Home > History Fact Finder > Science and Invention - Why Did Albert Einstein Want The United States To Develop The Atomic Bomb?

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

Why did Albert Einstein want the United States to develop the atomic bomb?

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German-born pacifist (one who opposes war) and physicist (a scientist specializing in the interaction between matter and energy) who had been persecuted by the Nazis in Germany because he was Jewish. (Nazis were members of the National Socialist Workers' Party who rose to power in the German government and implemented anti-Jewish policies.) These three factors influenced Einstein's decision to urge the United States to develop an atomic bomb. He was visiting England in 1933 when the Nazis confiscated his property in Berlin, Germany, and stripped him of his German citizenship. This was common procedure under the rule of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), who eventually persecuted and killed more than 6,000,000 Jews during World War II (1939–45). Einstein escaped this fate by moving...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Mathematics And Astronomy
   1. Who was Pythagoras?
   2. Who was Euclid?
   3. What was Nicholas Copernicus's contribution to knowledge of the universe?
   4. What were Galileo's contributions to science and mathematics?
   5. Why was Johannes Kepler important to modern astronomy?
   6. When did Halley's Comet first appear?
   7. Did Isaac Newton really discover the law of gravitation when an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head?
   8. Who invented calculus?
   9. What is the Hubble Space Telescope?
2. Biology
   1. What were George Washington Carver's agricultural discoveries?
   2. How did Charles Darwin develop the theory of evolution?
   3. Who are Louis and Mary Leakey and what did they discover?
   4. When was the structure of DNA discovered?
   5. What is cloning?
3. Physics
   1. Why was the development of quantum theory important?
   2. Why is the equation E=mc2 significant?
   3. Why did Albert Einstein want the United States to develop the atomic bomb?
   4. What was Enrico Fermi's contribution to the understanding of nuclear power?
   5. Why was J. Robert Oppenheimer accused of being disloyal to the United States?
   6. What is the doomsday clock?
   7. What is the big bang theory?
4. Technology
   1. When was the compass first used?
   2. When was the calendar invented?
   3. When was the clock introduced?
   4. What did Alfred Nobel invent?
   5. Who invented the thermometer?
   6. Why is Thomas Edison considered one of the greatest inventors in history?
   7. Who invented the steam engine?
   8. How long have trains been in use?
   9. When did rail service in the United States reach from coast to coast?
   10. When was the bicycle invented?
   11. Did Henry Ford invent the automobile?
   12. Who invented the hot-air balloon?
   13. Did the Wright brothers invent the airplane, or were they just the first to fly one?
   14. When did the first jet airplane take off?
   15. Who invented the telegraph?
   16. Who invented the telephone?
   17. When was photography invented?
   18. Who invented the television?
   19. When was the fax machine invented?
   20. Who invented the computer?
   21. When was e-mail invented?
   22. Who wrote the first computer program?
   23. When was the first computer chip developed?
   24. Who invented the first personal computer?
   25. Why was the Internet created?

1. Galileo Galilei