Niels Bohr Quotes
… free access to scientific information … the abolition of barriers hitherto considered necessary to safeguard national interest but now standing in the way of common security against unprecedented dangers
Two days before Nagasaki was attacked by the second atomic bomb. Bohr was afraid of a nuclear arms race, and argued for the release of all scientific information. His suggestion went nowhere. There was a 50 year nuclear arms race.
Niels Bohr, 1885-1962, Danish Physicist & Nobel Laureate, Article in The London Times, August 11, 1945
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
While Wikipedia has not yet reached every person in the world, it has already distributed more human knowledge than any other vehicle in human history. And all at no cost to the user. It is certainly the greatest volunteer intellectual effort in history.
The Iranian religious theocrat of Iran sees the issue as one where the United States is trying to keep nuclear technology from Iran and other Islamic countries. He seems to discount his own often uttered calls for “death to America” and the statements of intended war with the United States by the leading military officer of Iran. See {624408}.
Kahn was the leading scientist behind the Pakistan nuclear weapons program. However, he then was personally involved in not only selling nuclear secrets to other counties but to terrorists as well. He personally enriched himself while enabling nuclear proliferation in the world. The article was an expose of his dishonest and illegal activities. The Pakistan government was in a bind. Kahn was a national hero, the only Pakistani who had ever won the Nobel Prize in a Scientific Field. Convicted and then pardoned by the President, but he was put under house arrest and surveillance and banned from any activity involving technical assistance to others. Kahn’s religious bigotry towards Hindus as disclosed by his letter made him even more of an international pariah. See {586385} for other attacks on his critics.
Under this initiative the US declassified and distributed technical, previously secret information, about atomic science to the world for scientific development. It has been very successful and there are few modern nations that have not benefitted from the program.
The next article itemizes a few exceptions such as national security, but by and large government documents are accessible.
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research.
