Einstein: Atom bomb might destroy the universe

[snopes]

Comment: I have a question.
Did albert Einstein inform U.S. Government that there was a one percent
chance that the atomic bomb would not stop splitting atoms until their was
complete destruction of the universe?

[snopes]

Comment: Is it true that Albert Einstein did not know how to tie his own
shoes?

[barbrainey]

If Einstein ever said anything like that, I think he would have meant that an atomic war would destroy civilization, not the universe. Also, how can one atomic explosion keep on until the universe is destroyed?


B. A. Rainey

This kinda got covered on the old board almost eighteen months ago.

Topic: Atomic bomb chain reaction "might not stop?"

Greg of Winter

posted 11 October, 2006 05:04 PM


I've heard from a few friends a supposed UL concerning the Manhattan Project.

Supposedly, right before the first live-fire test of an atomic bomb, a group of scientists approached the Army officers in charge of the project and warned them that there was a slight chance that the chain reaction from the fission bomb might not stop on its own and the reaction would continue until the entire universe was wiped out.

[Atlanta Jake]

I had always heard that Enrico Fermi had a $1 bet with Leo Szilard that the Trinity test would cause a chain reaction that would "ignite the atmosphere" and destroy the earth. The legend went on to say that he paid Szilard in advance, because if he was wrong, then he would have lost the bet, and if he was right, it wouldn't matter anyway!

I don't know if that is true, but this site has a similar,but much more believeable account:

To break the tension, Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on "whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world."

I feel certain that this is what the person in the OP was referring to... after all one pointy-headed scientist is pretty much interchangable with another, right?


Atlanta "destroy the world...destroy the universe... what's the difference?" Jake

Since the original post asked about Einstein, I feel I ought to mention that Einstein's letters to Roosevelt about the bomb mention the idea of a chain reaction but limit the destructive potential to a "port together with some of the surrounding territory."

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Atlanta Jake has the correct version. No one thought that the A-Bomb might destroy the "universe." They well knew that the energy in even a small stellar nova was many orders of magnitude greater than our little squib of a Uranium bomb, and stellar novae -- or even supernovae -- haven't done the deed.

However, there was at least some slight (quite slight indeed) concern that the bomb might cause the earth's atmosphere to undergo fusion, burning our warm and pleasant orb into a bare, charred cinder. No one had a concrete mathematical model showing that this was an expected result, and thus the Trinity test was permitted to go ahead.

We hear some of the same groundless concern regarding the high-energy particle colliders at CERN and elsewhere. People talk about the possible creation of a black hole that would gobble up the earth. The fact that the earth is daily showered with "cosmic radiation" that is far more energetic than the CERN colliders, and that the earth is still here, should put an end to such fears.

Silas