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Governmental impact on science during World War II shows how public administration worked towards technological development that ended up providing many advantages to the armed forces, economies, and societies during their wartime strategies.
During times of conflict, political leaders may influence scientists by emphasizing the importance of certain research initiatives. For instance, when discussing the development of weapons for national defense, the use of urgent language can create pressure on scientists, leading to stress and a sense of urgency. As a result, competition to succeed and deliver results quickly may arise. However, it is crucial to note that such pressures can have adverse effects on the well-being of scientists and may be seen as a manipulative tactic employed by governments.
In times of war, the relationship between governments and scientific communities can become more complex. The scientific communities may become increasingly dependent on government funding, and individual intrigues within bureaucratic structures can influence research priorities. Additionally, the wartime environment may lead to the restriction of personal and scientific freedoms, as well as the virtual nationalization of industrial research and development efforts for war-related purposes. Scientists may find themselves fully engaged in supporting the war effort, leaving little time for their own research and personal lives.
Government funding plays a significant role in influencing scientific research during wartime. Nations often use funding as a strategic tool to expand research and development efforts. Financial support allows for the acquisition of advanced equipment and the recruitment of highly qualified researchers, leading to more productive outcomes. In historical contexts, such as the Four Year Plan for rearmament in Germany after the Treaty of Versailles, significant amounts of money and resources were invested in science-based technologies for modernizing the military. Likewise, funding supported research in aerodynamics, enabling the construction of wind tunnels and the design of advanced aircraft, missiles, and torpedoes. However, it is essential to recognize that government funding can also shape scientific priorities and may be viewed as advantageous for the military and overall war effort.
The most often cited example of government impact on science is the development of the atomic bomb under the auspices of the Office of Scientific Research and Development that proved the United States the option to not conduct the assault on Japan, and end the war earlier. The result of scientific skills deficiency, decisions of political leaders had no other choice but to seek the assistance of their countries most knowledgeable, scientists. Though nations from all over the globe have their own range of scientists, physicists and chemists were the primary source for help during World War II. These men were the individuals primarily responsible for the development of innovative technology, such as the atomic bomb, during the war. Without these developments, the war would have been stuck in first gear, devoid of continuity.
The quest for the atomic bomb was steadily growing stronger due to the new scientific developments coming about. In 1922, just four years after World War I, a man by the name of Francis William Aston made an intriguing statement. Aston, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, claimed that should atomic energy ever be released in practical form, “the human race will have at its command powers beyond the dreams of science fiction.” [1] This stimulated the minds of many political leaders. It seemed as though power would substantially increase as a result of the creation and possession of this so-called ‘weapon of mass-destruction’. Thus the race to build an atomic bomb quickly commenced. Many scientists from all over the world were working day and night to develop something that could only be described as the answer to ending the war.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army component was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion. Over 90 percent of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10 percent for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He emphasized the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.
Edward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the authors of Teller–Ulam design. Teller was known for his scientific ability and his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists, including and some who worked on the Manhattan Project, to develop the first atomic bombs. The Federation of American Scientists states that it aims to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons that are in use, and prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism. It says it aims to present high standards for nuclear energy's safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as track and eliminate the global illicit trade of conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. With 100 sponsors, the Federation of American Scientists says that it promotes a safer and more secure world by developing and advancing solutions to important science and technology security policy problems by educating the public and policy makers, and promoting transparency through research and analysis to maximize impact on policy. FAS projects are organized in three main programs: nuclear security, government secrecy, and biosecurity. FAS has played a role in the control of atomic energy and weapons, as well as better international monitoring of atomic activities.
Science and technology in the United States has a long history, producing many important figures and developments in the field. The United States of America came into being around the Age of Enlightenment, an era in Western philosophy in which writers and thinkers, rejecting the perceived superstitions of the past, instead chose to emphasize the intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the 18th century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority. Enlightenment philosophers envisioned a "republic of science," where ideas would be exchanged freely and useful knowledge would improve the lot of all citizens.
Nuclear weapons possess enormous destructive power from nuclear fission, or a combination of fission and fusion reactions. Building on major scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France collaborated during World War II, in what was called the Manhattan Project, to build a weapon using nuclear fission, also known as an atomic bomb. In August 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted by the United States against Japan at the close of that war, standing to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in hostilities.
Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power.
Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the British efforts were kept classified, and as such had to be referred to by code even within the highest circles of government.
Big science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups of governments. Individual or small group efforts, or Small science, are still relevant today as theoretical results by individual authors may have a significant impact, but very often the empirical verification requires experiments using constructions, such as the Large Hadron Collider, costing between $5 and $10 billion.
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
The Japanese program to develop nuclear weapons was conducted during World War II. Like the German nuclear weapons program, it suffered from an array of problems, and was ultimately unable to progress beyond the laboratory stage before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
The Quebec Agreement was a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States outlining the terms for the coordinated development of the science and engineering related to nuclear energy and specifically nuclear weapons. It was signed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt on 19 August 1943, during World War II, at the First Quebec Conference in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
The Interim Committee was a secret high-level group created in May 1945 by United States Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of President Harry S. Truman to advise on matters pertaining to nuclear energy. Composed of prominent political, scientific and industrial figures, the Interim Committee had broad terms of reference which included advising the President on wartime controls and the release of information, and making recommendations on post-war controls and policies related to nuclear energy, including legislation. Its first duty was to advise on the manner in which nuclear weapons should be employed against Japan. Later, it advised on legislation for the control and regulation of nuclear energy. It was named "Interim" in anticipation of a permanent body that would later replace it after the war, where the development of nuclear technology would be placed firmly under civilian control. The Atomic Energy Commission was enacted in 1946 to serve this function.
The sociology of the history of science—related to sociology and philosophy of science, as well as the entire field of science studies—has in the 20th century been occupied with the question of large-scale patterns and trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical sense.
The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram from Danish physicist Niels Bohr referring to his housekeeper, Maud Ray.
The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century. Particularly since World War I, advanced science-based technologies have been viewed as essential elements of a successful military.
Through history, the systems of economic support for scientists and their work have been important determinants of the character and pace of scientific research. The ancient foundations of the sciences were driven by practical and religious concerns and or the pursuit of philosophy more generally. From the Middle Ages until the Age of Enlightenment, scholars sought various forms of noble and religious patronage or funded their own work through medical practice. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many disciplines began to professionalize, and both government-sponsored "prizes" and the first research professorships at universities drove scientific investigation. In the 20th century, a variety of sources, including government organizations, military funding, patent profits, corporate sponsorship, and private philanthropies, have shaped scientific research.
Britain contributed to the Manhattan Project by helping initiate the effort to build the first atomic bombs in the United States during World War II, and helped carry it through to completion in August 1945 by supplying crucial expertise. Following the discovery of nuclear fission in uranium, scientists Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch at the University of Birmingham calculated, in March 1940, that the critical mass of a metallic sphere of pure uranium-235 was as little as 1 to 10 kilograms, and would explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite. The Frisch–Peierls memorandum prompted Britain to create an atomic bomb project, known as Tube Alloys. Mark Oliphant, an Australian physicist working in Britain, was instrumental in making the results of the British MAUD Report known in the United States in 1941 by a visit in person. Initially the British project was larger and more advanced, but after the United States entered the war, the American project soon outstripped and dwarfed its British counterpart. The British government then decided to shelve its own nuclear ambitions, and participate in the American project.