Science and war are intimately connected with each other, the
first instance that we have in history when science became the handmaid
of war was in 212 B.C. when Archimedes, the great scientist, helped his
cousin, the tyrant of Syracus, to defend the city against the Romans,
Pultarch, the famous historian giving an account of the engines of the
destruction invented by Archimeds writes in his life of Marcellus “Before
the war had begun, the king prayed him to make him some engines, both
the assault and defend, in all manners of sieges and assaults. so,
Archimedes made him many engines, but King heroin never occupied any
of them, because he reigned the most part of his time in peace without
wars. But this provisions and munitions of engines served the Syracusans
Archimedes fell to handle his engines, and to set them at liberty, these
marvelously at that time (when Syracuse was besieged). When
flew in the air infinite kinds of shot, and marvelous great stones, with an
incredible great noise and force on the sudden, upon the foot men that
came to assault the city by land, bearing down and tearing in pieces all
those which came against them, or in what place so never they lighted, no
earthly body being able to resist the violence of so heavy a weight, so that
all their ranks were marvelously disordered. And so for the galleys that
gave assault by seen, some were sunk with long pieces of timber which
were suddenly blown over the walls with force of their engines into their
galleys, and so sunk them by their great weight. Others being hoist up by
their prows with hands of iron, and books made like crane’s bills, plunged
with hoops into the sea. Others being taken up with certain engines
fastened with in, one contrary to another made them turn in the air like a
whirling, and so cast them the rocks by the tour walls, and splitted them
all to fitters, to the great spoil and murder and persons that were within
them. And sometimes the ships and galleys were lift clean out of the
water, that it was a fearful thing to see them hang turn in the air as they
did until that, casting their men within them over the hatches, some here,
some there, by this terrible turning, they came in the end to be empty, and
break against the walls, or else to fall into the sea again when their engine
left their hold.” Since then science has continued to play a decisive part in the
Greeks could keep the Byzantine empire in existence on the
ength of their fire arms invented by their scientists. During the
Renaissance in Europe scientists who possessed skill in scientific warfare
were given high honour. Galileo get employment under Grand Duke of
Tuscany, mainly on account of his calculations of the trajectories of his
cannon balls. During the French Revolution only those scientists who had
made significant contribution to the war escaped the guillotine..
In modern warfare the role that science plays is much more
prominent than ever. In fact modern warfare may be termed as entirely a
scientific warfare. The gallant officers and brave soldiers who die
heroically in the battlefield do not count of much. One nuclear physicist
can cause more destruction among the enemy ranks than many division of
infantry. Moreover apart from such dangerous weapons discovered by
science, what secures success in war is not the heroic armies but heavy
industries which are also products of science. During the World War II,
no nation showed such feats of bravery and sacrifice as the Japanese, but
they went before the Americans, because of their superiority in industrial
productivity. Modern victory does not depend on material ardour, but on
production of steel, oil, uranium, etc.
On account of the increasing role that science has begun to play
in war, modern warfare is highly destructive. After the French Revolution
France was continuously at war with the various nations of Europe for
more than twenty years, but the loss of human life was nothing as
compared to the loss that Europe suffered during the six years of World
War II. A modern nation at war is more organised, more disciplined, and
more completely concentrated, on the effort to secure victory, than was
possible in the pre-industrial times, with the result that the defeat is more
serious, more disorganising and more demoralising to the general
population, than it was in the days of Napoleon.
The latest scientific inventions of the atom bomb and hydrogen
bomb have caused new fears among the people, and it is for the first time
in the history of science that the layman has begun to look at science with
extreme horror. August 6, 1945 the day the atom bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima brought home to all mankind in a dramatic fashion the
significance of science in human life. The impact of that bomb has left the
people of the world stunned and confused, and the laymen are frightened
by science as never before. The scientists are also bewildered by the power which science has suddenly placed in the hands – bewildered and
humbled by their realisation of how unequipped they are, in terms of
ethics, law, and government, to know how to use it.
That is the first reaction of a layman to the stupendous
repercussion of that bomb on Hiroshima. And the first question that comes
to his mind is this: What use are radios and automobiles and penicillin and
all other gifts of science if at the same time this same science hands us the
means by which we can blow overselves and our civilisation into drifting
dust. We have always been inclined to think of research and technology as
being consciously related to human welfare. Now, frankly, we are not so
sure, and we are troubled, deeply troubled, by the realisation that man’s
brain can create things which his will may not be able to control.
