order to satisfy the prophesy of old men sending the young ones to death, and as always, (Pentagon wants at the forefront) being able to deploy our Atomic weapons at the first opportune nanosecond, supported & governed by Artificial Intelligence for our “First Use” advantage.

Great technical feat. An engineering marvel. Artificial Intelligence mixing it up with Atomic Nuclear Weapons, and a $2 Trillion dollars in the offing, making this the best chance for intentionally effacing Humanity, forever more.

Please ask yourselves this question: Why are we doing this? Whose Evil genius manifested this? What ever could go wrong?

Sadly this is the Easter Message that the professional war mongers throw in our faces, when all the Easter people pray stoutly, for peace, for health, for salvation, hoping for the abolition of our sins, through the ancient & eternal promise of God’s forgiveness.

Contrast this with the earlier words of Love that came to us from Francis refectory, where the peaceful Pontifex Francis is praying devoutly for Peace, on this Easter Day and beyond. He says & hopes that we shall also join our hands in stout prayer for Peace across Humanity’s all of the many fronts of discord, bloodshed, and hateful anomaly…

So, this Easter Day, I do hope & stoutly pray, that we all start on a New Path for Life’s continued existence, away from war and it’s self-defeating nukes.

Today, I’ll join Francis in this endeavor, and hope you will all follow our example because Peace is the greatest gift, and as a Public Health practitioner — I know that it is also the most important Public Health Benefit the World can endow for its manyfold Peoples, tribes, and nationhoods.

Indeed this is all I have ever hoped for.

Bless you Francis, and bless you all, this Easter Sunday of 2024, when we are all walking about, sitting ducks waiting for the nuclear weapons to explode over our collective heads in the next 90 seconds, making us all “dead-men-walking” anytime now.

We are indeed living under the Damoclean sword of Nuclear weapons exchanges, at 90 seconds to midnight, fast approaching the ultimate curtain call for Humanity.

And so today, as I heard my friendly Father Paul Etienne, blessing us all, and reminding us to go to Galilee … I accepted the challenge.

Go to Galilee …

From Seattle’s St James church on First Hill — he admonishes us to go to Galilee.

A bit of a hike, long haul & many thousands of miles, but an instant for the Soul.

Let us all go to Galilee to pray for Peace, and leave the arms race behind…

Tell our generals and chiefs of war, to come join us on this trek to Galilee, and leave the nukes behind, because sooner than later, where we are all going, we won’t be needing any of them, anyway.

GO TO GALILEE.

Go to the Sea of Peace.

Posted by: Dr Churchill | March 15, 2024

Theoretical Physics to Applied Physics…

“Einstein, twenty-six years old, only three years away from crude privation, still a patent examiner, published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905 five papers on entirely different subjects. Three of them were among the greatest in the history of physics. One, very simple, gave the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect—it was this work for which, sixteen years later, he was awarded the Nobel prize. Another dealt with the phenomenon of Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a liquid: Einstein showed that these movements satisfied a clear statistical law. This was like a conjuring trick, easy when explained: before it, decent scientists could still doubt the concrete existence of atoms and molecules: this paper was as near to a direct proof of their concreteness as a theoretician could give. The third paper was the special theory of relativity, which quietly amalgamated space, time, and matter into one fundamental unity. This last paper contains no references and quotes to authority. All of them are written in a style unlike any other theoretical physicist’s. They contain very little mathematics. There is a good deal of verbal commentary. The conclusions, the bizarre conclusions, emerge as though with the greatest of ease: the reasoning is unbreakable. It looks as though he had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, without listening to the opinions of others. To a surprisingly large extent, that is precisely what he had done.”

― C.P. Snow, Variety of Men

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Stepping onto this Giant’s shoulders I am uplifted in discovering the way to reverse the effects of the incredible release of Energy that tiny particles’ collisions generate.

Having received my international patents to that effect — I can now speak about it and would welcome your advise about choosing the right audience to do this.

Thank you

The Bohr-Einstein “Debate of the Century”

Bohr and Einstein at the home of Paul Ehrenfest in Leiden (1925)

The year is 1905. Newly graduated with a Ph.D. in physics, Albert Einstein publishes the paper Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichttspunkt (“On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light”). In it, he proposes a revision to one of the fundamental laws of physics to account for the behavior of light as both a particle and a wave, work for which he would later be awarded the Nobel Prize (1921). Eight years later in 1913, in the paper On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, Part II Systems Containing Only a Single Nucleus, Danish physicist Niels Bohr adapts Ernest Rutherford’s 1911 model of the atom to Max Planck’s quantum theory to introduce a new model of the atom — the Bohr model, both earning himself his own Nobel (1922), as well as setting the stage for a coming quantum revolution in physics.

The cake model of the hydrogen atom where the negatively charged electron confined to a shell, encircles a small positively charged nucleus, and when it jumps between orbits, is accompanied by an emitted (or absorbed) amount of electromagnetic energy…

Fast forward 12 years later.

Building on the work of both Einstein and Bohr, Werner Heisenberg introduces matrix equations which remove the foundational elements of space and time from the then increasingly popular quantum-mechanical model of physics. Building on this work, Max Born in the following year proposes that mechanics are most effectively understood not as causal links but as actions resulting from probability, not distinct causation. With Heisenberg’s solution of the Schrödinger equation for a scattering problem the following year, the now well-known Heisenberg uncertainty principle is introduced, leading Born and Heisenberg to declare that quantum mechanics was now “complete and irrevocable”.

In less than 25 years, starting with Planck’s 1900 discovery of the black body radiation law, to Einstein’s discovery of the photon, to Bohr’s redefinition of the model of the atom, to Heisenberg and Born’s refinement of quantum mechanics, physics in the first quarter of the twentieth century went from fully deterministic to seemingly indeterminate.

It all begun during the Fifth Solvay International Conference of 1927

The Bohr-Einstein debate is generally considered to have begun during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Photons and Electrons. The conference was held in October 1927 in Brussels, Belgium. Continuing on since the successful inaugural conference of 1911, the Solvay gatherings are devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in physics, and occur approximately every three years. From 1913 to 1961, every gathering revolved around open problems in quantum theory. Chaired by Hendrik Lorentz in 1927, the official topic of the conference was “photons and electrons”. In practice, the 1927 conference revolved around the growing dispute between two then nascent schools of physics: those fascinated and enthralled by the new developments in quantum theory, and those still clinging to the superseded deterministic paradigm. The former was lead by Niels Bohr and the latter by Albert Einstein.

“The Most Intelligent Picture Ever Taken”, from the Fifth Solvay International Conference held in 1927.

The Copenhagen Interpretation

The open problem during the 1927 Solvay conference was how physicists should interpret the recent results of physicists Werner Heisenberg and Max Born, the now so-called “interpretation question” of quantum mechanics. Born and Heisenberg, fervent in their view, promoted the following (simplified) view:

“Physical systems do not have definite properties prior to being measured. Quantum mechanics can only predict the probability distribution of given measurements’ possible results.”

This because, as the view goes, the act of measurement affects the system being measured. This causes the set of probabilities to reduce to only one of the possible values immediately after the measurement — the so-called wave function collapse. In other words, prior to the measurement of (for instance) the position of an electron, its location is best described by a probability distribution (a wave function). In the act of measuring the position of the electron, the device measuring or observing the electron influences the probability distribution. After the measurement, due to the influence of the observer, the position of the electron is now best defined by a single value (e.g. a Cartesian coordinate).

Definition

“Despite an extensive literature which refers to, discusses, and criticizes the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, nowhere does there seem to be any concise statement which defines the full Copenhagen interpretation.”

