Live With Lightning

1230 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Science and technological advancements during WWI

Live With Lightning

The main hero of the novel is looking for an answer to the question: “What is his place as a scientist in the world.” The book focuses on the historic period from the 30s till the end of the World War II.

A common American post-student wants to become a scientist. He has nothing except his talent, courage, patience, persistence, and strong will to devote his life to physics. On obtaining his diploma and his appointment as an assistant and teacher in the University of Columbia, he spent his summer washing dishes, working at a gas station in a place with a significant name High Hope. He found by chance that he had taken the job from a man who had a family to support. Eric Gorin moved on.

When asked whether he is especially interested in any particular field of physics, Eric frankly answered that he didn’t know enough about any of them yet. One of Eric’s professors Hollingworth is very kind to him, but physics is only a career, his way of making money.

Eric was going to teach freshman physics lab and take his own courses towards his doctorate as well. “You’ll probably find the first year rather confusing and hard work to teach between the two schedules, but things will straighten out for you after a while. “ – indifferently notices Earle Fox, department chairman.

Eric is proud of talking to the Nobel Price winner, such a prominent figure in science

But Earle Fox is a good artist. No one could guess how empty and unhappy his life is, the life of a skeptic and pessimist, the life of stereotype and standard.

He never cared for the work, never put even a spark of passion into it. No soul there could be in the pure, abstract science. The men Fox saw had a fine and delicate intelligence, but the society which had reared them, had also told them that they were working in fields that were foreign to mainstreams of ordinary endeavor. The knew the verdict pronounced on them was the opposite of justice, they had made themselves willing to believe that science which they found most interesting in life had no connection with life. They found the peace, which made work possible.

So that from disenchantment with the science, he had progressed to contempt for its practitioners and to a still profounder contempt to what he did. Earl Fox is the first symbolic impediment for Eric. He asked Gorin what made a young man choose of all...

... middle of paper ...

...e going to make the grade as a civilization. The millennium was at hand.

But the hopes were destroyed; atomic energy was used as a threat, open or implied to frighten other countries. He preferred painful, distressing truth to a peace-giving lie.

He chose his way, and understood that every lab in the country was under pressure buy the military men and the people who had deliberately confused the bomb with atomic energy. He says: “ I’m not going to be any Earl Fox. No student will hear me say, “ What difference does it make?” Everything makes a difference now.

Indifference is condemnation of the human race said Febermaher. Indifference is innocence sinister, which makes the minds and souls deliberately atrophied. When Americans asked, with horror, “ How could the Germans be made to believe such things?” Febermaher was tempted to reply, “ What makes Americans think that they would be any different”.

Indifference is the bovine stupidity with which a herd of cows watch one of their own number being slaughter. And this sinister innocence is the ultimate cruelty of the universal kind. In America it is called cruelty, in Europe, the other side of the coin was called practicality.

Show More
Related

  • African American Contributions in Science

    3146 Words  | 7 Pages

    Zuckerman, Harriet (1977). Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States. New York: Free Press

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of The Great Influenza By John M Barry

    596 Words  | 2 Pages

    While discussing the unknown frontier that scientists must endure, Barry describes a “wilderness region” that is unfamiliar and new. He continues to say that scientists venture “through the looking glass” into a new frontier. These devices help to create familiar ideas that the audience will understand in an unfamiliar situation. A simile used to compare research to a “crystal” by explaining that “probing” was to “ precipitate an order out of chaos,” much like a crystalline structure forms an ordered structure. Finally, Berry implements a metaphor in order to describe what follows a discovery. He describes “a flood of colleagues” that “ pave roads over the path laid.” This metaphor describes how science continuously changes, one discovery after another while ultimately communicating the patience and curiosity a scientist must have. The culmination of these figurative devices teach a new way of an audience that is unfamiliar with the author's theme.