One of the scientists who played a leading role in the
development of the atomic bomb said to the newspapermen: “A scientist
cannot hold back progress because of fear of what the world will do with
his discoveries”. What he apparently implied was that science has po
responsibility in the matter and that it plunges ahead in the pursuit of truth
even if the process leave the world in dust and ashes. To ask the scientist
to foresee the use-the good or evil of the use- to which his results may
be put, is doubtless beyond the realm of the attainable. Almost any
discovery can be used for either social or anti-social purposes. The
German dye industry was not created to deal with either medicine or
weapons of war, and yet out of that industry came our sulphur drugs and
mustard gas. When Einstein wrote his famous transformation equation in
1905 he was not thinking of the atomic bomb, but out of the equation
came on of the principles upon which the bomb was based. Williard Gibbs
was a gentle spirit whose life was spent in his laboratory at Yale
University and who never dreamed that his work is mathematical physics
his ideas gave added power to armaments of all nations in both World War
might have even a remote relationship to war; and yet it is safe to say t
I and World War II.
from scientific research are more often than not indistinguishable a
The real difficulty lies in the fact that the good and evil that flow
point of origin. Generally speaking they are by products, or they represent
distortions of original purpose none of which could have been foreseen
question of human motives and desires. Science has recently given
when the initial discovery was made. We are thus driven back to a
radar, jet propulsion and power sources of unprecedented magnitude What does society want to do with them? It can use them constructively to
increase the happiness of mankind or it can employ them to tear the world
to pieces. There is scarcely a scientific formula or a process or a
commodity which cannot be used for war purposes, if that is what we elect
to do with it. In brief, the gifts of science can be used by evil men to do
evil even more
obviously and dramatically than they can be used by men
of goodwill to do good.
The scientists cannot, of course, be hold responsible for the
dilemma facing mankind, when there is a positive danger of the extinction
of life on this planet by means of the latest scientific inventions. A
considerable number of scientists who were connected with the atomic
bomb project have openly expressed their apprehension of the
consequences of their own creation. “All of us who worked on the atomic
bomb, said Allison of the University of Chicago, “had a momentary
feeling of election when our experiment met with success, but that feeling
rapidly changed to a feeling of horror, and a fervent desire that no more
bombs would be dropped”. But speaking truly, we cannot absolve the
scientists from some measure of responsibility for they are men of
superior training and insight and we are entitled to look to them for help
and leadership more help and leadership, than have thus far been given.
They should follow the example of the great scientist, Farady, who when
consulted as to the use of poison gas in the German War replied that it was
entirely feasible, but was to be condemned on grounds of humanity, and
his opinion prevailed.
In order to save mankind from extinction which may result from
use of scientific inventions for the purpose of war, somehow or other, the
society must assume that responsibility. The towering enemy of mankind
is not science but war. Science merely reflects the social forces by which
it is surrounded. When there is peace, science is constructive. When there
is war, science is perverted to destructive ends. The weapons which
science gives us do not necessarily create war; they make war increasingly
more terrible until now it has brought us to the doorstep of doom.
war to substitute law for force and international government for anarchy in
Our main problem, therefore, is not to curb science but to stop
the relation of on nation with one another. That is a job in which
everybody must participate, including the scientists. But the bomb on
Hiroshima suddenly woke us up to the fact that we have very little time.
Now we are face to face with this urgent question: “Can education and oleration and understanding and creative intelligence run fast enough
keep us abreast with our own mounting capacity to destroy.
TO
referring to the dilemma that faces mankind today on account of the
Bertrand Russel, one of the greatest of modern philosophers.
scientific inventions of the atom bomb and hydrogen bomb, has painted a
gloomy picture of the future: “The atom bomb, and still more the
hydrogen bomb, have caused new fears, involving new doubts as to the
effects of science on human life. Some eminent authorities, including
Einstein, have pointed out that there is a danger of the extinction of life on
this planet. I do not myself think that this will happen in the next war, but
I think that it may well happen in the next but one, if that is allowed to
occur. If this expectation is correct, we have to choose, within the next
fifty years or so, between two alternatives. Either we must allow the
human race to exterminate itself, or we must forgo certain liberties which
are very dear to us, more especially the liberty to kill foreigners whenever
we feel so disposed. I think it probable that mankind will choose its own
extermination as the preferable alternative. The choice will be made, of
course, by persuading ourselves that it is not being made, since (so
militarists on both sides will say) the victory of the right is certain without
risk of universal if so, it is to science that we will own its extinction.
“If however, the human race decides to let itself go on living, i
will have to make very drastic changes in its way of thinking, feeling, and
behaving. We must learn not to say: “never, better death than dishonour
We must learn to submit to law, even when imposed by aliens whom we
hate and despise, and whom we believe to be blind to all considerations of
righteousness.
“If human life is to continue in spite of science, mankind will
have to learn a discipline of the passions which, in the past, has not beet
necessary. Men will have to submit to the law even when they think the
law unjust and iniquitous. Nations which are persuaded that they are
them by neutral authority. I do not say that this is easy; I do not prophe
demanding the barest will have to acquiesce when this demand is denied
that it will happen; I only say that if it does not happen the human
will perish, and will perish as a result of science”.