In a letter dated March 16, 1940, Vannevar Bush, then-president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, wrote to Dave Hennen Morris, then-treasurer of Research Corporation, about the building of the big cyclotron:
“Coincidences in this world are a strange phenomenon that have formed the basis for many a metaphysical speculation. This morning, when I was dictating a letter to you on an entirely different subject, the telephone rang, and Mr. Poillon [ed.: Howard Poillon was president of Research Corporation from 1927 until 1946.] from New York asked me to write you concerning one aspect of Lawrence’s cyclotron program. I do not know whether there is any telepathy involved, but I am certainly glad to accede, in the hope that I may give you a point of view concerning Lawrence’s program which will help to clarify the situation in your own mind as you study into it. The point is this: If Lawrence was enabled to build a large cyclotron in California, the value of this to the progress of physics and chemistry is obvious. What, however, is the value in terms of human welfare?
This might well lead into a considerable philosophical discussion if one tried to evaluate the ways in which advances in the natural sciences react on civilization. I have no intention of going into this whole affair in this letter for it is much too profound a subject. The question of the cyclotron, however, can be approached much more specifically without becoming involved in the more general question, much as I would like to expound upon this at length, for I have strong convictions in regard to it.
The building of the big cyclotron is one step in an entire program. The best way to evaluate its possible influences, therefore, appears to be to project the influence which has been exerted by the program to date. This is enormously clear before us. The advent of a knowledge of radioactivity, when it burst upon the world and became developed in many laboratories, completely revised the approach of physicists to the fundamental knowledge of matter. It did much more than this, however, for it promptly led to direct applications of unquestioned benefit to the race. The ways in which medicine has benefitted need not be detailed. However, the limitation to this approach lay in the fact that natural radioactivity is uncontrollable. In recent years there has been joined the phenomenon of artificial radioactivity, by which practically all of the elements can be produced in some radioactive form. The central feature of this development has been the cyclotron, which is the great tool for this purpose. It is supplemented by electrostatic high-voltage equipment, but it is preeminently the versatile tool which places in the hands of investigators radioactive materials for all sorts of purposes. They are being utilized by hundreds of investigators to trace the physiological processes of the human mechanism, and directly in connection with the treatment of disease. They offer enormous promise in this regard as the activity widens, and they even offer hope of direct attack on some of the most baffling of the problems that face the medical man. This has come about because the cyclotron enables the physicist to knock small chips off of the nucleus of the atom, thus producing an actual transmutation of elements.
Now when cosmic rays enter the earth they sometimes knock an atom all apart. Instead of knocking off a small chip they produce a “burst” in which an element is knocked into many pieces. It is a phenomenon of an entirely different order of magnitude. With cosmic rays the effect is rare, observable with difficulty, and not controllable. The principal point in building a new and enlarged cyclotron is to enable this region to be entered under controlled conditions. It is an entirely new region where startling things from a physical standpoint are bound to happen. Thus the new cyclotron aims, not merely at an increased quantity of available radioactive material by an extension of the power of the device, but a whole new range of similar phenomena available for utilization in many fields of scientific application. What will happen? I think that no one can tell exactly, except that the power of the investigator is bound to be enormously enhanced.
I think that no one would question the assertion that the advent of the microscope accelerated the progress of civilization and, if one admits at all that such progress is desirable, that it thus conferred a benefit upon the human race. It gave rise to a real science of bacteriology, with all its implications of control of disease, and the banishment of the great plagues which were an accepted feature of life on the planet. It improved man’s control of his environment in a thousand ways, as he enhanced his food, clothing, and shelter, and protected himself against the material vicissitudes of existence. It also, let’s promptly admit, enabled him at the same time to make more powerful instruments of destruction for his warfare. One must face the fact that man is not an ideal animal from many standpoints, and that when powerful tools are placed in his hands he often misuses them. Nevertheless, I believe that very few would review the entire situation and come to the conclusion that they wish the microscope had never been invented. The same thought runs through all of the examination of the effects of scientific advances. Organic chemistry brought many things, poison gas among them, but it also brought improved anaesthetics. X-rays enabled the castings of a gun mount to be examined for flaws, just as they enable accurate diagnoses to be made in cases of fracture and other human disabilities.
Now the cyclotron is one of these powerful and far-reaching tools which, placed in the hands of the physicists, has furthered science on many fronts. The construction of a greater cyclotron offers the possibility, not only of rendering this tool more powerful, but of giving it new functions which may enable scientists to enter unexplored fields. If it is a good thing for science to advance, then this is certainly one of the most important developments that has come to aid it to do so. As in every radical step, one cannot predict with preciseness what will be the results to follow. It is simply sure that given the means of entering an unexplored area with artificial control, scientists will have new implements in their hands for all of the many applications which abound. It is not as though an attack were being made on a particular ill of mankind. Rather the proposal is to produce new knowledge, and new power, with the conviction that the extension of the cyclotron will bring analogous results to those already produced by its development thus far. More and better tracers would be available for the use of the physiologists and the medical men. They will enable more surely and more readily unravel the exceedingly complex chemical functioning of the body. This much is sure. Beyond it, however, lies an attractive field where one can only say that new phenomena of a powerful and extraordinary sort are bound to become controllable and known, with all the possibilities that may flow from such a fundamental advance.
Would we give the backwoodsman an ax? He might assault his neighbor, he might cut down beautiful trees, he might build himself a home. The cyclotron is an ax. In the present intricate scientific world, it is an ax which splits an atom. The proposed cyclotron is expected to split atoms into fragments, instead of being capable of lopping off small chips. I believe thoroughly that it is justifiable to make this instrument, in the broad conviction that it would extend human knowledge, and that such extension is desirable. I also believe that Lawrence is fully capable of carrying the project, ambitious and courageous though it is, to a successful conclusion.
Cordially yours,
V. Bush”