Despite statements such as the one given above by John G. Cramer in 1986 and many more both before and after it, for the purposes of this article we can colloquially state the Copenhagen interpretation as

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Physical systems generally do not have definite properties prior to being measured, and quantum mechanics can only predict the probability distribution of a given measurement’s possible results. The act of measurement affects the system, causing the set of probabilities to reduce to only one of the possible values immediately after the measurement.

More specifically, we can define it as synonymous with a sum of the concepts of indeterminism, Bohr’s correspondence principle, Born’s statistical interpretation of the wave function and Bohr’s complementarity interpretation of certain atomic phenomena. The term itself stems from Heisenberg who worked as an assistant under Bohr at his institute in Copenhagen while he formulated his uncertainty principle, and can been traced to Heisenberg’s 1930 textbook The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory in which he states that

“On the whole, the book contains nothing that is not to be found in previous publications, particularly in the investigations of Bohr. The purpose of the book seems to me to be fulfilled if it contributes somewhat to the diffusion of that Copenhagen spirit of quantum theory if I may so express myself, which has directed the entire development of modern atomic physics.”

Excerpt, “The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory” by Werner Heisenberg (1930)

History

In the years from 1925 up until the conference in 1927, the quantum revolution that had been taking place had been propelled mainly by three revolutionary ideas:

  • In 1925, Werner Heisenberg introduced matrix equations that removed the Newtonian elements of space and time from quantum mechanics;
  • In 1926, Max Born proposed that quantum mechanics were best understood by probabilities;
  • In 1927, Heisenberg had formulated his uncertainty principle defining the mathematical model to describe the fundamental limit of the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle (known as complementary variables) can be known.

Heisenberg’s first breakthrough idea was first proposed in his paper Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen (“Quantum Theoretical Re-interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations”) which appeared in Zeitschrift für Physik in September 1925. Reportedly, Heisenberg in correspondence with Wolfgang Pauli had been working on the paper while recovering from hay fever. The purpose of the paper was to attempt to describe the energy levels of a one-dimensional anharmonic oscillator via observable parameters such as transition probabilities for quantum jumps (Segrè, 1980). The paper laid the groundwork for what is now known as matrix mechanics, which Heisenberg later developed in collaboration with Born and Pascual Jordan.

Left: Max Born. Right: Born’s 1926 paper Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge (“On the Quantum Mechanics of Collisions”) where he defines what is now known as the Born rule.

What is now known simply as the Born rule, giving the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result was first introduced by Max Born in the 1926 paper Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge (“On the Quantum Mechanics of Collisions”). In the paper, Born solves the Schrödinger equation (postulated a year before) for a scattering problem. The rule is now considered a fundamental law of quantum mechanics, despite Einstein’s later famous criticism of its ultimate claim:

“I, in any case, am convinced that God does not play dice”. — Einstein

Left: Werner Heisenberg. Right: Heisenberg’s 1927 paper Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik (“On the Descriptive Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics”) where he introduced the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Heisenberg was by 1927 working as a lecturer in Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen (now known simply as the Niels Bohr Institute). By February, Heisenberg already had his later paper Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik (“On the Descriptive Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics”) where he introduces the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in draft form. He inquired to Bohr to have it forwarded to Einstein (American Institute of Physics, 1998), which Bohr did.

“Even in principle, we cannot know the present in all detail. For that reason everything observed is a selection from a plenitude of possibilities and a limitation on what is possible in the future…. The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.” 

—Werner Heisenberg (1927)

By the time of the conference in October, Born and Heisenberg were so confident in their three results that they proclaimed that quantum mechanics was “complete and irrevocable” (American Institute of Physics, 1998):

While we consider … a quantum mechanical treatment of the electromagnetic field.. as not yet finished, we consider quantum mechanics to be a closed theory, whose fundamental physical and mathematical assumptions are no longer susceptible of any modification.. On the question of the ‘validity of the law of causality’ we have this opinion: as long as one takes into account only experiments that lie in the domain of our currently acquired physical and quantum mechanical experience, the assumption of indeterminism in principle, here taken as fundamental, agrees with experience.

–Born & Heisenberg (1927). “Quantum Mechanics”. Proceedings of the Fifth Solvay Congress

Einstein, needless to say, did not agree.

“Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One” — Einstein

Einstein’s First Criticism

Einstein’s first serious criticism of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (and what is considered the start of what would become an ever-growing literature on the interpretation of the quantum principle) began during the Solvay Conference in 1927 (Mehra, 1975). Over dinner, during after-dinner discussions and at breakfast, Einstein debated Bohr and his followers on the question of whether quantum mechanics in its present form could be considered complete. Einstein illustrated his points with increasingly clever thought experiments intended to prove that position and momentum could in principle be simultaneously known to arbitrary precision. (Pais, 1982). One of the thought experiments Einstein proposed went as follows:

Thought Experiment: The Slit Experiment. Consider a particle passing through a slit of width d. The slit introduces uncertainty in momentum of approximately h/d because the particle passes through the wall. But, let us determine the momentum of the particle by measuring the recoil of the wall. In doing so, we find the momentum of the particle to arbitrary accuracy by conservation of momentum.

In other words, Einstein is proposing that if one assembles an experimental apparatus consisting of a wall with a narrow vertical slit and a beam of light pointed towards the wall, after having passed through the slit, the wave function of the light will diffract. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says that the uncertainty in momentum introduced by the slit is approximately h/d because the photon passes through the wall. By measuring the recoil of the wall, Einstein claims, one would find the momentum of the photon.

Einstein and Bohr (1927)

Bohr’s Response

Niels Bohr’s elegant response to Einstein’s proposed thought experiment was simple. He argued that the wall which the photon passes through is indeed a quantum mechanical system as well. As such, in order to measure the recoil of the wall to an accuracy of Δp, the momentum of the wall must also be known to this accuracy before the particle passes through. The implication is that at this degree of accuracy, the position of the wall is in fact uncertain as well, just as it is for the particle passing through it. As such, the position of the slit is equal to h/Δp and if the wall’s momentum is known precisely enough to measure the recoil, the slit’s position is uncertain enough to disallow a measurement of its position, in accordance with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

By the following year (1928), the consensus in the physics community was that Einstein had lost the debate, and so that indeed, quantum mechanics as formulated by the Copenhagen school lead by Bohr, appeared to be complete (Isaacson, 2007). Even many of Einstein’s closest allies conceded, including French Nobel Laureate Louis de Broglie (physics, 1929).

Einstein’s Second Criticism

Einstein persevered. At the Sixth Solvay International Conference on magnetism (1930), he came armed with a new thought experiment. Again narrowing in on the problem of indeterminacy (i.e. lack of clear causation, loss of predictability) implied by the Copenhagen interpretation, Einstein proposed:

Thought Experiment: The Light Box. Consider a box containing electromagnetic radiation and a clock which controls the opening of a shutter which operated so quickly that it would allow only one photon to escape at a time. The box would first be weighed exactly. Then, at a precise moment, the shutter would open, allowing a photon to escape. The box would then be weighed again.

“Einstein´s Box” as designed by Niels Bohr

The key idea of the experiment is that Einstein’s darling, the then well-established relationship between mass and energy, E = mc², allows the energy of the particle to be determined (as we know the mass of a photon and the speed of light) (Pais, 1982).

Einstein’s new thought experiment reportedly baffled Bohr, who walked around the conference from participant to participant trying to convince them that Einstein’s thought experiment couldn’t be true.

