HPSC 1004 Introduction to Science Policy

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HPSC 1004 Introduction to Science Policy

• Week 4 Slot 1
• Soviet Union
• Manhattan Project

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Soviet Union Overview

• Up to 1917 Tsarism, First World War
• March 1917-October 1917 Provisional government
• November 1917-1921 Bolsheviks seize power, under
  Lenin. War socialism. Civil war
• From 1921 end of War Socialism. Introduction of
  New Economic Plan
• Late 1920s-1953 Stalin Five Year Plans,
  Collectivisation, Purges

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Case Peter Palchinsky
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Case Peter Palchinsky

• Early Life
• Radicalisation
• Work in Western Europe
• Back in Tsarist Russia
• Work for Soviet government
• Styles of engineering
• Stalin vs. Palchinsky
• Palchinsky the technocrat
• Purges

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Case Peter Palchinsky

• Early Life
• Radicalisation
• Work in Western Europe
• Back in Tsarist Russia
• Work for Soviet government
• Styles of engineering
• Stalin vs. Palchinsky
• Palchinsky the technocrat
• Purges

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• Dnieper River Dam
• (Dneprostroi)

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• Magnitogorsk

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• White Sea Canal

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• Gigantomania

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Case Peter Palchinsky

• Science and technology are more important
  factors in shaping society than communism itself.
  This century is one not of international
  communism but international technology. We need
  to recognise not a Komintern but a Tekintern
• (Palchinsky)

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Comment

• Narrowing of Soviet engineering
• flight from production
• End of Cold War?
• Expertise and Political Authority
• The accommodation of scientific and technical
  specialists to totalitarian rule creates a
  tension when specialists promote economic,
  social, and political policies based on what they
  believe are the objective and rational methods of
  their engineering and science. Do experts derive
  political power naturally by virtue of their
  special knowledge? (Josephson, Totalitarian
  Science and Technology, p.10)
• Is there a similar tension in liberal
  democracies?
• Professionalization and public service ideal

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• New Physics
• Wilhelm Röntgen and X-rays

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• Otto Frisch and Rudolph Peierls
• Memorandum on the properties of a radioactive
  super-bomb

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Bomb Project in Britain

• MAUD Committee (1940-41)

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MAUD Report, March 1941

• The MAUD Report, 1941
• Report by MAUD Committee on the Use of Uranium
  for a Bomb
• OUTLINE OF PRESENT KNOWLEDGE
• 1. General Statement
• Work to investigate the possibilities of
  utilizing the atomic energy of uranium for
  military purposes has been in progress since
  1939, and a stage has now been reached when it
  seems desirable to report progress.
• We should like to emphasize at the beginning of
  this report that we entered the project with more
  skepticism than belief, though we felt it was a
  matter which had to be investigated. As we
  proceeded we became more and more convinced that
  release of atomic energy on a large scale is
  possible and that conditions can be chosen which
  would make it a very powerful weapon of war. We
  have now reached the conclusion that it will be
  possible to make an effective uranium bomb which,
  containing some 25 lb of active material, would
  be equivalent as regards destructive effect to
  1,800 tons of T.N.T. and would also release large
  quantities of radioactive substance, which would
  make places near to where the bomb exploded
  dangerous to human life for a long period.
• 8. Conclusions and Recommendations
• (i) The committee considers that the scheme for
  a uranium bomb is practicable and likely to lead
  to decisive results in the war.
• (ii) It recommends that this work be continued
  on the highest priority and on the increasing
  scale necessary to obtain the weapon in the
  shortest possible time.
• (iii) That the present collaboration with
  America should be continued and extended
  especially in the region of experimental work.

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Bomb Project in Britain

• MAUD Committee (1940-41)
• Tube Alloys project
• Tizard mission to US
• British contingent sent to Los Alamos, December
  1943

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• Glenn T. Seaborg

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German Bomb project

• Context
• Leadership in physics
• Emigration of scientists

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German Bomb project

• Context
• Leadership in physics
• Emigration of scientists
• History
• 1939-1941
• Status of Bohr-Heisenberg meeting, 1941

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German Bomb project

• Context
• Leadership in physics
• Emigration of scientists
• History
• 1939-1941
• Status of Bohr-Heisenberg meeting, 1941
• 1942-1945

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• Lawrence Compton Bush Conant Compton -
  Loomis

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• Sketches of bomb designs, 1942

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• Groves Oppenheimer

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Scale and Organisation of Manhattan Project

• Cost
• Government (Federal) support
• Goal-oriented mission
• Thorough links with industry
• Huge staff numbers

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Scale and Organisation of Manhattan Project

• Cost
• Government (Federal) support
• Goal-oriented mission
• Thorough links with industry
• Huge staff numbers
• Hierarchical organisation, with complex division
  of labour
• Intense militarisation of science

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• Military - Civilian

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Scale and Organisation of Manhattan Project

• Cost
• Government (Federal) support
• Goal-oriented mission
• Thorough links with industry
• Huge staff numbers
• Hierarchical organisation, with complex division
  of labour
• Intense militarisation of science
• Secrecy. Compartmentalisation and security
  procedures

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Scale and Organisation of Manhattan Project

• Cost
• Government (Federal) support
• Goal-oriented mission
• Thorough links with industry
• Huge staff numbers
• Hierarchical organisation, with complex division
  of labour
• Intense militarisation of science
• Secrecy. Compartmentalisation and security
  procedures
• Media

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What was needed for the MP?

• New physics
• Teamwork and cooperative styles of research
• Large-scale, goal-driven industrial research and
  development

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• Du Pont
• and scaling up

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What was needed for the MP?

• New physics
• Teamwork and cooperative styles of research
• Large-scale, goal-driven industrial research and
  development
• Electricity

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• There is almost nothing, however fantastic, that
  (given competent organisation) a team of
  engineers, scientists and administrators cannot
  do today
• (David Lilienthal, TVA, 1944)

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What was needed for the MP?

• New physics
• Teamwork and cooperative styles of research
• Large-scale, goal-driven industrial research and
  development
• Electricity
• Government as a suitable and generous sponsor
• Imagining use of the atomic bomb

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Bomb Project in Soviet Union

• Context
• (i) Communist view of science
• (ii) Political problem of experts under Stalin
• (iii) Role of political leadership
• History
• Reaction to Hiroshima
• Spies
• first bomb (August 1949)

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• August 19th, 1949