The Atomic Bomb: Crash Course History of Science #33

The story picks up where we left off last time, with Einstein writing the president of his new homeland, the United States, urging him to build a nuclear weapon before Hitler. This is the tale of the most destructive force humans have ever unleashed. The Atomic Bomb.

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[loyisomlandu]

Just came back to watch this video after watching Oppenheimer and its so cool that i know all the scientist you are talking about thanks to the movie

[luizguerra]

Oppenheimer's recording sounds perfect for some dope Techno samples...

[greenredblue]

Yeah... history (and really, really simple game theory) very clearly show that showing off a super weapon to your enemies does *not* carry the message “you should fear us.” Almost always the received message is “you should get some of these as quickly as possible.”

[jvigil]

He left out a critical thought of Truman's. Essentially, "What if we lost thousands of Americans during the invasion of Japan and the American people found out that we had a bomb that could have ended the war, and I decided not to use it."

[mb-jghh]

A man with a Nuclear Energy Technology degree here. First off no radiation leaked at three-mile island and according to OHSA and IAEA Nuclear plants are the safest places to work even safer than solar plants and wind farms. Also, you receive more radiation exposure flying from NY to LA than the avg American nuclear worker. Just wanted to remind people how safe Nuclear plants are after the ending of the above video. If anyone has a question about civilian nuclear power comment below, I will try and answer some of them.

[robcain]

Great episode as always Hank. Do you plan on covering Alan Turing, his team's codebreaking and the first computer? He isn't appreciated nearly enough here in the UK, even after that official apology.

[nikitaamien]

‘This was science at war.’
That hit me harder than
‘Avengers, Assemble.’

[WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

Not nearly as deadly as....




*THE MONGOLS*

[BIoknight]

I kinda object to the use of that flag for Germany in this instance. Use the Imperial flag if you don't wanna have a swatstika, at least

[brine]

Its kinda terrifying that one of the factors to drop the bomb was "to justify spendings"

[Ngamotu]

2:23 Slight correction. The atom had already been split by Rutherford in 1917.

[dawarmage]

Wait, how did Three Mile Island make the list of "terrible accidents"? Wasn't Three Mile Island basically a harmless accident? Noteworthy, but definitely not "terrible".

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

As a student of history, and especially of military history, the only reason there wasn't a third world war in the 20th century was the existence of nuclear weapons. It's a huge gamble, but so far nukes have prevented wars. How long this will be the case is another question.

[cholten]

I love Crash Course but I have to agree with a lot of the commentors about the one-sidedness of this particular episode. I'm not qualified to have an opinion as to whether the bombing of Japan in WW2 actually saved lives by shortening the land-war. However, just listing nuclear incidents of the 20th century without mentioning the advantages and widespread stability of nuclear power in general was a very slanted view of a complex subject.

[Jaydoggy]

7:52 "And now there's an opera about him" - it's called Doctor Atomic by John Adams. The whole script is compiled from journals, letters, and de-classified documents from the actual people involved. It's a bit fragmented and jagged, but then again... so is war.

[bryanlandwehr]

The units of success to the cold war also included atomic bomb delivery capabilities (rockets). Bombs aren't a useful show of force, unless you can put them where you want to... Or at least convince the world that you can. This fact directly contributed to the space race and some of the more tense moments of the cold war like the Cuban missile crisis.

[christophermiller]

Who are "most historians"? I would really like to see the sources used here.

[RomanianJ]

Considering the Japanese military high command still did not want to surrender after the atomic bombings, and there was an attempted coup against Hirohito when he announced he was going to force Japan to surrender, and there is strong evidence to suggest Operation Downfall was not only going to fail, but make Iwo Jima and Okinawa look like child's play in terms of intensity and casualty loss, it's hard to argue US success was still certain. Japanese strategy had shifted towards keeping allied forces off the island and waiting until their resolve had diminished, as they had done in the past with groups like the Mongols. The High command was willing to sacrifice everyone in Japan to this goal.

[metroidragon]

Some good stuff here but you had some omissions that made the video sound preachy and prejudiced.
needed:
The death toll of an invasion of japan
The death toll of 3 mile island
Safety advances in nuclear technology - Breeder / thorium reactors
Richard Feynman

[TheJesterInYellow]

The fact that you can't show a swastika as an educational program, and the fact that you probably endorse that, is enlightening on a whole 'nother level.