“It was a real shock for Bohr … who, at first, could not think of a solution. For the entire evening he was extremely agitated, and he continued passing from one scientist to another, seeking to persuade them that it could not be the case, that it would have been the end of physics if Einstein were right; but he couldn’t come up with any way to resolve the paradox. I will never forget the image of the two antagonists as they left the club: Einstein, with his tall and commanding figure, who walked tranquilly, with a mildly ironic smile, and Bohr who trotted along beside him, full of excitement.” – Leon Rosenfeld

Bohr’s Response

After a sleepless night, Bohr worked out a response to Einstein, which is sometimes referred to as “Bohr’s Triumph” for the structure of its argument. Ironically, his solution depends on Einstein’s own theory of general relativity, as Bohr argued that after emitting a photon, the loss of weight causes the box to rise in the gravitational field (Pais, 2005):

The observer returns the box to its original height by adding mass until the weight points to its initial position. It takes a certain amount of time for the observer to perform this procedure. How long it takes depends on the strength of the spring and on how well-damped the system is. If undamped, the box will bounce up and down forever. If over-damped, the box will return to its original position sluggishly. 

The longer that the observer allows the damped spring-mass system to settle, the closer the pointer will reach its equilibrium position. At some point, the observer will conclude that his setting of the pointer to its initial position is within an allowable tolerance. There will be some residual error Δq in returning the pointer to its initial position. Correspondingly, there will be some residual error Δm in the weight measurement. 

Adding the weights imparts a momentum p to the box which can be measured with an accuracy of Δp delimited by ΔpΔq ≈ h. It is clear that Δp < gtΔm, where g is the gravitational constant. Viewed together, gtΔmΔq > h.

From Bohr’s reasoning above, Einstein’s general relativity informs us that while the box has been at a height different than its original height, the clock inside the box (necessary to ensuring that the shutter only emits one photon) has been ticking at a rate different than its original rate. The gravitational red shift formula tells us that there will be an uncertainty equal to Δt = c⁻²gtΔq in the determinacy of time at zero t₀, the moment of the emission of the photon. Hence,

Conclusion: According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the accuracy with which the energy of the photon is measured restricts the precision with which its momentum of emission can be measured. Bohr showed that in order for Einstein’s thought experiment to work, his ticking light box would have to be suspended by a spring in the middle of a gravitational field.

Zing.

Einstein was reportedly gracious in his defeat. The following September, he nominated Heisenberg and Schrödinger for the Nobel Prize, stating, somewhat ambivalently,

“I am convinced that this theory undoubtedly contains a part of the ultimate truth.”

Einstein’s Third Criticism

Following the “defeat” of his former objections that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was complete, Einstein ceased attempting to search for inconsistencies in indeterminism, and instead focused on other aspects of quantum mechanics with which he disagreed. In essence, Einstein had accepted the fact that as a practical matter, it is impossible to simultaneously determine the value of certain incompatible quantities. The debate persisted, however, as to whether or not such quantities actually have precise values, even if they cannot be measured. Einstein continued to argue that indeed, even quantum probabilities are epistemic, not ontological in nature and so that the Copenhagen interpretation must still be incomplete, in that it claims the opposite.

“I have the greatest consideration for the goals which are pursued by the physicists of the latest generation which go under the name of quantum mechanics, and I believe that this theory represents a profound level of truth, but I also believe that the restriction to laws of a statistical nature will turn out to be transitory” — Einstein

Hidden Variable Theories

Einstein’s continued insistence on the epistemic nature of reality would spark lines of research into so-called hidden variable theories, the most famous being the so-called Bohm interpretation.

Worth noting here, as Max Jammer writes is that “Einstein never proposed a hidden variable theory.” Rather, he explored the possibility of a hidden variable theory, and wrote a paper describing his exploration, but withdrew it from publication because he felt it was faulty. The paper was entitled Bestimmt Schrödinger’s Wellenmechanik die Bewegung eines Systems vollständig oder nur im Sinne der Statistik? (“Does Schrödinger’s wave mechanics determine the motion of a system completely or only in the statistical sense?”) and was presented by Einstein at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1927. The fault he found was possibly that contrary to his intention, the paper argued for the non-separability of entangled systems (Baggott, 2004), which Einstein reportedly regarded as absurd.

Einstein’s Fourth Criticism

Both Bohr and Einstein were subtle men. Einstein tried very hard to show that quantum mechanics was inconsistent; Bohr, however, was always able to counter his arguments. But in his final attack Einstein pointed to something so deep, so counterintuitive, so troubling, and yet so exciting, that at the beginning of the twenty-first century it has returned to fascinate theoretical physicists. Bohr’s only answer to Einstein’s last great discovery — the discovery of entanglement — was to ignore it. — Leonard Susskind

By 1933, Einstein had fled Germany to England, and then after a few months feverish work and study in the Norfolk countryside, he gave his seminal speech at the Royal Albert Hall, and the same night was evacuated from London forever leaving Europe behind him, in order to ostensibly join the nascent Institute for Advanced Study of physics in Princeton University. It was then at Princeton’s Fine Hall where he wrote his famous letter to the US President Roosevelt that augured the beginning of the Manhattan project.

However, his first published work as a fellow there, concerned what he found to be the continued unsatisfactoriness of the (by then) widely accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Known as the ‘EPR paradox’, it is now widely considered Einstein’s best argument against the completeness of quantum mechanics. Published in the 1935 paper Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?, the paper was co-written with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, and proposed another thought experiment (Isaacson, 2007):

Thought Experiment: Quantum Entanglement. Consider two particles that have collided or which have been created in such a way that they have properties which are correlated. The total wave function for the pair links the positions of the particles as well as their linear momenta. Observation of the position of the first particle allows us to determine precisely the position of the second particle no matter how far the pair have separated. Likewise, measuring the momentum of the first particle allows us to determine precisely the momentum of the second particle. “In accordance with our criterion for reality, in the first case we must consider the quantity P as being an element of reality, in the second case the quantity Q is an element of reality”

In the paper, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen define physical reality as follows:

If, without in any way disturbing a system, we can predict with certainty (i.e., with probability equal to unity) the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of physical reality corresponding to this physical quantity.

Einstein concluded that the second particle, which has never been directly observed, must at any moment, have both a position and a momentum which is real, and that quantum mechanics does not account for these features of reality. From Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, we know that it is impossible to measure both the position and the momentum of a particle simultaneously. However, even though their values can only be determined in distinct contexts of measurement, Einstein claimed that they must both have definite values. The only other alternative, Einstein claimed, would be that measuring e.g. the position of the first particle instantaneously affected the other (Fine, 2017)

“No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this”

Einstein later summarized their argument as follows:

Consider a mechanical system consisting of two partial systems A and B which interact with each other only during a limited time.” 

Let the ψ function [i.e., wave function ] before their interaction be given. Then the Schrödinger equation will furnish the ψ function after the interaction has taken place.”

Let us now determine the physical state of the partial system A as completely as possible by measurements. Then quantum mechanics allows us to determine the ψ function of the partial system B from the measurements made, and from the ψ function of the total system. This determination, however, gives a result which depends upon which of the physical quantities (observables) of A have been measured (for instance, coordinates or momenta).” 

Since there can be only one physical state of B after the interaction which cannot reasonably be considered to depend on the particular measurement we perform on the system A separated from B it may be concluded that the ψ function is not unambiguously coordinated to the physical state. This coordination of several ψ functions to the same physical state of system B shows again that the ψ function cannot be interpreted as a (complete) description of a physical state of a single system.

–Albert Einstein (1936). “Physics and Reality”. Journal of the Franklin Institute. pp. 221

Bohr’s Response

Bohr was reportedly stunned when he read the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, which took him six weeks to respond to, with a paper of exactly the same title: Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?, also published in Physical Review.

Prior to the EPR paper, Bohr had maintained that disturbance caused by the act of observation was the physical explanation for quantum uncertainty. After hearing the EPR thought experiment however, Bohr was forced to confront that “there is no question of a mechanical disturbance of the system under investigation.” On the other hand, he noted that the two particles are one system described by one quantum function. As such, in Bohr’s view, the EPR paper in no way dispelled Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Pais, 1982).

