> who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world's current population depends on this method for producing fertilizer.
Or are you talking about his development of chemical weapons? Surely, they weren't as devastating as nuclear weapons which were developed by an astonishing array of celebrated scientists.
> Surely, they weren't as devastating as nuclear weapons which were developed by an astonishing array of celebrated scientists.
Who were all working under the fear that Nazi scientists would develop it first and give it to Adolf Hitler. It's hard to fault them morally for thinking that it would be best for someone else to get to it first.
Except that Hitler actually managed to conquer half the world instead of being a powerless figure used as a convenient bugaboo to scare people into rationalizing immoral acts. You know?
If you're a scientist in, say, 1942, when all of Europe from Spain to Moscow is under Hitler's control, and then someone comes to you and tells you he's working on an atomic bomb, should that prospect not scare you?
Almost all of the scientists who made the A-bomb (with a few notable exceptions like Edward Teller, who never met a bomb he didn't like) agonized over the morality of it. Many organized after the Nazi threat had receded to try and put the genie back in the bottle. It's a smear to categorize them as "good Germans" who were just using Hitler as an easy way to rationalize away unjustifiable behavior.
Well, yes, about his development of chemical weapons. Also believed he did something good. And in the end, his family was exterminated with similar chemicals that he invented.
In the similar vein, Mr. Karp ponders loss of privacy at the end. By the very tools he helped to develop.
But some people will never learn. Fortunately, he decided not to have kids.