Richard Feynman was a physicist...
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Richard Feynman was a physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project. He was present on the day that the first nuclear bomb was set off in the desert of Nevada. Being a genuine genius, and not big on obedience for the sake of obedience, he decided that he would not follow the instruction to watch the blast through dark glasses. Since he knew that ordinary glass will stop ultraviolet light, he instead climbed into a truck and watched the explosion. In his autobiographical book, Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, he describes the formation of the classic "mushroom cloud" in detail, and adds that he did not fully take in what was happening until the first sound wave hit the area from which he was watching. The ground was so solid, he said, that he knew at once from the depth of the boom that they had, in fact, succeeded in developing an atomic bomb.
The teams who had been working so long on this project burst into excited celebration, and Feynman himself was sitting on a truck hood, playing drums, when he spotted one of the leaders of the project looking dejected. Feynman inquired as to why his colleague was so glum, and the fellow replied, "This is a terrible thing we have done." Feynman was totally flabbergasted, since the man was one of the founders of the project. Yet, when he returned to New York, Feynman says he found himself sitting in cafes calculating what the level of destruction would be on this street if The Bomb (as he thought of it) were dropped on the harbor. Or, he would pass some construction project, and ask himself why they were bothering, since we have this terrible ability to destroy life as we know it. It seemed to him a total waste to build bridges and improve roadways in the light of this horror. And yet, he goes on to say, "In forty years we have not destroyed ourselves, so I suppose it was good that people went on building bridges."
--Herrmann
The teams who had been working so long on this project burst into excited celebration, and Feynman himself was sitting on a truck hood, playing drums, when he spotted one of the leaders of the project looking dejected. Feynman inquired as to why his colleague was so glum, and the fellow replied, "This is a terrible thing we have done." Feynman was totally flabbergasted, since the man was one of the founders of the project. Yet, when he returned to New York, Feynman says he found himself sitting in cafes calculating what the level of destruction would be on this street if The Bomb (as he thought of it) were dropped on the harbor. Or, he would pass some construction project, and ask himself why they were bothering, since we have this terrible ability to destroy life as we know it. It seemed to him a total waste to build bridges and improve roadways in the light of this horror. And yet, he goes on to say, "In forty years we have not destroyed ourselves, so I suppose it was good that people went on building bridges."
--Herrmann