In the following years for the rest of their lives, the large majority of physicists continued to follow Bohr’s leadership, and Einstein was virtually shunned as he continued, in isolation, pursuing his (ultimately unrealized) unified field theory.

Epilogue

Despite their (at times) haughty debates, Bohr and Einstein were actually mutual admirers from beginning to end. They first met in the spring of 1920, in Berlin. By that point, both had already done the majority of the work they would later be renowned for. Einstein’s contributions to nascent quantum theory had launched a revolution, and his true masterpiece, general relativity, had finally been confirmed in the year before by the expedition of Arthur Eddington to observe the solar eclipse of the 29th of May 1919. Bohr’s model of the atom was already widely accepted and shown to agree mostly with experiment.

One does get the sense that Einstein and Bohr in some sense were long lost brothers. They had similar interests, were of similar age (Einstein was six years older than Bohr) and from similar places. By 1920, Einstein was a German citizen living in Berlin. Bohr was Danish, and had recently founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen, less than eight hours away by train. Indeed, following their first meeting, Einstein wrote to Bohr

“Not often in life has a human being caused me such joy by his mere presence as you did”

The feeling was clearly mutual, as Bohr later replied

“To meet you and to talk with you was one of the greatest experiences I ever had”

The two men would both receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in the next few years (Einstein in 1921, Bohr in 1922) and despite their later fierce debates, there was also plenty of scientific harmony between them (Pais, 1982). In 1922 for instance, Einstein wrote to Ehrenfest that

Letter from Einstein to Ehrenfest (1922)

At present, I am reading a major lecture by Bohr [presumably Bohr’s contribution to the third Solvay Conference in 1921] which makes his world of thought wonderfully clear. He is truly a man of genius. It is fortunate to have someone like that. I have full confidence in his way of thinking.

Although they did not meet very often, or correspond very voluminously, their mutual admiration persisted, as Einstein’s secretary Helen Dukas later stated:

“They loved each other warmly and dearly”

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

I believe there is nothing in this world that tops wisdom — because wisdom not only requires experience but a deep commitment to do the right things.

As Albert Einstein used to say: “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

Einstein was always a brave non-conformist, a thinker without borders, and a Free Mind, and that is why he was always in trouble with the authorities and the powers to be.

He dared to defy convention, and upend the world of Physics and Quantum mechanics and in essence all of our understanding of the Cosmos and the Universe.

Was there causation, correlation, or circumstance, that Einstein’s anti-conformist spin, resulted in his non-conventional thinking, that ushered in a New Era of Physics and the Atomic Age?

Why you think my grandfather Winston Churchill sent agents to spirit him out of Germany and thus saved Einstein’s life, when the Nazis wanted to assassinate him in open day light just for the accident of his birth Mother’s DNA ?

Why do you think the supposedly friendly, academically wise and worldly German Physicists who supposedly believed that “Ad Hominem” attacks have no place in a University of Higher Teaching, yet as Good Germans and as Good Nazis, had his books burned, his teachings removed, his house trashed, his library burned and even had his violin broken and burned?

Why do you think the German newspaper of record Bill Zeitung had a front page article asking, “When is Einstein going to hang from the gallows?”

Why after his escape in 1933 the German NAZI Fuhrer Adolf Hitler placed a $20,000 Reich Marks bounty, on Albert Einstein’s head ?

Why do you think my grandfather Winston Churchill, who at the time was far from any levers of power, he still arranged through the Admiralty where he was beloved, a slew of Naval Intelligence secret agents to use all their powers inside Germany to quietly meet & extricate, safely transport, settle & hide, and most importantly, to ferociously guard Einstein in a secret outpost of an ancient grand estate in Norfolk?

And to top it all up, Einstein’s minders in full subterfuge — were beautiful women, all dressed up as hunters, with powerful shotguns and the training necessary to fend off any attempt by the Nazi agents to kill Albert E. while they were all trying to blend in the peaceful countryside living simply in a thatched old hunting grounds croft, away from Lord Rutherford’s Grand old Palace, now a simple pile of ruins…

But all the subterfuge was rather necessary, because this is where they were able to cooperate and download the Great Minds’ ideas, about stealing the Belgian Congo’s uranium from the Belgians, and this is where the beginning on the vaunted “Tube Alloys” project, the vital secret British atomic work begun.

Indeed this “Tube Alloys” was the precursor to the Manhattan project and the creation of the Atom bomb, and it was Einstein both in England and in America, who motivated the two stanchions of Democracy’s leadership, to act boldly in the pursuit of Atomic weapons that will surely would bring about the ultimate Victory for the side that had managed the incredible power unleashed from very little mass of atoms colliding in an E=MC2 way of Physics.

Surely, that’s why…

I bet the fvckin NAZIs still regret destroying Einstein’s home, library, wardrobe, burning his books and destroying his most treasured procession, his violin.

Indeed, karma is a bad bitch to mess with…

This is what the Great Physicist had to say about these days:

‘I Shall Never Forget the Kindness’

This is how England Helped Albert Einstein Escape Nazi Germany

Portrait of Albert Einstein Delivering Speech
Professor Albert Einstein, who has taken up residence in England as a refugee from Nazi threats, was among the prominent speakers who addressed a great gathering at the Royal Albert Hall in London, recently, to aid the Jewish Refugee Fund. Commander Locker Lampson, M.P., Lord Rutherford and Sir Austen Chamberlain were among the principal speakers of the meeting. Photo shows Professor Einstein during the delivery of his speech. October 1933.Bettmann/Getty Images

In September 1933 — a few months after exiling himself forever from his German home in Berlin where he had lived since 1914 — Albert Einstein found himself unexpectedly dwelling alone in a thatched wooden holiday hut located in a wild rural area of Norfolk in eastern England, close to the sea near the coastal town of Cromer. He was far from being on holiday, however. The hut was a secret refuge to avoid a rumored attempt at assassination by agents acting for the Nazi regime in Germany; Einstein was guarded with guns by a small group of local English people, led by a Conservative member of parliament who was also a decorated veteran of the First World War.

During March–April, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power, Einstein had publicly criticized the repressive policies of
the new National Socialist government; resigned from the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin; applied for release from his Prussian (German) citizenship; and found a temporary home
 for himself and his wife on the coast of nearby Belgium. In response, he had been relentlessly attacked in the German press,
 and his scientific works had been publicly burned in Berlin. The government had confiscated his and his wife’s bank accounts. Their summer villa near Berlin had reportedly been searched for arms — on the grounds that Einstein was treasonously spreading Communist-influenced “atrocity propaganda” against Germany from abroad. One especially prominent anti-Semitic German publication about Jews, approved by the government’s propaganda chief Josef Goebbels, showed a photograph of Einstein with the sinister caption in capital letters: “BIS JETZT UNGEHAENGT,”
 that is, “not yet hanged.”

Soon Einstein was widely thought to be public enemy number one of the Nazis. He was given round-the-clock police protection by the Belgian royal family. However, he tried to evade the policemen’s watchful eyes and did not take rumors of an attack on him too seriously, despite his awareness of the disturbing history of political assassination in post-war Germany, which had claimed several lives including, most notoriously, that of Germany’s foreign minister, Walther Rathenau, a friend of Einstein and a prominent Jew, who was murdered in Berlin in broad daylight in 1922. (Rathenau’s photo was captioned “executed.”) As a long-standing devotee of sailing, Einstein was indifferent to danger or death, to the extent that he refused to carry life-jackets or life-belts on board his sailing-boat — even though he had never learned to swim.