    Read More

  • Impact of the Film, Dr. Strangelove, on American Attitudes Towards the Atomic Bomb and Cold War

    5224 Words  | 11 Pages

    "The truth is bad enough--but nowhere near as bad as you probably think. The truth will do away with a lot of silly ideas, a lot of completely wrong notions, which millions of people now believe about the atomic bomb. These ideas could easily cause great panic. And right now the possibility of panic is one of the best weapons any enemy could use against us." (Gerstell, How to Survive an Atomic Bomb 1)

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel The Perils Of Indifference

    1733 Words  | 4 Pages

    To the people in the concentration camps, apathy is a “harsher punishment” (Wiesel) than anger or rage, because anger has feelings in it, while indifference just makes a suffering person feel even smaller and more insignificant. Indifference in humans potentially goes against religion, because it blurs the lines between “light and darkness” (Wiesel). Throughout his speech at the Millennium Lectures, Elie Wiesel both enlightens on the consequences of apathy towards those who need help, and inspires hope for a better future.

    Read More

  • President Truman: The Reasoning for Dropping the Atomic Bomb

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    America’s development of this secret atomic bomb began back in 1939 when President Roosevelt was still alive. This project was so secretive that Roosevelt did not even want his Vice President Harry S. Truman to know a thing about it. Truman could not believe it, until he read the note from Secretary Stimson. That night he wrote a letter in his diary about the U.S. perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the world. Tr...

    Read More

  • Steven M. Gillon's Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is the day Albert Einstein signed the letter that prompted the U.S.’s exploration into nuclear weaponry. Frankly put, he messed up. That letter led to the laughter of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America is an experimental country - the first wholly democratic country – and it backfires sometimes. The Creed is warped to fit a definition of a moment and the wrong course of action is pursued. Einstein didn’t sign that latter with the intention of giving the world heartache and terror. He signed it to preserves the peace and it was hopelessly misconstrued. The only peace he can make with that decision is that it is one of those undervalued days in

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    During World War II, a new, powerful, and top-secret weapon of mass destruction was necessary in order to defeat Hitler and Germany. This weapon was the Atomic Bomb, these bombs were controversial due to it 's sheer power to decimate an entire city, and kill possibly millions after it was tested. It 's name was Trinity in 1945. Let us rewind back three years when Nazi Germany was a strong force to be dealt with. There were fears and discussions about Nazi Germany was possibly developing and building a nuclear weapon during WWII. This fearfulness triggered President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to assemble a crew of top-secret scientist which even included the assistance of Albert Einstein.

    Read More

  • The Manhattan Project : A Research Project

    1563 Words  | 4 Pages

    In conclusion to the fall of the war and the dropping of both bombs, I believe that if we didn’t bring the war to an end that it would have gone on for a much longer time. Even though it destroyed both cities completely and many people died from it, I think many more people would have died if the United States wouldn’t have dropped it. With the creation of the department, we have further educated ourselves with nuclear weapons, and the United States have one of the defense system and a grand nuclear and energy department in today 's time since the creation of the Manhattan Project.

    Read More

  • hiroshima and nagasaki -why did the u.s. use the atomic bomb?

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the spring of 1945 as the bomb neared completion, Leo Szilard, the main creator of the bomb, was becoming a worried man. Although America felt no pressure from Germany because we knew they were not far enough along in their research to build an atomic bomb before the war ended, “Szilard now began of think about the effect that the use of the bomb might have on international relations” (Isserman, 168). He tried to set up a meeting with Roosevelt to discuss his concern, but the President died before Szilard had a chance to go meet with him. Now, with a new President, Harry Truman, the pressure to use the bomb was too great to be denied.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Manhattan Project

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    In fear that Nazi Germany was developing an atomic bomb, on December 6 1941, scientists, engineers and the army raced to build the first man-made atomic bomb. These combined efforts provide the United States with wartime military advantage was dubbed ‘The Manhattan Project’. However, when by late 1944, concrete intelligence confirmed that Germany’s work on atomic weaponry had basically stalled in 1942, many scientists were given cause to pause and reassess their commitment to the project. Joseph Rotblat, for instance, quit the project maintaining that, ‘the fact that the German effort was stillborn undermined the rationale for continuing’. Indeed, he was the exception. Nevertheless, the scientists’ apprehensions reached a high plateau when Germany surrendered in May 1945. These events, among others, suggested that the bomb would be used, if at all, against Japan (a reversal, in a way, of the racism and genocide issues within Germany). Many scientists, thus, began to debate among themselves the moral and ethical implications of using an atomic bomb in the war and the fate of humanity in the imminent atomic age. In doing so, the scientists with a stronger sense of responsibility, resolved that, as they had created the bomb, they possessed both the legitimacy and intellect to formulate proposals regarding its use. On their political mission, the scientists fastened...

