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Here's your opportunity to test your decision-making skills with a history-making decision that helped determine why you're reading this blog in English rather than in German. Read More
Speaking German?
"Here's your opportunity to test your decision-making skills with a history-making decision that helped determine why you're reading this blog in English rather than in German."
The atomic weapon was, of course, not ready for field deployment until after the surrender by Germany. It also isn't clear that it was ever intended for actual use on Germans. Some historians argue that the weapon was developed to 'keep up' with the German atomic weapon program -- which was, apparently unknown to the Allies, actually a few years behind. So your "speaking German" premise seems a bit faulty.
And unfortunately, the (arguably unnecessary) use of the weapon against Japanese civilian targets became a strong driving force of the post-war nuclear race.
We can't rewind and replay history, but given these facts I can't help but wonder if your point scheme is better framed in golf terms.
Regards,
Steve Livingston
PT Blogger, "Tinted Lenses"
Steve Livingston's comment
Steve's comments are very well-informed, and I don't want to turn this into a debate about history -- it was one of my worst subjects in school. However, nuclear fission was discovered by the German team of Hahn, Strassman, and Meitner -- and Germany had all-star physicists. American physicists working on the Manhattan Project continually worried that Germany would get there first.
The key question from the standpoint of learning how people make good decisions is: why did Groves, a methodical conservative general, choose Oppenheimer, a leftist intellectual? There were plenty of good alternatives, but almost everybody in the physics community loved "Oppie", who was not only a great physicist but a great recruiter. Groves undoubtedly asked himself whom he could choose that would be most likely to help the project succeed -- roughly the same question that a motion-picture studio asks when they make a movie. More people come to watch stars than no-names. Many decisions are simply a matter of concentrating on what will maximize your payoffs.
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