Then, on Aug. 30, 1933, Nazi extremists shot an associate of Einstein in Czechoslovakia, the controversial German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing, whose photo had also been captioned
 ”not yet hanged” — for which the assassins were immediately honored in Germany. Within days, press reports appeared suggesting that Einstein was next in line, and mentioning a hefty financial reward placed on his head. Even so, Einstein shrugged his shoulders. He told a Paris-based correspondent: “I really had no idea my head was worth all that.” As for the threat, “I have no doubt it is really true, but in any case I await the issue with serenity.” To his hugely anxious wife, Elsa, he argued: “When a bandit is going to commit a crime he keeps it secret” — according to a local press statement she made in early September, reported in the New York Times. Nonetheless, shortly after this, Elsa Einstein successfully insisted that her husband immediately go “on the run” from possible Nazi retribution.

He discreetly departed from Belgium, took a boat across the English Channel and headed for London. But instead of going from London to his familiar berth in a historic Oxford college, he was soon settled in the depths of the English countryside.

Albert Einstein with His Secretary and Oliver Lampson
Professor Albert Einstein, famous scientist who sought refuge in England from Nazi persecution, is working out new intricate mathematical problems at the holiday camp of Commander Oliver L. Lampson, near Cromer. When it was reported that there was a price placed on the scientist’s head, Lampson placed a guard of men armed with rifles around the camp. Here, in 1933, is Professor Einstein reading outside the little log cabin in which he is living and working. With him is his secretary, Miss B. Howard, and Commander Lampson. Behind them can be seen one of the armed guards. Bettmann/Getty Images

There, in the holiday hut on Roughton Heath near Cromer, Einstein lived and toiled peacefully at mathematics — the unified field theory, based on his general theory of relativity, which would occupy him until his dying day — while occasionally stepping out for local walks or to play his violin. He had no library, of course, but this mattered relatively little to Einstein, who had long relied chiefly on his own thoughts and calculations; all he really missed was his faithful calculating assistant, who had stayed behind in Belgium. For about three weeks, Einstein was largely undisturbed by outsiders, except for a visit from the sculptor Jacob Epstein, who modeled a remarkable bronze bust of the hermit Einstein, today on permanent display at London’s Tate Gallery.

From this undisclosed location, Einstein informed a British newspaper reporter in mid-September: “I shall become a naturalized Englishman as soon as it is possible for my papers to go through.” However, “I cannot tell you yet whether I shall make England my home.”

In early October, he emerged from hiding, in order to speak at a meeting in London intended to raise funds for desperate academic refugees from Germany. “Without our long fought-for western European freedom of mind” stated Einstein, in front of a gripped audience overflowing the massive Royal Albert Hall: “there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur and no Lister.”

Afterwards, on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall, he told another newspaper reporter:

“I could not believe that it was possible that such spontaneous affection could be extended to one who is a wanderer on the face of the earth. The kindness of your people has touched my heart so deeply, that I cannot find words to express in English what I feel. I shall leave England for America at the end of the week, but no matter how long I live I shall never forget the kindness which I have received from the people of England.”

Einstein’s flight from Nazi terror is easily understandable. But despite his long and enriching relationship with Britain, dating back to his teenage encounters with British physics in Switzerland, after he left the country for America in 1933, he was never to return to Europe.

Adapted from Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist by Andrew Robinson, available from Yale University Press.

Yet today, we have all seen the benefit of Einstein’s work as we all live inside the Atomic Era, and also as we prepare ourselves for the post Atomic era to come…

We live in an era of long peace because of that, and yet we pay little attention to the realities of this Man’s life and allow ourselves to deceive our senses that tell us clearly, loudly and unambiguously: You can’t live in peace with the serpents that were spawn from the eggs of the Nazi serpents, so many years ago and we have to fight them every single day, with force of will and genius of intellect — if we are to survive as a Free People.

The fight is far from over and we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of working on our equations on our own corner of the world — but we need to militate and fight force with force.

Because, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
These words, often attributed to Winston Churchill, encapsulate a powerful truth about the journey of overcoming failures, disasters & obstacles. These words remind us that setbacks are not the end of the road, but merely detours, diversions, and often secret passage ways on the path to success.

So, when life throws challenges your way, remember: it’s not about how many times you fall, but how many times you rise again. Each stumble is an opportunity to learn, grow, and come back even stronger.
Keep pushing forward, keep striving for greatness, for it is in the persistence of effort that dreams are realized and destinies fulfilled.

Einstein was not just the man of the 20th century, as recognized in 2001, but he was the most thoughtful Physicist who dod not care, about any of the niceties of Victorian Physics and of their dovetailing nicely with Newtonian physics — but came into the china-shop like the proverbial Bull riding Europa.

And he broke more than teapots, dainty cups, and porcelain dolls…

He broke all the rules, and had the mathematical equations to prove it. He did that because he knew he was right, that light was a bender…

And through his precarious, rather tumultuous, and fairly uncertain life, he also proved that because he bend, and even broke all the Rules of Physics, he finally found his own unique path to success.

And the most expensive payback that any criminal ever got, was the Atomic bomb that terminally defeated the Axis allies, the Nazis, the Fascists and the Japanese imperialists who saw the receiving end of Einstein’s broken violin in the form of Atomic bombs illuminating the cause of the Atomic Age that Albert Einstein ushered into our living reality.

So perhaps, the lesson he bequeathed us here, is that in a world filled with normative hate, fascist rules, imperial expectations, and NAZI boundaries — it is often the rule-breakers who make the biggest impact, achieve the greatest success, and even save our lives in the balance.

So, go be an outlier…

Be bold.

Be boundless.

Break something along the way and mend everything you find broken.

Go ahead — bend the light and the universe to your will. It’s the only way to achieve anything of great import.

Here’s why being bold enough to break the rules can be the key to unlocking your full potential:

On all instances of invention, innovation and creativity: Established rules, norms, and legacy systems — are meant to be challenged.

By breaking free from conventional thinking and embracing innovation and creativity, we open ourselves up to new inventions, possibilities and opportunities.

At the end of the day, it’s always the rule-breakers who push the boundaries of what’s possible, and pave the way for progress, innovation, and growth.

Risk-Taking, Experimentation, and Resilience, bring the measure of success that rarely comes without taking risks. By breaking the rules, we demonstrate our willingness to take calculated risks and venture into uncharted territory.

Even if we stumble along the way, it’s our resilience and determination that ultimately lead us to success.

Authenticity and Individuality: Rules can sometimes stifle individuality and authenticity. By breaking free from the constraints of societal norms, we embrace our true selves and unleash our full potential.

It’s the rule-breakers who stand out from the crowd and leave a lasting impact on the world.

Flexibility, Adaptability and Agility, are the call signs of Successful Evolution, in a rapidly changing world. Don’t take my word for it. Ask the Stoics, and old Socrates, or more recently the evolutionary biology naturalist, Charles Darwin, who first said that the ability to maintain our flexibility, to adapt and to pivot, is essential for our survival, let alone for our success as a person and even as a specie in whole.

In our lives, through it remains important to know that by breaking the rules, we demonstrate our agility, flexibility, and adaptability, in navigating uncertain times, difficult terrain, and resource diminished circumstances.

Indeed, it is the basic benevolent, intuitive, and intelligent rule-breakers, who after suffering ridicule, dismissal, and scorn, even assassination attempts — come back, spring back up, and thrive through resilience in dynamic environments, because their necessity to survive, guides them to seize all openings, opportunities, and operational sequences of life, as segways to their moment in the sun.

That is what they do first thing as they arise from bed each morning.

New path making is part trailblazing, part leadership, and part breaking free from conventions about the rules of the game, but it isn’t just about defying norms. It is about seeking fresh solutions, inventing tomorrow’s standards, and setting new examples of leadership.

