The Hard Problem of Technology

In the summer of 1942 Robert Oppenheimer reportedly initiated a conversation with his superior—Arthur Compton—about the possibility that the atomic bomb might in fact ignite both the oceans and atmosphere … globally. According to Compton: “Hydrogen nuclei are unstable and they can combine into helium nuclei with a large release of energy…might not the enormously high temperature of the atomic bomb be just what was needed to explode the hydrogen. And if hydrogen, what about the hydrogen in the sea water.”