Albert Einstein The Menace Of Mass Destruction Full Speech Review

We scientists have delivered the power into your hands. It is the power to destroy yourselves. What you do with it — whether you rise to the level of your own peril — is no longer a question for physics.

What I must say to you tonight is simple, and it is terrible:

Now, I am often asked: "Professor Einstein, what can we do?" albert einstein the menace of mass destruction full speech

The atomic bomb has made the old patterns of war obsolete. In the past, nations could fight and lose and survive. The losing army could retreat, surrender, rebuild. But with these new weapons, there will be no rebuilding. There will be no retreat. There will be no surrender, because there will be no one left to surrender.

Today, the nightmare is no longer a threat. It is a reality. The bomb was made, and it was used. We scientists have delivered the power into your hands

When I first sent my letter to President Roosevelt in 1939, I did so out of the deepest fear that Nazi Germany would succeed in building an atomic bomb. We had reason to believe their scientists were capable of such a horror. I acted to prevent a nightmare.

Some will call me a utopian. They said the same of those who worked to abolish slavery, to give women the vote, to end the divine right of kings. Every great advance in human morality was once called impossible. What I must say to you tonight is

We have seen what it does. One bomb — one single bomb — erased a city from the earth. Men, women, children, the old and the newborn — turned to ash in a single flash of heat brighter than the sun. Those who did not die instantly wandered the ruins, their skin hanging from their bodies, their eyes melted, their lungs filled with invisible death that would kill them weeks later — slowly, quietly, cruelly.