US Defence Research & Expatriate Scientists

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI talks about how expatriate scientists have contributed to research in the USA.

It appears to me that most of the innovative pre and post Second World War defence research in USA, especially the innovative and ground breaking one was carried out by expatriate (mostly European/Soviet) scientists. Some of the more prominent names which come to my mind are Dr Albert Einstein, Gamow, Szilard, Pauli, Dr Hans Bethe, Oppenheimer and Garfield et al.

Surprisingly most of these scientists were experts in physics - the queen of sciences - and were unfortunately Jews. The work of Einstein is well known and even a school boy today knows that the basis of an atom bomb i.e. the theoretical one is the simple and stupid looking equation E equals to mC2.

And in the post World War II era, rocket research in America, though it had a basis formed by the famous Dr Goddard (a US citizen), but the real impetus to this was due to the work and advice of famous German rocket expert - Dr Von Braun of the Peenmunde - (Germany) where the VI - and V2 rockets were fabricated.

It so happened that when the Second World War ended most of the workhands who worked in the German infrastructure were taken away by the Soviets, but the scientists like Von Braun came to USA. This is perhaps the reason why the USSR had an initial success in first sending a man in space in ‘Sputnik’ - and the US had to follow. Even now the Soviet space technology is perhaps as good if not better than USA.

Ballistics is an awkward subject and is needed in space flight and even for projectile flight, and I should think that it is an offshoot of mechanics (Physics). Prior to the Second World War most of the work on ballistic tables (Range Tables) was done by long hand with the help of tables and the compilation of tables was a tediously slow process of integration of the equation of motion at each angle of elevation.

For the first time in history - this work was carried out with the help of a massive computer housed in a place with the area of big house courtyard and which had hundreds of tubes, and when it worked it looked as if a gigantic knitting machine was doing some work. This machine was the handiwork of the famous mathematician Von Neumann and was a real time efficient (for that period) advancement in the compilation of firing/range tables which are the tools of ballisticians and practical gunners. We shall see more of Neuman - in the paragraphs that follow.

Although Dr. Albert Einstein cannot be pinned down for any such work, he in fact was too lofty a scientist and more concerned with the riddle of universe, but occasionally - he did dabble in smaller problems - and even taught young students the mysteries of physics and cosmology, or even puny geometrical problems.

The presentation which follows shows some of involvement of the famous Nobel Laureate in some work which was to be carried out for the Bureau of Ordnance of the US Navy Department Washington DC along with some other consultants while he himself should thus be considered as a naval consultant (for that matter).

I am not sure about the details of the project - and if any viable results were actually achieved against the Japanese Navy or if the project was in fact implemented, all the same his involvement cannot be denied.

As I have made it clear Einstein was more worried about the ‘riddle of universe’ and had wished and worked for producing a single equation - as simple and beautiful as possible to encompass the major forces of nature in the most orderly fashion. Thus the Washington consultancy was something absolutely tertiary.

His main work and the work of his life was the unified field theory and cosmology - and according to G Gamow he was almost fascinated by this work or any work connected with this. Gamow writes “... Once I mentioned to him (Einstein) Pascual Jordan’s idea of how a star can be created from nothing, since at the point zero its negative gravitational mass defect is numerically equal to the positive rest mass. Einstein stopped in his tracks and since we were crossing a street - several cars had to stop to avoid running us down...” That’s passion for science.

It is good to be located in a small habitat where you are insulted from the rough and tumble of the busy city life. And then if you are in a reasonable condition - there are very few parasites on your time. And if you are willing, and if you can wield your pen you should consider yourself a lucky person. Under such circumstances I have an opportunity of reading or rather re-reading and this time a little more carefully what I had just glanced and skipped over few years back.

Einstein as everyone knows has been selected as the ‘person of the last century’ by TIME magazine for his contribution to physics - the queen of sciences, and its impact on modern technology. There is hardly any branch of physics in which his contribution is not monumental, and his only regret was ignoring the quantum theory in the fag end of his productive life.

I just have with me a ‘Centenary Volume’ on Einstein- sponsored by the International Commission on Physics Education (ICPE) in 1960 - and which was first published under the editorial guidance of then - Professor of Physics - MIT Cambridge USA - Chairman ICPE Dr. AP French in 1979. I in fact have its 1980 Edition published in Harvard. This is an amazing anthology - and some of the best known scientists and Einstein’s friends (including his renowned photographer Philipp Halsman) have contributed scintillating pieces on Einstein’s life and works for this book.

Physics is a very broad discipline - and surely its application in ballistics is tremendous - and in this context I was to come across - a short - perhaps very short mention of Einstein by the famous Russian physicist George Gamow - who has written a number of books on many fascinating topics of physics - ‘the Birth and Death of Sun’ appears to me perhaps one of the most illuminating such work.

Gamow - and internationally known scientist was born in Odessa in 1904 - and lived best part of his life in USA. He formulated his celebrated theory of radio active decay in 1928 (when I was only four years old.) He had been professor of Physics at the George Washington University - and had worked on the application of the nuclear physics to problems of stellar evolution.

It appears that he had some sort of rapport with Dr Albert Einstein - and had worked for the armed forces of United States during the World War II. Surprising he had been a colonel in the Red Army in a field artillery at an amazing young age of just twenty. He therefore, with the background of a Russian - could not be trusted with any nuclear assignment - all the same he was offered a consultantship in the Division of High Explosives (HE) in the Bureau of Ordnance of the US Navy Department.

It is interesting to see what he says about his contact - periodic as it was with Dr Einstein, and the famous and brilliant mathematician John Von Neumann (who is considered to be the moving spirit behind the modern computers).

“... A more interesting activity during the time was my periodic contact with Albert Einstein, who along with other experts such as John von Neumann, served as a consultant for the High Explosives Division ... Accepting this consultantship, Einstein stated that because of his advanced age he would be unable to travel periodically from Princeton to Washington DC and back, and somebody must come to his home... bringing the problems with him. Since I happened to have known Einstein earlier, on non-military grounds, I was selected to carry out this job....”

Gamow continues with his interesting account - and the problems. He writes in his autobiography ‘My World Line’ - “... Thus on every other Friday I took a morning train to Princeton carrying a briefcase tightly packed with confidential and secret Navy projects ... There was a great variety of proposals, such as exploding a series of underwater mines placed along a parabolic path that would lead to the entrance of a Japanese Naval Base, with ‘follow up’ - aerial bombs to be dropped on the flight decks of Japanese Aircraft carriers. Einstein would meet me in his study at home, wearing one of his famous soft sweaters, and we would go through all the proposals, one by one.”

He approved practically all of them, saying “... Oh yes, very interesting, very, very, ingenious” - and the next day the admiral in charge of the bureau was very happy when I reported to him Einstein’s comments.

This however should not be taken to imply that Einstein was an ardent militarist - far from it, he was a pacifist - and a great humanist - and he even advised President Roosevelt to refrain from the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). His passion was science as would be clear from what follows - perhaps pure science and the unified field theory in which he had a wish to encompass the major forces of nature in a simple and beautiful single equation. This I think was left to the Pakistani Dr Salam and some of his associates to complete.

Gamow continues with some personal touch “... After the business part of the visit was over, we had lunch either at Einstein’s home or at the cafeteria of the Institute for Advanced Study, which was not far away, and the conversation would turn to the problems of astrophysics and cosmology... In Einstein’s study there were always many sheets of paper scattered over his desk and on a nearby table - and I saw that they were covered with tensor formulae which seemed to pertain to the unified field theory - but Einstein never spoke about that....”