Isabelle Boemeke

So we were a year away from entering World War II.

And of course, the fear automatically became that Hitler was trying to develop bombs using the underlying science.

It was very clear already at that time that this technology could be used for making weapons.

We're also for making electricity, right?

I like to compare it to AI right now, where we are.

It can be, you know, this incredible thing that cures cancer and gives all of this, creates all new jobs.

But also it can destroy human civilization.

Right.

Well, but with the difference being that at the time, this technology was certainly discovered in Germany.

Nazi Germany, to be clear.

Exactly.

Nazi Germany, to be clear.

And so Albert Einstein co-wrote a letter to President Roosevelt at the time, urging him to do something about that, to try to get ahead of Hitler.

And so the United States started the Manhattan Project, which obviously culminated with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And that was the introduction to the world of nuclear technologies.

And you have to think about the fact that people automatically started equating nuclear or atomic with a mushroom cloud image, with photos of children crying, you know, running away from crumbling buildings.

Imagine the emotional scar that that created in that entire generation that witnessed that.

Yeah, totally.

That was kind of the theory that I came into writing my book, Red Future, which just came out.

But it was kind of the theory that I came into writing the book with, you know, imagine if we had discovered nuclear fission at a different time, at a different place.