After all, It’s always the rule-breakers who blaze trails, challenge the status quo, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

And because they are the catalysts for change and progress — they discomfit all of the well placed functionaries of the Victorian Era who seek to simply maintain the existing Status Quo and are thus unwilling to see past their noses.

So, if you want to truly succeed in life, don’t be afraid to break the rules. Embrace your inner rebel, trust your instincts, and dare to defy expectations.

Because it’s only by challenging the rules that we can rewrite the script of our own success.

This is all of what I learned from personal experience … and must also tell you to not forget to live a little…

So, be yourself, and develop into the role model you want to be. Do not ever try to be another person. In fact, never compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

Don’t take anything at face value. Lots of bullshit artists out there. Learn how to identify them. Equally important: Always challenge the conventional and don’t let anyone mold your mind. Have debates, be an independent thinker, don’t be a snowflake.

Fight not for your abundance but for the abundance of others and you will see how your life will turn around. Trust your instincts, know what you want, and believe in your ability to achieve it.

No matter how much money you make, stay humble. Power does not roar. Real powerful people do not shout out loud and show off. With real powerful people, you sense their power without them uttering a word.

Don’t ever showcase your gifts, your ills, or your wealth, or even talk about money, politics, or faith to anyone, and most important is to never brag about yourself & your successes or bemoan yourself and your failures.

Complaining is a curse. Do not do that at any cost. First of all because nobody cares to hear it, and second, because it doesn’t help you at all.

Best to leave the bragging to others, and know that no matter what they say — when people talk about you, you have already won.

Connect with the right people. At the end of day, you become the average of the ten closest people you spend time with.

Most important, thing is to not burn bridges with anyone. You will only live to regret it.

Think bigger than life, cause the worst thing at the end of your life, is regretting what you should have done.

Frame every so-called failure, disaster, vanquishing, beating with, or without bloodshed, as education crowned with this question:

“Will this matter in the length of time?”

Be relentless in your pursuit of excellence; never ever give up. Most importantly, quit bitching, stitching, and moaning. Overnight success is a ten to twenty years journey from beginning to end.

And that is a good instance of careful, successful, & long term project management experience. Approach it as such…

Enjoy the journey, it is not an end game. At the end of the day never forget that your wealth is your knowledge, and your whole net worth is your Human Capital surrounding you. In short, your network of people. Make that count. Award and reward them for being there…

Life isn’t fair, get used to it. And if you feel that it is way too short not to enjoy it — live it up. In fact, some of the most beautiful things worth having in your life, tend to come wrapped in a crown of thorns. Believe it. Make peace with your past, so it won’t screw up the present, and fvck up your future…

Most important is to not take yourself so seriously.

Trust me — no one else does.

Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you need. Life is a gift. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.

Love, and give love a chance…

The best is yet to come.

Time heals everything. Except lies and death…

Give time, time.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

I don’t believe you have achieved real success hoping that your kids will outdo you.

Kicking the can down the road for the next generation is neither wisdom, nor intelligence, and certainly it is not a sign of any actual parenting, teaching, or even leadership.

If you really want to have your kids surpass you in this world — strongly believe every generation has to outdo the other.

Competitin always brings the best out of all of us.

Hence challenging your kids is real key when raising them.

Your kids maybe your future but they are not your legacy to this world.

And with the Nuclear clock being stuck at 90 seconds before midnight — your kids and mine, might not even exist long in this world.

Please — never forget that.

Posted by: Dr Churchill | March 2, 2024

“God does not play dice with the universe”

“God does not play dice with the universe.”

–Albert Einstein

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

The remarkable group photograph from the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons in 1927 (Colorized by Marina Amaral)

The “most intelligent photograph ever taken”, as it is sometimes known, was captured during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons held in 1927 in Brussels, Belgium. The photograph is famous because it was captured at the outset of what would later be known as the “debate of the century” over the non-deterministic nature of quantum physics. The central discussion of the debate is covered in the May 25th newsletter ‘The Bohr-Einstein Debate’

Among those present at the 1927 Solvay conference, on one side of the debate were the originators of the newly devised quantum mechanics, including Werner Heisenberg (1901-76) himself, in addition to his collaborators Wolfgang Pauli (1900-58), Max Born (1882-1970), Hendrik Kramers (1894-1952), Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), Niels Bohr (1885-1962) and Paul Dirac (1902-84). On the other side of debate, also present, were supporters of the classical/deterministic paradigm, represented most prominently by Albert Einstein (1879-1955), but also Max Planck (1858-1947), Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928), Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933) and, at the time, Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961).

Of the 29 attendees at the meeting, 17 had or would go on to win the Nobel Prize in physics or chemistry. Among them was Marie Curie (1867-1934) who had already won both:

Nobel Laureates in Physics
Hendrik Lorentz (1902), Marie Curie (1903), Lawrence Bragg (1915), Max Planck (1918), Albert Einstein (1921), Niels Bohr (1922), Arthur Compton (1927), C.T.R. Wilson (1927), Owen Richardson (1928), Louis de Broglie (1929), Werner Heisenberg (1932), Paul Dirac (1933), Erwin Schrödinger (1933), Wolfgang Pauli (1945), Max Born (1954)

Nobel Laureates in Chemistry
Marie Curie (1911), Irving Langmuir (1932), Peter Debye (1936)

This week’s newsletter is an introduction to the so-called “golden age of quantum physics” through the lens of the remarkable group photograph above, highlighting its most influential protagonists and their views during the time of the Fifth Solvay Conference in 1927.


The Fifth Solvay International Conference (1927)

The Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons was held in October 1927 in Brussels, Belgium. Continuing on since the successful inaugural conference of 1911, the Solvay gatherings are devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in physics, and occur approximately every three years. From 1913 to 1961, every gathering revolved around open problems in quantum theory.

Chaired by Hendrik Lorentz in 1927, the stated topic of the conference was “photons and electrons”. In practice, the 1927 conference revolved around the growing dispute between two emerging schools of physics: those fascinated and enthralled by the new quantum mechanics introduced by Heisenberg, and those still clinging to the superseded deterministic paradigm.

The Back Row

Left to right: Piccard, Henriot, Ehrenfest, Herzen, de Donder, Schrödinger, Verschaffelt, Pauli, Heisenberg, Fowler and Brillouin

Proceeding from the left side of the back row, we see several familiar faces, in addition to some who are lesser known. Auguste Piccard (1884–1962), for instance, we know as the Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer most well known for his daring, record-shattering helium-filled balloon flights and invention of the first bathyscaphe, which he used to conduct unmanned dives to explore the ocean’s depths as early as 1948. Émile Henriot (1885–1961), student of Marie Curie, was a French chemist notable for first showing that potassium and rubidium are naturally radioactive materials. Well-known close personal friend of Einstein, the Dutch-Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933), whose doctoral adviser was Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906), in his own right made major contributions to statistical mechanics and its relationship with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition.

Continuing rightwards, we find Édouard Herzen (1877–1936), a Belgian chemist who collaborated with the industrialist Ernest Solvay (1838-1922) who started the conference in 1911. Jules-Émile Verschaffelt (1870–1955) and Théophile de Donder (1872–1957) were both Belgian physicists, the latter most well known for his development of correlations between the Newtonian concept of chemical affinity and the Gibbsian concept of free energyRalph Fowler (1889–1944) was a British physicist and astronomer from Cambridge, perhaps most well known for supervising and collaborating with Dirac on the statistical mechanics of white dwarf stars, for introducing Dirac to quantum theory and for putting Dirac and Heisenberg in touch with one another through Niels Bohr. Leon Brillouin (1889–1969) was a French physicist who wrote his dissertation on the quantum theory of solids and the year before the conference, independently with Gregor Wentzel (1898–1978) and Hendrik Kramers (1894–1952) developed what is now know as the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation for finding solutions to linear differential equations with spatially varying coefficients.

