Skip to main content

history of - Which Sci-Fi work first showed Nuclear Weapons?


We see the use or mention of nuclear weapons in sci-fi world all the time. Examples can be Terminator, Star Trek, X-Men etc.


There are two related questions here:




  • Which Sci-Fi work first mentioned Nuclear Weapons?





  • Which Sci-Fi work first showed the use of Nuclear Weapons? Meaning, Nuclear Weapons are actually used.





Answer



H. G. Wells predicted the atom bomb in his 1914 book, The World Set Free.


His story not only mentioned nuclear weapons, but showed them in use with a fore-knowledge that seems scarily accurate. (Kind of like how he accurately predicted the Apollo missions to the moon.)


He predicted bombs based on radioactive elements that were far more destructive than any conventional weapons. His knowledge of atomic physics came from reading William Ramsay, Ernest Rutherford, and Frederick Soddy; the last discovered the disintegration of uranium. Wells already knew that radioactive elements released far more energy than any bombs based on chemical reactions. Although scientists like Soddy and Rutherford knew the nucleus of an atom contained enormous amounts of energy, they believed that energy was unavailable for human use.


Scientists of the time were well aware that the slow natural radioactive decay of elements like radium continues for thousands of years, and that while the rate of energy release is negligible, the total amount released is huge. His whole book was based on the premise that if the energy was released over a very short time, instead of thousands of years, it would be an incredible bomb.



(Based on the description of the book from the Wikipedia article.)


He made several accurate predictions of nuclear weapons.




  • He said, "a man could carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city." The critical mass of some fissile isotopes is small enough for a man to hold in his hands.




  • He predicted that cities would remain radioactive wastelands for many years after the battles were over.





  • He predicted the creation of nuclear weapons based on radioactive elements. But he did not go far enough to understand that only a small fraction of elements have fissile isotopes because no scientists in 1914 understood that.




  • He predicted that a single atomic weapon could destroy a city.




  • And even more noteworthy is that he predicted the military doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction!




  • He predicted they would be deployed by bomber planes when military strategists of the time dismissed airplanes as mere toys with no military application.





He also made some interesting wrong predictions.




  • He believed atomic weapons would explode continuously for days.




  • He believed the presence of nuclear weapons would force humanity to come together in peace and create a world government.





  • He thought the atom bomb would work by merely accelerating the natural decay process so that the half-life of an element was mere days instead of centuries.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...