Richard P. Feynman Quotes
Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.
Feynman, Richard P. What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character. W. W. Norton & Company, 1988, p. 245.
Alvarez was one of the key physicists who developed the atom bomb and was the scientist selected to accompany the plane bombing Hiroshima. There was considerable friction in the Manhattan Project development of the bomb between the scientists and the military.
This is a modern summary of the philosophy of Benedict Spinoza who developed the modern philosophical foundation of science and scientific thinking. When the authorities are clerics and religious leaders, their authority gets undermined which is why the Jews, Christians, and Muslims all excommunicated Spinoza. For the scientists, they themselves are to be rejected as determiners of knowledge and truth so they tend to do poorly in political disputes because the good scientists would never assert a belief that the politicians should listen to them just because they are great scientists and they “know.” It is the ideologues and junk scientists who are sure of their testimony and can advise with certainty. See linked quote(s).
The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer was the great physicist who directed the successful development of the atomic bomb so as to build the weapon before Hitler did in World War II. However, as the technology evolved, he had doubts as to the wisdom of creating even more powerful hydrogen weapons. His viewpoint was hurting the administration’s policy of rapid unlimited nuclear weapons development, and he was the victim of a character assassination whereby his security clearance was withdrawn. The “father” of the atomic bomb was the first American casualty of atomic weapons development.
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner who made significant contributions to quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and particle physics. He's known for his work on the Manhattan Project, developing Feynman diagrams, and explaining the interactions between light and matter. While studying for his PhD, Feynman participated in the Manhattan Project and helped develop the atomic bomb. For contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.
