posted on Oct, 28 2014 @ 03:10 AM
a reply to:
mbkennel
This is what I was lead to understood, but I may be corrected on this.
Consider yourself corrected.
The "scientific community", that is, the community of Physicists, was well aware of the possibility of nuclear fission.
Rutherford (born New Zealand; worked Scotland) was the first to 'split' an atom in 1919. Enrico Fermi (Italian) showed that neutrons can split atoms
in 1934. Hahn and Strassman (Germany) were the first to split the uranium atom in 1939. These guys were all working off theories developed in public
by Einstein, Bohr, and hundreds of other physicists all over the world.
The world of physics was working on this stuff for years, and NOT in secret, papers and results were shared freely and openly. The fact that the
average 'man on the street' is not intimately familiar with every new development on the bleeding edge of science isn't because it is done in secret,
its because the 'man on the street' is not involved in bleeding edge science.
That is why when Hahn and Strassman split the uranium atom, they encouraged Roosevelt to build the bomb before the Germans had a chance to realize the
potential for an effective weapon.
Certainly the war effort was secret - there is a lot more to weaponizing a fission reaction than just being able to get a chain reaction going.
edit on 28/10/2014 by rnaa because: (no reason given)