Science and War

“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb,” said Robert Oppenheimer. Scientists have often put their knowledge to use in war. Far from reluctant, Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, and Galileo seemed if anything eager to test their theories in the theater of war. Like anyone else, scientists identify with the society in which they live, so German scientists were involved in the war effort in the first and second world wars just as much as scientists in the opposing democracies. It’s a truism that war is a crucible. This is as true of science as anything else. War is certainly responsible for technological advances, and sometimes also for scientific advances. Science was in the background of war efforts until the Second World War. After the war, some of the scientists became famous, notably Alan Turing for the analysis of intelligence, and Robert Oppenheimer and others for the atom bomb. Since science became an acknowledged tool of war in more recent times, it has become more secret, and public knowledge of relevant scientific developments has receded.