8 Brilliant Physicists Who Were Also Involved in Wars
“Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. Such power has evident value — even though the power may be negated by what one does.”
Albert Einstein
Einstein is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant minds in the history of humankind who had significant contributions to the development of modern physics. His discoveries have several practical applications too that we use conveniently today.
Einstein had to flee Germany when the Nazi party rose to power. The new laws dictated that Jews were strongly prohibited to hold any official post. There was a competition among nations to boast about their firepower and ammunition. European countries had warned that Germany was developing a nuclear weapon, prompting Einstein to sign a letter. It influenced President Roosevelt to initiate Manhattan Project.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Da Vinci was an ingenious polymath and arguably the most prolific one of all time. He had a brilliant mind and it is said that Da Vinci barely slept as his mind was mostly occupied in creating new things. His imaginative skills had no boundaries and that is absolutely evident from all of his monumental creations.
Although most people know him as a famous painter, in addition to that he was also a self-taught Engineer. He was involved in designing several machines of war for the Duke of Milan such as a Multi gun machine, a giant crossbow, and many more.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
I’ve written several stories about Robert Oppenheimer. He was a great theoretical physicist and so was appointed by the government to lead one of the most important government projects in the history of mankind.
The initiation of the Manhattan Project had its foundation only through theoretical concepts on Nuclear weapons and most scientists thought that it would take a lot longer for the idea to come to fruition practically. He successfully finished the project at Los Alamos and the bomb was later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended the war.
Robert Wattson-Watt
He was working under the British Air Ministry during the second world war. He developed a radio-based system that could detect enemy aircraft significantly contributing to Britain’s involvement during the war.
Frank Whittle
He was a cadet in the Royal air force in 1922. He was the first to come up with the idea of the turbojet engine. This idea came to fruition during the second world war in 1944 with Gloster Meteor (a fighter aircraft that was the first British jet fighter).
Alan Turing
He was one of the prominent mathematicians during World War II. He worked under the British government, a cryptography unit in Bletchley Park. He is most known for his work on decoding the German Enigma Code that saved thousands of soldiers and ended the war early.
Werner von Braun
He designed long-range rockets for his motherland Germany during the second world war. In his lifetime, perhaps his greatest achievement would be the V2 rocket. After the end of the war, he moved to the United States and oversaw the rocketry programs over there.
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