In The Berlin Project, Gregory Benford, who is deservedly known for writing some of the best hard science fiction around, asks what would’ve happened if the United States had developed a nuclear bomb early enough to use it against the Nazis during World War II.
Then there’s the question what would’ve happened if Germany had gotten the bomb first. Here’s what Freeman Dyson writes about this possibility in Infinite in All Directions:
If Hitler had had nuclear bombs, their use would have neither changed the grand strategy of the war nor lessened our determination to fight it to a finish. What would have been changed is our postwar perception of nuclear weapons. We would have seen nuclear weapons forever afterwards as contemptible, used by an evil man for evil purposes and failing to give him victory. The myth surrounding nuclear weapons would have been a myth of contempt and failure, not a myth of pride and success.
It’s something I was thinking about while watching Oppenheimer.
Nehaveigur 