Science in World War II Biology War of the Physicists and Biologists Inter War Period Rise of the Nazi Party Economic Depression Chinese Japanese relations Soviet Union The legacy of World War I Lessons from World War I League of Nations 128 nations keep world safe Create rules for warfare ex No nuclear warheads Treaties Technology US and Lend Lease US didnt join war but made war machines and sold them Japanese biological experimentation programs Biological Warfare in Japan Idea of germ theory helped with creation Treaties form league of nations said no biological chemical warfare Shiro Ishii Impact of League of Nations Thought they would be good weapons since everyone was scared of the weapons 1931 Invasion of Manchuria Head of Unit 731 Unit 731 Shiro Ishii Water Purification and Epidemic Prevention Unit Over 20000 civilian scientists working there Biological Chemical Warfare Experimentation Lots of nasty things radiation cutting hands off etc Life expectancy of the camp for prisoners was 2 weeks Justification this is war Postwar response Almost all pardoned by US government in exchange of results Some say that this helped US with cold war Not actually sure how much it helped with medical research Biology and War Germany People ask how can we make ourselves better after WWI Losing the war was very bad German biological experimentation programs Survival Experiments how long can people last Freezing altitude Medicine experiments Immunization gas Racial Experiments Applied Biology Eugenics sterilization Aktion T 4 Program that euthenized children lethal injec or starved Josef Mengele phd in anthropology Well respected but joined nazi party Wounded and couldnt fight Sent to auzhwitz to be resident doctor Experimented on twins wanted to learn about genetics Sent all his documentation to be burned Never caught but drowned in 1992 Was he a scientist Postwar response Trails of the doctors Biology and War Britain and America Set up a lot of ethics for experimentation Fort Detrick kind of US version of experiments but nothing nasty Dupont chemicals lead it NationalAcademicScientists formed WBC and made OSRD Porton Down British version Area 51 type feeling 1953 testing with chemical weapons on people not too bad Defensive vs Offensive Immunization Weaponization Scientific progress Ethical questions Technology and World War II Planes Tanks Radar Rockets Penicillin DDT manufactured by Dupont Killed diseases caused by bugs Start of the War The invention of the atomic bomb Inventors of the atomic bomb James Chadwick and the neutron Leo Szilard Discovered by accident Not really used until 1939 Howard Florey wanted to produce it to help save lives Went to America to help took 2 years Said you can use neutron information to create atomic bomb How did we do it Slow start July 14th 1934 Patent so it cant be weaponized Gift to Britain Couldnt explain why uranium did this Enrico Fermi and the Uranium Problem Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner found it was fission Pre war Interaction between scientists and governments World War II Szilard Einstein letter Sent letter to FDR that said Germany might be working on atomic bomb FDR gave Bush resources to build atomic bomb Start of the Manhattan Project Vannevar Bush and the OSRD Heisenberg and Bohr conversation Bohr wants to build the Atomic bomb Heisenberg walks away Britain and US Churchill asks asks FDR for some resources The S 1 Project came from request The Manhattan Project Leslie Groves promoted to General for respect to scientists Had experience at Pentagon Ordered 1200 ponds of uranium and set up a refinery in Tennessee Set up plutonium refinery in North J Robert Oppenheimer Great Physicist and manager of Manhattan Project Los Alamos Not the only facility Weaponization Why didnt Germany do it Heisenberg was in charge of nuclear program Heisenberg possibly sabotaged the program Put most of their engineering into missiles Started to run out of resources In 1942 US knew Germany had no nuclear program Why did US push it Why stop already started Scientists loved it How did we use it The Trinity test site Gadget 1945 The context of World War II Firebombing Loss of life Thought it would take more American lives to send troops to Japan than use an atomic bomb August 6th 1945 Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima August 9th 1945 Fat Man on Nagasaki Aftermath The Cold War Oppenheimer First Russian bomb 1949 Security Clearance revoked 1953 Cant work on the bomb anymore Tsar Bomba 1961 largest ever really bad Escalation Fusion bomb hydrogen bomb Ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of the atomic bomb Issues Is there an Issue Are there limits Oppenheimer When you see something that is technically sweet you go ahead and do it Responsibility to the nation Is there a separation between the decision to create and the decision The Day After Trinity to use in Japan A video he had us watch on youtube It just went from the start of the Manhattan project to when the US dropped the bombs One thing to note it showed the reaction of some of the scientists after the bomb was dropped a lot of them had emotional issues with it It showed Oppenheimers brother many times he said they were so excited when the trinity bomb worked The impact of World War II on science He talked in class about this a discussion day Everything previous to this can be used to relate science and technology The Discovery of the structure of DNA Precursors The Drosophila Project Hunt Morgan this is genetics But how does it work Friedrich Miescher Worked with puss from battlefield bandages The white bloodcells Isolates a molecule that doesnt belong Nucleic Acid Proteins and Nuclein August Weismann Frederick Griffith Working to find vaccination for spanish flue Did the rat virus experiment Transforming Principle 12 years later DNA DNA Have to find chemical structure Chargraff s Rule pairing of ATCG Impact of World War II Physics is where it s at A happening field Biologists inspired and started asking more questions An increase in search of DNA The Search for Structure What does it look like Linus Pauling Thought it was a triple helix Maurice Wilkins Worked at Kings with Rosalind X ray crystallography Rosalind Franklin Personality issues Gender issue Methodological issues Goes to school and then works with Wilkins Best x ray crystallographer in the world Wilkins thinks Franklin is assistant and dont get along why Gender Franklin not allowed to eat lunch with other scientists Watson and Crick Creating a