Einstein's Equation of Life and Death

The following is a BBC documentary about the history of the discovery of some of the most practical and devastating implications of Albert Einstein's famous discovery of the equivalence between matter and energy (succinctly known as E=mc²), which eventually led to the development of the atomic bomb and the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that Einstein discovered the energy/matter equivalence; he did not invent it. It's not his fault that E=mc². Blaming Einstein for the development of the atomic bomb would be analogous to blaming the cavemen who first discovered fire for the fire bombing of German cities during World War II.

I have always found it interesting that the arms race of the Cold War very closely resembled the chain reaction that triggers the physical reaction in an atomic bomb: you start with something rather small, and before you know it it's completely out of control. I hope we have learned that lesson...
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