h a l f b a k e r yExpensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.
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The Nobel prize is awarded every year for numerous fields including chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and pardon me if I forgot a field. After some time this creates a plethora of individuals masking the true genius. The dog of the dogs, yep, who is it? In order, for humanity to know and admire
the greatness of this person, I propose a mightier prize than the Nobel prize, a prize given every ten years, and awards 10 times more money, but only to one individual, and let us name it "the Oppenheimer" prize.
Leó Szilárd
http://en.wikipedia...%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd
Clever man [8th of 7, Oct 29 2010]
[link]
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In honor of Alfred Nobel's invention of dynamite, I propose that each year the previous winners get blown up (with dynamite), so that there is only one living prize winner in each field at any time. |
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We contend it should be called the Szillard prize, after Leo Szillard <link> who concieved the idea of a self-sustaining chain reaction. |
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Well, Leo died in La Jolla so he must have had something going for him. |
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Szillard didn't like to get his hands dirty, which perhaps
explains why, although he had good ideas, the Nobels went
to others. |
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// awarded every year for numerous fields including
chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and pardon
me if I forgot a field.// |
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I think it's aluminum siding sales. |
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Obama won the peace prize? He said: "sometimes war is a necesary tool to keep the peace" |
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Let's stop with these awards entirely nkay? |
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Oh great. This is just what I need. Something else to
underachieve at. |
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Now I am become wealth, the purveyor of worlds. |
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Oppenheimer was widely, and rightly admired in his lifetime,
but some people disliked him. I think, had I known him, I'd
have been one of those*. "Now I am become Death ..." I
mean, how pretentious can you get? Does anyone believe
that line was spontaneous? |
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*Envy, of course, has much to do with this. |
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// how pretentious can you get? // |
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We fear the depths are not yet fully plumbed. |
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// Does anyone believe that line was spontaneous? // |
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It's at least credible. He was present at a unique event in your history, that changed your society forever - perhaps more than any other technological advance since the discovery of the use of fire*; and for which he was largely responsible. He was also in a unique position, even more so than General Groves, to understand the implications. Probably only Bohr, Einstein, Sillard and Teller shared his understanding, and only Teller was there. Further, Oppenheimer was a widely read and well educated individual. |
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All those involved in the Manhattan project, from Harry Truman on down, spoke and wrote with one eye on the history books. Some of them attempted more than a little selective editing. |
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It seems only fair in such circumstances to give Oppenheimer the benefit of the doubt. |
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*(Note to any welsh people having this read out to you: The benefits of this cultural advance will probably filter down to you any milennium now, given that it stops raining for long enough for you to dry out some wood). |
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//changed your society forever// Pfft. Questionable even
when applied to the *fusion* bomb. Did it really change
society as much as they expected? Was the next world war
fought with stones? Did it frighten the international
community into abolishing war? (It arguably put an end to
world wars, but those were strictly a 20th century
phenomenon, a mere blip in human history, absit omen).
Do the powerful no longer exploit the impotent? Have our
statesmen become altruists? Have we stopped bickering
about petty racial, ethnic, and religious issues? Do we no
longer go to school, earn a living, spend money, marry,
raise children, strive for social status, root for football
teams, deride the French...? So much, large and small did
*not* change. |
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I'd have expected a superintelligent alien collective
viewing humanity from afar to say that surprisingly little
changed, after all. |
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// Was the next world war fought with stones? // |
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No, fortunately it hasn't been fought at all, yet. |
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// Do the powerful no longer exploit the impotent? // |
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No. you can get those little blue tablets for it now. |
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// Have our statesmen become altruists? // |
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Is that like chiropractic ...? or aromtherapy ...? no, don't tell us, it's the one with crystals ... |
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// Have we stopped bickering about petty racial, ethnic, and religious issues? // |
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Unfortunately, you now bicker about significant racial, ethnic, and religious issues. |
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// Do we no longer go to school, earn a living, spend money, marry, raise children, strive for social status, root for football teams, deride the French...? So much, large and small did *not* change // |
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... except, that is, for the former inhabitants of two Japanese cities ... |
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"What have the Romans done for us, eh ?" |
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Great achievements do not follow a regular schedule, so why should the prize? I say give it out whenever there is a truly great and deserving accomplishment. |
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// Do the powerful...exploit the impotent? // |
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I have to disagree with His Borgness...Yes they do. "5/01/2012...Excluding one-time items, Pfizer made $4.43 billion.." |
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// Does anyone believe that line was spontaneous? // |
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//He was present at a unique event in your history// |
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He has also studied the Bhagavad Gita, which makes the line no less likely than an appropriate biblical quote or pop culture reference. |
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Of course my pick for the prize name would be Ted Taylor, who is, to date, the only human being to have lit a cigarette with a nuclear weapon. Say what you will about smoking or nukes, but that's style. |
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I thought you wrote "the only human being to have lit a nuclear weapon with a cigarette" until I read it twice more. Now that would have been way cooler. |
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It's been tried, doesn't work - not on an
implosion device, anyway. |
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On a gun-type uranium gadget like Little Boy,
that used conventional propellant to launch
the core slug, then yes, could be done. |
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Probably be best if you got someone else to
do it for you, though, so's you could watch
from a distance and not die. |
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