In addition to these brilliant men, for the purposes of our story, three names from the back row pop out:

  • Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976)
  • Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
  • Edwin Schrödinger (1887–1961)

Werner Heisenberg

The 26 year old German physicist Werner Heisenberg had been the one who in his 1925 breakthrough paper Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen (“Quantum theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations”) laid the foundation for matrix mechanics, the first conceptually autonomous and logically consistent formulation of quantum mechanics.

Reportedly, Heisenberg in correspondence with Pauli had been working on the paper while recovering from hay fever. The purpose of the paper was to attempt to describe the energy levels of a one-dimensional anharmonic oscillator via observable parameters such as transition probabilities for quantum jumps. Heisenberg sent the paper to Max Born in July of 1925 to review and decide whether he should submit it for publication. He did so in August of 1925, and the paper was published in Zeitschrift für Physik in September of the same year.

Left: Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976). Right: Heisenberg’s 1927 paper Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik (“On the Descriptive Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics”) where he introduced the now famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

By February two years later, Heisenberg had his next revolutionary paper Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik (“On the Descriptive Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics”) where he introduced the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in draft form. Reportedly, he inquired to Niels Bohr to have it forwarded to Einstein (American Institute of Physics, 1998) for review, which Bohr did.

“Even in principle, we cannot know the present in all detail. For that reason everything observed is a selection from a plenitude of possibilities and a limitation on what is possible in the future…. The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.” — Heisenberg (1927)

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle essentially consists of mathematical inequalities which famously assert that there are fundamental limits to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of particles can be known. Combined with his introduction of matrix mechanics, the publication helped Heisenberg win the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for nothing less than

“The creation of quantum mechanics” — The Nobel Committee (1932)

More about Heisenberg’s work and his relationship with Einstein can be found in the June 11th 2021 newsletter on ‘When Heisenberg met Einstein’:

When Heisenberg met Einstein

A mere 24 years old, Werner Heisenberg (1901-76) in 1925 developed a treatment of electron behavior based solely on directly observable quantities such as the frequencies of light that atoms absorb and emit. Recovering from hay fever on the island of Heligoland…

Wolfgang Pauli

Shortly after Heisenberg published his 1925 paper introducing the matrix theory of modern quantum mechanics, his collaborator, the Austrian-born Wolfgang Pauli used it to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom in his paper Über das Wasserstoffspektrum vom Standpunkt der neuen Quantenmechanik (“On the Hydrogen Spectrum from the Standpoint of the new Quantum Mechanics”) and so provide the first validation of Heisenberg’s theory. As Pauli explains in the abstract of the paper:

“It is shown that the Balmer terms of an atom with a single electron are yielded correctly by the new quantum mechanics and that the difficulties which arose in the old theory … disappear in the new theory.”

Left: Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958). Right: Pauli’s 1926 paper Über das Wasserstoffspektrum vom Standpunkt der neuen Quantenmechanik (“On the Hydrogen Spectrum from the Standpoint of the new Quantum Mechanics”) where he used Heisenberg’s matrix theory of quantum mechanics to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom

About the work, Max Born would later state that from the moment of the publication of Pauli’s calculation, “there was no longer any doubt about the correctness of the theory [referring to quantum mechanics] among physicists” (Born, 1956).

Erwin Schrödinger

By the time of the conference in 1927, legendary Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger was 40 years old and had been a full professor for six years, first at the University of Wroclaw, then later at the University of Zürich. At the time of the conference, he had recently succeeded Max Planck (also present) at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin.

The name Schrödinger is now perhaps most well known for his later formulation of the popular quantum-mechanical thought experiment “Schrödinger’s cat”. His most significant contribution to physics however, was made in 1926 with the publication of his paper Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem (“Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem”) where Schrödinger introduced the so-called Schrödinger equation which describes the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system, and so laid the foundation for what became known as wave mechanics.

Time-dependent Schrödinger equation where i is the imaginary unit, ħ is the reduced Planck constant, Ψ is the state vector of the quantum system, t is time and H is the Hamiltonian operator

Schrödinger would go on to win the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Paul Dirac for their “discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory”.

Left: Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961). Right: Schrödinger’s 1926 paper Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem (“Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem”) where he presented what is now known as the Schrödinger equation

Famously, despite playing a significant role in the foundation of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger was never entirely comfortable with its implications, later writing that “I don’t like it and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it”. His proposition of Schrödinger’s cat was in fact an attempt at ridiculing the implications of the non-deterministic view of physics he had helped create.


The Middle Row

Left to right: Debye, Knudsen, Bragg, Kramers, Dirac, Compton, de Broglie, Born and Bohr

Moving on to the middle row. Again from the the left we see another Nobel Laureate, Dutch chemist Peter Debye (1884–1966) who is known primarily for his application of the concept of dipole moment to the charge distribution in asymmetric molecules. On his immediate left, we see Martin Knudsen (1871–1949), the Danish physicist known for his study of molecular gas flow and the development of the Knudsen cell, and Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971), the British physicist, pioneering x-ray crystallographer and 1915 Nobel Laureate. Also present, next to Dirac, is the 1927 Nobel Laureate, the American physicist Arthur Compton (1892–1962), known both for his discovery of the Compton effect which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation and for his later contributions to the Manhattan Project. Louis de Broglie (1892–1987), student of Paul Langevin (front row) was also there. de Broglie was the person who first (in his 1924 PhD thesis) postulated the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter has wave properties. Known now as the “de Broglie hypothesis”, it was de Broglie’s idea that Schrödinger had used in his formulation of wave mechanics. Following its experimental verification in 1927 by the Davisson-Germer experiment, de Broglie was awarded his Nobel Prize in physics in 1929.

In addition to these brilliant men, we again focus our attention towards a handful of individuals who were especially prominent in the formulation of early quantum theory. These are:

  • Niels Bohr (1885–1962)
  • Max Born (1882–1970)
  • Paul Dirac (1902–1984)

Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr, 42 years old at the time of the conference, was of course the Danish physicist most well known for his (and Ernest Rutherford’s) 1913 formulation of the Bohr model of the atom which proposes that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (orbit) to another. The model won Bohr the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. In the 30s, he would be instrumental in helping refugees escape Nazism. After Denmark was occupied by the Germans, Bohr personally lobbied Heisenberg (by then the head of the German nuclear weapons program) about the implications of nuclear war (accounts differ on the exact content of their conversation). He was also part of the British mission to the Manhattan project (later dramatized in episode four of the excellent TV-series ‘Manhattan’) and also involved in the establishment of CERN in Geneva.

Left: Niels Bohr (1885–1962). Right: Bohr’s 1913 paper On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, Part II Systems Containing Only a Single Nucleus, where Bohr introduced what is now known as the Bohr model of the atom.

Prior to the conference, Heisenberg had been working as a lecturer at Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen. Bohr had forwarded Heisenberg’s paper introducing the uncertainty principle to Einstein. During the conference, Bohr led the charge to defend the implications of Heisenberg’s work by debating Einstein over his criticism illustrated through the now-famous “slit experiment”:

Thought Experiment: The Slit Experiment
Consider a particle passing through a slit of width d. The slit introduces uncertainty in momentum of approximately h/d because the particle passes through the wall. But, let us determine the momentum of the particle by measuring the recoil of the wall. In doing so, we find the momentum of the particle to arbitrary accuracy by conservation of momentum.

