Is There Any Defense?

The opinion of a brilliant Lebanese woman scientist on the most important matter occupying people's minds of late.

Is There Any Defense?

By Dr. Salwa Nassar

In the last two years the vigilance of men of science has increased. They have risen from their secluded quarters to express their views on these questions in the pages of the newspapers and magazines, urging the various governments to cooperate instead of clashing, and pointing out to public opinion the necessity of worldwide brotherhood. Their aim in this is to rouse the world from the heedless complacency and general contentment that have taken hold of it, and to alert the individual to the moral responsibility resting on his shoulders.

Why are the physicists anxious to such a degree, while we see the world at ease, confident in their skill and their power to work wonders in the twentieth century? And why do the scientists look upon the world with pessimism and alarm at the present situation, and not shrink from declaring their opinions openly?

"A new kind of thinking is essential if man is to survive and advance." This is the subject of a recent message by Professor Einstein, in which he says: "In the name of worldwide brotherhood, I declare, in the light of the new knowledge, that precautionary safeguards against atomic power are not merely desirable, but necessary for the survival of life." It is, then, this knowledge which the men of science have discovered, and whose gravity they have measured, that is the cause of their anxiety over the fate of the world. They gauge precisely the possibilities and the horrors that can come of atomic power and its use in wars. This knowledge did not come by chance; it is the fruit of their long and exhausting researches — and it is now their sole preoccupation and the troubling nightmare of their thoughts. They are convinced that it is the evil nature in man that aspired to the discovery of this terrible atomic power, and that this dilemma can be solved only by way of morals and by positive means that restrain evil.

Science has proved that bombs of the type dropped on Nagasaki can be produced in vast quantities. And it is believed that the bombs of the future will not be content merely with killing people and wrecking cities in the moments after their tremendous explosion; more dreadful than all this, they will fill the air with "radioactive particles" capable of annihilating life altogether without any damage to buildings. It is most probable that more than one nation will store enormous quantities of these bombs within the coming fifteen years. And so long as one state has not scrupled to use them, what is to prevent the other nations from following its example?

A group of influential persons, relying on mistaken information, has said that there are means of protection and defense against this bomb; but the scientists refute this claim, on the strength of their long and well-established scientific researches, and they see in it a misleading of public opinion, and a false complacency toward a situation that holds great danger to life.

The method followed in carrying out protective defense plans against the atomic bomb is to discover the identity of the attacking aircraft, and to determine their direction while they are still at a safe distance, and the method that will be followed in the attack. This tracking of aircraft requires immense apparatus, specialists stationed at numerous points, and exorbitant expenditures; and it is, upon my life, so delicate a craft that it will be impossible to be sure of managing it to perfection.

As for the only solution, it is our need of a defensive power that would render the bomb ineffective, either by preventing the explosion from occurring, or by altering its direction and speed so that it explodes far from the intended target; and to this end abstruse and complicated studies are imperative, whose result will rarely be satisfactory.

The bombs that were dropped on Japan exploded 450 meters up in the air, and it has been established that this height is highly effective. If the defender is certain of the moment of the bomb's launching, of its speed, and of its target, he can hinder and delay its arrival by sending out radio signals; this would make the bomb explode at a height greater than the target, and the effect would thus be lessened. But if the defender errs in his calculation, he is given no chance for a second try — the sword will have outrun the reproach! Some visionaries hold that it may prove possible to use electromagnetic rays (electromagnetic waves) capable of locating bombs in the air, whatever they may be. But these rays have not yet been discovered, and there is no evidence that they might be discovered in the next fifty years.

Apart from the difficulties already mentioned, the experiences of the last war have proved to us that we cannot be one hundred percent certain of the result of air defense. In the air attack on London, 9 percent of the (V-1) bombs still hit the target; and this small proportion, in atomic bombs launched, is enough to annihilate any great city in the world. The first shots are usually on target, for they fall suddenly, without prior warning; even with a tight defense the danger is ever present, for a single mistake means the end.

The men of science know today of no protective weapon to ward off this danger, which threatens civilization with extinction and annihilation; their only hope lies in worldwide cooperation, and in mutual understanding to lay down a world law forbidding the use of atomic bombs — for there is no defense!