Defense Work Is Physicists’ Tradition

I was struck by the juxtaposition of Robert K. Adair’s letter “Defending One’s Country Is Moral, Too” (Physics Today, September 2001, page 78 ) just following the obituaries section. All of the distinguished scientists who are memorialized there found “a moral dimension … in contributing to the defense of their country.”

Ugo Fano’s obituary says of him, “World War II intervened, so he began work on ballistics at the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground.” Of Minoru Oda, it is said that “in 1944, he was recruited to the Japan Naval Research Laboratory’s Shimada branch.” Harry Brumberger “served in the US Army in the ski troops.” And “during World War II, Arnold [Boris Arons] was a group leader in the Underwater Explosion Research Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.”

A society is at its greatest peril when its members do not feel they have the moral obligation to defend the very society that nurtures them.