88 replies to this topic

[RedDragon]

PaintedWolf, on 16 February 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Bull.

Q.e.d.

[PaintedWolf]

RedDragon, on 16 February 2015 - 12:56 PM, said:

Q.e.d.

According to your logic the quasi-fascist state of North Korea should have inventions coming out of their ears while primitive, free market, liberal democracies like the US are barely coming out of the stone age.

I mean if we had to steal so much technology from fascist Germany, heck, a far more totalitarian state like North Korea or theocratic Iran should just be blowing us away culturally and scientifically.

[RedDragon]

*sigh* Do you think it is a myth that NASA relied heavily on the work of Wernher von Braun and other scientists and engineers from Germany or that the atomic bomb wouldn't have been possible without men like Leo Szilárd, Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein? If so you should really shut down your computer and go read a history book, or at least look it up on Wikipedia.
Just because it doesn't fit in with your patriotic beliefs doesn't make history wrong.

[PaintedWolf]

RedDragon, on 16 February 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

*sigh* Do you think it is a myth that NASA relied heavily on the work of Wernher von Braun and other scientists and engineers from Germany or that the atomic bomb wouldn't have been possible without men like Leo Szilárd, Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein? If so you should really shut down your computer and go read a history book, or at least look it up on Wikipedia.
Just because it doesn't fit in with your patriotic beliefs doesn't make history wrong.

Yeah I think its a myth. You are talking a handful of scientists out of hundreds.

[990Dreams]

RedDragon, on 16 February 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

or that the atomic bomb wouldn't have been possible without men like Leo Szilárd, Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein?

It wouldn't have been. Actually read up on the history of nukes, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, etc. Almost all the scientists who led the Manhattan Project or did anything pertaining to nuclear/quantum mechanics were German. The Americans pulled it off cause the German scientists were sick of Nazism and left to come to America.

[PaintedWolf]

DavidHurricane, on 16 February 2015 - 01:26 PM, said:

It wouldn't have been. Actually read up on the history of nukes, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, etc. Almost all the scientists who led the Manhattan Project or did anything pertaining to nuclear/quantum mechanics were German. The Americans pulled it off cause the German scientists were sick of Nazism and left to come to America.

You do realize Germany under the Reich lost an entire generation of physicists due to politicizing physics and science?

http://en.wikipedia....n_of_physicists

Quote

Politicization of the German academia under the National Socialistregime had driven many physicists, engineers, and mathematicians out of Germany as early as 1933. Those of Jewish heritage who did not leave were quickly purged from German institutions, further thinning the ranks of academia. The politicization of the universities, along with the demands for manpower by the German armed forces (many scientists and technical personnel were conscripted, despite possessing useful skills), would eventually all but eliminate a generation of physicists.^[1]

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Emigrations

Adolf {Godwin's Law} took power on 30 January 1933. On 7 April, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was enacted; this law, and its subsequent related ordinances, politicized the education system in Germany. This had immediate deleterious effects on the physics capabilities of Germany. Furthermore, combined with the Deutsche Physik movement, the deleterious effects were intensified and prolonged. The consequences to physics in Germany and its subfield of nuclear physics were multifaceted.

An immediate consequence upon passage of the law was that it produced both quantitative and qualitative losses to the physics community. Numerically, it has been estimated that a total of 1,145 university teachers, in all fields, were driven from their posts, which represented about 14% of the higher learning institutional staff members in 1932–1933.^[38] Out of 26 German nuclear physicists cited in the literature before 1933, 50% emigrated.^[39] Qualitatively, 10 physicists and four chemists who had won or would win the Nobel Prize emigrated from Germany shortly after {Godwin's Law} came to power, most of them in 1933.^[40] These 14 scientists were: Hans Bethe, Felix Bloch, Max Born, Albert Einstein, James Franck, Peter Debye, Dennis Gabor, Fritz Haber, Gerhard Herzberg, Victor Hess,George de Hevesy, Erwin Schrödinger, Otto Stern, and Eugene Wigner. Britain and the USA were often the recipients of the talent which left Germany.^[41] The University of Göttingen had 45 dismissals from the staff of 1932–1933, for a loss of 19%.^[38] Eight students, assistants, and colleagues of the Göttingen theoretical physicist Max Born left Europe after {Godwin's Law} came to power and eventually found work on the Manhattan Project, thus helping the United States, Britain and Canada to develop the atomic bomb; they were Enrico Fermi,^[42] James Franck, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Robert Oppenheimer (who was American, but had studied under Born), Edward Teller, Victor Weisskopf, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neumann.^[43] Otto Robert Frisch, who with Rudolf Peierls first calculated the critical mass of U-235 needed for an explosive, was also a Jewish refugee.

Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, had been right in assessing the consequences of National Socialist policies. In 1933, Planck, as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (Kaiser Wilhelm Society), met with Adolf {Godwin's Law}. During the meeting, Planck told {Godwin's Law} that forcing Jewish scientists to emigrate would mutilate Germany and the benefits of their work would go to foreign countries. {Godwin's Law} responded with a rant against Jews and Planck could only remain silent and then take his leave. The National Socialist regime would only come around to the same conclusion as Planck in the 6 July 1942 meeting regarding the future agenda of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council), but by then it was too late.^[25][44]

Quote

Missing generation of physicists

Politicization of the academic community, combined with the impact of the Deutsche Physik movement and other policies, such as drafting physicists to fight in the war (e.g., Paul O. Müller, a member of the Uranverein who died on the Russian front), had the net effect of bringing about a missing generation of physicists. At the close of the war, physicists born between 1915 and 1925 were almost nonexistent.^[51]

We got ahead because we let people develop their ideas freely, whereas Reich Germany decided to draft them into the military or arrest them for being controversial or simply having the wrong parents.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 16 February 2015 - 01:44 PM.

[Marvyn Dodgers]

Closing due to politics/violations of CoC. There are plenty of other places on the internet more suitable for discussions of this type, please use them.

[Heffay]

LAST!