Discover
/
Article

Nuclear proliferation‐thirty years after Hiroshima

JUL 01, 1975
The winner of the Leo Szilard Award re‐examines a 30‐year‐old position—that the only way to ensure an atom‐bomb‐free future is by strict international control over fissionable materials and their means of production.
Bernard T. Feld

Nowadays there is a tendency among historians and social scientists to think of the postwar scientists’ movement as a quaint aberration, and to dismiss the ideas we developed in the late 1940’s as politically naive or irrelevant. Some go even further and would have us believe that time has shown the wisdom of those politicians who insisted on the need for maintaining American preeminence in nuclear armaments, despite our urgent warnings that this was a futile and dangerous course. As evidence, they cite the facts that for thirty years nuclear war has been averted, in spite of recurrent international crises, and that the number of nuclear‐weapons states has remained much smaller than the number that we predicted would be able to produce nuclear weapons on a time scale of thirty years.

This article is only available in PDF format

More about the Authors

Bernard T. Feld. Professor, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Related content
/
Article
Figuring out how to communicate with the public can be overwhelming. Here’s some advice for getting started.
/
Article
Amid growing investment in planetary-scale climate intervention strategies that alter sunlight reflection, global communities deserve inclusive and accountable oversight of research.
/
Article
Although motivated by the fundamental exploration of the weirdness of the quantum world, the prizewinning experiments have led to a promising branch of quantum computing technology.
/
Article
As conventional lithium-ion battery technology approaches its theoretical limits, researchers are studying alternative architectures with solid electrolytes.
This Content Appeared In
pt-cover_1975_07.jpeg

Volume 28, Number 7

Get PT in your inbox

pt_newsletter_card_blue.png
PT The Week in Physics

A collection of PT's content from the previous week delivered every Monday.

pt_newsletter_card_darkblue.png
PT New Issue Alert

Be notified about the new issue with links to highlights and the full TOC.

pt_newsletter_card_pink.png
PT Webinars & White Papers

The latest webinars, white papers and other informational resources.

By signing up you agree to allow AIP to send you email newsletters. You further agree to our privacy policy and terms of service.