Bohr’s elegant response was simple: He argued that the wall which the photon passes through is indeed a quantum mechanical system as well. As such, in order to measure the recoil of the wall to an accuracy of Δp, the momentum of the wall must also be known to this accuracy before the particle passes through. The implication is that at this degree of accuracy, the position of the wall is in fact uncertain as well, just as it is for the particle passing through it. As such, the position of the slit is equal to h/Δp and if the wall’s momentum is known precisely enough to measure the recoil, the slit’s position is uncertain enough to disallow a measurement of its position, in accordance with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

Bohr’s triumph in the debate and his close relationship with Heisenberg at the University of Copenhagen led to the colloquial naming of the non-deterministic view spearheaded by Heisenberg, Bohr, Born and others as the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum physics.

Paul Dirac

By now, Dirac is one of the most recognized names in quantum physics. Then age 25, Dirac was at the time of the conference a researcher under Ralph Fowler (back row) in Cambridge. The year before, he had completed his Ph.D with the first ever thesis on Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics.

Left: Paul Dirac (1902–1984). Right: Dirac’s 1928 paper The Quantum Theory of the Electron in which he introduced the Dirac equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wave function of the electron

Dirac’s contribution that led to his Ph.D. occurred in 1925. His supervisor (Fowler) had received a proof copy of Heisenberg’s paper where he introduced matrix mechanics for the first time, and gave it to Dirac for him to examine. Dirac noticed a curious mathematical relationship which he later realized had the same structure as the Poisson brackets that occur in the classical dynamics of particle motion. The realization led to his introduction of a quantum theory based on non-commuting dynamic variables, which allowed him to obtain novel and illuminating quantization rules (the process of transitioning from a classical to a quantum understanding of physics), the so-called canonical quantization procedure. His rules incorporated the ideas of both Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics and Schrödinger’s wave mechanics and showed that they were in fact equivalent. As his admirer and fellow Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at CambridgeStephen Hawking would later write, “Of the three founders of modern quantum mechanics, Heisenberg and Schrödinger can claim to have caught the first glimpses of the theory. But it was Dirac who put them together and revealed the whole picture”.

A year after the Solvay conference, Dirac discovered, independently of Pauli, what is now known as the Dirac equation which describes all spin-½ massive particles, such as electron and quarks for which parity is a symmetry. The discovery was the first to imply the existence of antimatter, which was experimentally confirmed only several years later. Dirac would go on to share the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Schrödinger for “the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory”.

Max Born

Finally, in the middle row, we also find the German physicist and mathematician Max Born who—although not as famous as Heisenberg—was highly instrumental in the development of matrix mechanics and the formulation of the probability density function later used by Erwin Schrödinger in the Schrödinger equation.

It was Born who the year before the conference, in response to Heisenberg’s 1925 publication had proposed that quantum mechanics were best understood by probabilities. What is now known simply as the Born rule, gives the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result. It was first introduced by Born in the 1926 paper Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge (“On the Quantum Mechanics of Collisions”). In the paper, Born solves the Schrödinger equation (postulateda year before) for a scattering problem. The rule is now considered a fundamental law of quantum mechanics.

Left: Max Born (1882–1970). Right: Born’s 1926 paper Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge (“On the Quantum Mechanics of Collisions”) where he defines what is now known as the Born rule.

By the time of the conference in October 1927, Born and Heisenberg were famously so confident in their results that they proclaimed that quantum mechanics was “complete and irrevocable”:

“While we consider.. a quantum mechanical treatment of the electromagnetic field.. as not yet finished, we consider quantum mechanics to be a closed theory, whose fundamental physical and mathematical assumptions are no longer susceptible of any modification.. On the question of the ‘validity of the law of causality’ we have this opinion: as long as one takes into account only experiments that lie in the domain of our currently acquired physical and quantum mechanical experience, the assumption of indeterminism in principle, here taken as fundamental, agrees with experience.”

– Born & Heisenberg (1927). ‘Quantum Mechanics’. Proceedings of the Fifth Solvay Congress


The Front Row

Left to Right: Langmuir, Planck, Curie, Lorentz, Einstein, Langevin, Guye, Wilson, Richardson

Finally, the front row of the photograph is largely dominated by the (by then) older guard of physics, some of whom worked in quantum physics and others who did not.

Madame Marie Curie (1867–1934), the only person at the conference who had won the Nobel in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911), never worked on quantum theory. Rather, she did her monumental work on the nature and properties of radioactivity and for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium, and her successful isolation and study of the properties of the former. The chair of the conference Hendrik Lorentz similarly never published research on quantum physics, although he did give a lecture series on the topic at Cornell in 1926.

Irving Langmuir (1881–1957) was an American chemist and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his work on surface chemistry. The French physicist Paul Langevin (1872–1946) is now primarily best known for his development of Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation, as well as as the supervisor of Louis de Broglie and Léon Brillouin (also present). On his left, the Swiss physicist Charles-Eugéne Guye (1866–1942) was one of Einstein’s teachers at ETH Zurich whose experimental results were among the first to support the predictions of Lorentz and Einstein on special relativity. The Scottish Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959) was a physicist and meteorologist who had won the Nobel Prize in the year of the conference, for his invention of the so-called cloud chamber, a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation. The following year, the Nobel was awarded to the man on Wilson’s left, Owen Richardson (1879–1959), a British physicist most well known for his work on thermionic emission and the derivation of Richardson’s law.

Front and center in our debate however, most notably, were two older men:

  • Max Planck (1858–1947)
  • Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

Max Planck

The older Planck played an early and crucial role in the establishment of quantum physics with his introduction in 1900 of the famous Planck black-body radiation law, or simply Planck’s Law. Later utilized by both Einstein and Schrödinger in their Nobel Prize award-winning papers, Planck’s law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium.

Left: Max Planck (1858–1947). Right: The first of two papers by Planck in 1900, Über eine Verbesserung der Wienschen Spektralgleichung (“On an Improvement of Wien’s Equation of the Spectrum”) in which he first proposed Planck’s law of black-body radiation

Planck had won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for his early work on quantum theory, however he rejected Heisenberg and Born’s quantum mechanics, expecting that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics would soon render quantum mechanics unnecessary.

“He was, by nature, a conservative mind; he had nothing of the revolutionary and was thoroughly skeptical about speculations. Yet his belief in the compelling force of logical reasoning from facts was so strong that he did not flinch from announcing the most revolutionary idea which ever has shaken physics.” – Max Born about Planck

Albert Einstein

Finally, of course, there in the front sat Albert Einstein. At this point 48 years old, Einstein had by the time of the conference revolutionized physics many times over by introducing, among other results, special and general relativitymass-energy equivalence and the nature of the photoelectric effect. He had already been awarded his Nobel Prize in 1921, but following the publication of Heisenberg’s 1925 paper introducing matrix mechanics, was famously displeased with the direction modern physics was heading. A staunch determinist, his famous line

I, in any case, am convinced that He does not play dice. — Einstein

was made during the Solvay conference in his confrontation with Bohr. The pair’s well-known and public debate on the topic lasted until the publication of the so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper in 1935, entitled Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?

Left: Albert Einstein (1879–1955). Right: Einstein’s 1905 paper Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichttspunkt (“On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light”) which first proposed the idea of energy quanta

A year after the conference, despite their disagreements, Einstein nominated both Heisenberg and Born for the Nobel Prize. He would later also nominate Wolfgang Pauli (1945). Although they did not meet very often, or correspond very voluminously, Einstein and Bohr’s mutual admiration persisted, as Einstein’s secretary Helen Dukas later stated:

“They loved each other warmly and dearly”

Quite surprisingly, there is a small video from the 1927 Solvay Conference shot by an assistant of Irving Langmuir. This short video is now available on Youtube, and is linked below with commentary by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan.

In this 3 minute silent film of the conference, 21 of the 29 participants can be seen conversing, during an intermission of the Summit’s proceedings.


Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

In the event that you are interested in reading more about the “birth age” of quantum physics — you are encouraged to look up the following three books:

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