[ExI] RES: temporary open season on turing

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Henrique Moraes Machado
Subject: [ExI] RES: temporary open season on turing

<Stefano Vaj>
>>...Hey, what about Crick & Watson, von Braun, Heisenberg? In a way, they
are more even more deserving to be considered as patron saints than the
rest.
:-)
</Stefano Vaj>


>...By Von Braun you mean that nazi guy that used extensive slave labour to
build V2 bombs? Just wanting to be clear. Henrique

_______________________________________________


I wouldn't have Von Braun on the same list with the others.  He was a good
engineer, and recognized that if you turbo-pressurize liquid oxygen and mix
it with pretty much any liquid fuel, you can make a great rocket, and that
the concept scales up enough to haul humans into orbit and beyond.  The
concept of staging predated him (as did liquid rockets for that matter) and
the structural dynamics for the rocket biggies were done largely by educated
guess (damn good guesses I will grant.)   Regarding those slave laborers,
those were my own distant cousins, so of course that may influence my
thinking.

Heisenberg, now there is an interesting case.  Consider the question "Did
Heisenberg intentionally go down the heavy water path in order to prevent
the Nazis from getting the A-bomb in time?"  Armchair historians are still
swatting that one around, but I suspect he might have realized Nazi Germany
didn't have the undamaged manufacturing base to refine sufficient amounts of
plutonium, and that der Fuhrer was too stupid and crazy to understand that.
(Evidence available on request.)  So my own theory is that Heisenberg did
everything he could to increase the odds of survival of Heisenberg, which
led to the heavy water path.  I couldn't blame him for doing that.  You and
I might well do the same in his position.  Agree he was one of the 20th
century's most brilliant minds.

spike