    Read More

  • What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Roger P. Feynman

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    Not many people want to be a part of a study of the physical world by using experiments and different methods of observation, in other words being part of science. Likewise, individuals who have become scientist were not just born to be a scientist; either there were influential factors or an interest that developed from the theories of the world. One man who fits in this category is the scientist, Richard P. Feynman. He was a man of wonder, as he was born his father pushed him to find the meanings to why and how things on earth work the way they do. Ever since then Feynman became curious of all the things around him and wanted to discover the details to all living things. Flowers to Feynman were much more beautiful to him than to a non-scientist, because not only could he see the beautiful colors, but also could see the cells inside the flowers that have much more beauty. What Do You Care What Other People Think? By Richard P. Feynman is a novel that not only discusses Feynman’s intelligence, confidence and the ability to solve environmental dilemmas, but also mentions his romantic and loving side. In this essay, observations made from this novel will be discussed. Including of how Feynman had made a name for himself as the true genius. With Feynman’s carefree, down to earth, emotional character with a bit of hatred of politics still however, manages to figure out the cause and reason to the ‘Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster’. All in all because he was such a curious and intelligent individual, nothing to him was impossible.

    Read More

  • The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb

    2001 Words  | 5 Pages

    Technology has allowed for the furtherance of warfare, from the invention of gun powder to the splitting of the atom. These findings have propelled the leap of numerous nations’ in the ability to wage war against each other. Of these discoveries, the splitting atom spawned an invention that would hurl the world from conventional warfare into the nuclear age. These ideals were the brainstorming of some of the greatest minds in America and abroad. These scientists began to formulate the creation of the atomic bomb, a device that would change the world in ways that had never been imagined before.

    Read More

  • Edward Zigler and Howard Gardner

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    Edward Zigler initially wanted to pursue a career in a purely scientific field, preferably in a laboratory or in actual fieldwork. He reluctantly joined the ranks of what would become Project Head Start in 1964 due to his deep sense of patriotism and stated that he felt “drafted” once again (Zigler, 2003). Zigler felt as if he had been selected for this position by mistake. Quite unwillingly, Zigler was pushed into the role of an administrator, far from his chosen path of field scientist, and became part of the very establishment he fought so hard against in his younger days.

    Read More

  • The Atomic Bomb Persuasive

    602 Words  | 2 Pages

    When it come to be publicly acknowledged that the United States government planned on using atomic bombs to fight the war against Japan, a group of scientists who had worked on the atomic bomb for many years, felt the need to protest the idea. Leo Szilard who was a head of the group of scientists came up with a petition for the president for his associated scientists to look over. In his petition he asked the President “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs” (Szilard, par. 1). Szilard’s thoughts mentioned in the petition sought the strength and persuasion needed to sway the President that the use of the atomic bomb was uncalled for because of the shortage of facts presented, their poor reasoning found in the writing, and the failure to communicate the significance that their arguments held in the decision.

    Read More

  • The Unnecessary Paranoia of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    Atwood takes many of today’s potential scientific developments and illustrates the worst possible outcome of what may happen if we continue the unregulated pursuit of knowledge. In reality, the scientific advances of today will yield a higher standard of living for the majority of the world tomorrow. We will continue to push for the best in everything including science, medicine, and technology; we will not allow any single person to make the sole decision to develop an idea. Scientific progression will save many lives; therefore, it should and will always be there for us.

    Read More

More about Live With Lightning

Open Document