Bertrand Russell: A Hypertextual Draft Edition of a Paper from Volume 24

able of Contents

Annotation
Textual Notes
Bibliographical Index
"The Bomb and Civilization" (1945)

nnotation to Paper 58

• Atoms In The ABC of Atoms (1923a), pp. 9-10, Russell writes in much the same detail and with the same figures about the minuteness of atoms. He also predicted, of nuclear research, that "It is probable that it will ultimately be used for making more deadly explosives and projectiles than any yet invented" (1923a, 11; quoted by Wood 1957, 152).
  
• Rutherford Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), New Zealand-born British physicist. He was Professor of Physics at McGill University in Montreal from 1898 to 1907, when he left for Manchester. In 1919 he became director of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1908.
  
• more powerful process O.R. Frisch and Lise Meitner concluded that the results of experiments done by the German chemist, Otto Hahn, in December 1938 could only have been obtained as the result of nuclear fission. Frisch verified their assumption with experiments done in Copenhagen in January 1939.
  
• the Germans on the one side, and the British and Americans German research was led by Werner Heisenberg. The British and Americans at first worked separately but during the Quebec Conference of August 1943 agreed to work together.
  
• foreseen for over forty years Wittner 1993 discusses H.G. Wells' The World Set Free (1914), which portrays a war fought with nuclear weapons.
  
• Bohr Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist, worked with Rutherford at Manchester before returning to Denmark. He spent World War II in the United States.
  
• Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976), German physicist. With Max Born, he worked in quantum mechanics, proposing the uncertainty principle in the 1920s. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1932.
  
• Schrödinger< /A> Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), Austrian physicist. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933 and left Germany for Oxford that same year. He spent World War II in Dublin.
  
• by surrender or extermination. Emperor Hirohito decided to surrender on 10 August 1945, but the Japanese military did not agree until 14 August. See Weintraub 1995, Chap. 33.
  
• a month ago This was a reasonable belief at the time, since contested. In early July 1945 Russia had as yet no Far Eastern military presence to speak of but was very strong in Eastern Europe, Austria and East Germany. The United States was rapidly defeating the Japanese forces except on the home islands but was redirecting its troops from Europe to the planned invasion of Japan. Both had reached a peak of conventional weapons production. Thus in all factors considered together, they might have seemed equal in "warlike strength" before the explosion of America's plutonium test bomb on 16 July 1945. Yet the distribution of that strength was very unequal, with the Russians being overwhelmingly strong in Europe, and America's atomic arsenal was unknown to the public and, indeed, the other powers.
  
• make these bombs for themselves With the failure of the Baruch plan, the Americans set up their own Atomic Energy Commission. The legislation creating this agency was passed in August 1946 and came into effect in January 1947. The Act restricted the exchange of information on atomic energy, thus reducing American-British cooperation. On 8 January 1947 Attlee and other ministers authorized the manufacture of a British atomic bomb. The first British atomic test was 3 October 1952. The Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb at the end of August 1949. See Russell 1949a, written on that occasion.
  
• control of the international authority The Atomic Development Authority {See Papers 84, C47.12, and 87, C48.02, where Russell discusses this. See also a previous annotation [in Volume 24] under the lemma "Control of Atomic Energy" where the Lilienthal and Baruch plans are explained}.
  
• League of Nations Although the United Nations did not come into existence until 24 October 1945, the San Francisco Conference to found the U.N. had been over since 25 June and the Charter signed on the 26th. It is not known precisely why Russell here ignores the U.N., although the weakness of the Security Council veto may have been the reason.
  

extual Notes to Paper 74

The links in the textual notes are to the dark green reading from Russell's text as it appears in the first line of the display when the link is followed.

The manuscript ("CT"), titled "The Atomic Bomb", is in the Emrys Hughes papers, National Library of Scotland (RA Rec. Acq. 840). It is foliated 1-8, measures [ask Scotland], and is written in ink. An editorial hand has rewritten many of Russell's words, in decipherment for the compositor. The same hand has added fifteen paragraph breaks, which are ignored here. 45 is the publication in the Glasgow Forward, 39, no. 33 (18 Aug. 1945): 1, 3. It has six section heads, also ignored here.

• atomic CT] atom
  
• little CT] inserted
  
• off 45] of CT
  
• neutrons CT] over deleted positrons
  
• learn CT] hear 45
  
• , if atomic bombs are used on both sides, it is to be expected that all large cities CT] replaced it is to be expected that all large cities on both sides
  
• over CT] before deleted to it
  
• perhaps CT] perhaps 45
  
• will again be CT] will be 45
  
• of CT] written over &

ibliographical Index

Instead of page numbers, links are provided to the references to these citations.

• Russell, Bertrand, 1923a. The ABC of Atoms. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. (B&R; A45)
  Referred to: atoms
  
• Russell, Bertrand, 1949a. "The Bomb: Can Disaster Be Averted?". Unpublished ms. RA1 220.019200.
  Referred to: The Bomb: Can
  
• Weintraub, Stanley, 1995. The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II July/August 1945. New York: Dutton.
  Referred to: surrender
  
• Wittner, Lawrence S., 1993. The Struggle against the Bomb. Vol. I: One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement through 1953. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
  Referred to: Wittner
  
• Wood, Alan, 1957. Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic. London: George Allen & Unwin. (Russell's Library)
  Referred to: atoms

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