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Scientists Who Regret Their Greatest Inventions
Big Think ^ | 29 May, 2016 | LAURIE VAZQUEZ

Posted on 06/01/2016 7:02:42 PM PDT by MtnClimber

Memorial Day is a holiday devoted to remembering lives lost in war. The soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect civilian freedoms deserve nothing less than respect. Often lost in the Memorial Day discussions are scientists and inventors who created machines and devices to prevent those lives from being lost in the first place. This Memorial Day we look back at six scientists who thought they’d found a way to do just that - only to see those inventions added to the war machine they wanted to stop.

Alfred Nobel

Invention: Dynamite

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, inventor, and engineer who was fluent in 5 languages by the age of 17. He is best known today as the creator of the Nobel Peace Prize, the highest honor for "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind” according to his will. But as dedicated a humanitarian as Nobel was, his devotion to the Prize was born from his most famous invention: dynamite. Patented in 1867, Nobel invented dynamite as a safer, more stable construction explosive to nitroglycerin, which killed his younger brother Emil.

(Excerpt) Read more at bigthink.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: coreylewandowski; keywordtroll
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1 posted on 06/01/2016 7:02:42 PM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

This article leaves out that forces of good and forces for evil will use these inventions differently. The good must have these inventions too to defend themselves. If these scientists did not invent these things, someone else would have.


2 posted on 06/01/2016 7:05:48 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

There will always be people who figure out how to use inventions in harmful ways. You can’t regret not inventing something if it was invented for the good.


3 posted on 06/01/2016 7:06:43 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: MtnClimber
How come no one regretting the invention of the TV, the pager, the cell phone, creepy genetic procedures?

The last scientist with a major regret will be the one that successfully builds a truly AI robot.

But he won't have long to regret it.

4 posted on 06/01/2016 7:06:59 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: MtnClimber

How about the jackass that invented The Pill . . . and changed the demographics of Western Civilization forever


5 posted on 06/01/2016 7:08:49 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat (#BoycottTarget #BoycottRoss Women & children hurt the most)
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To: A_Former_Democrat
I'd like to meet the guy who invented gorilla pens at public zoos.

:-P

6 posted on 06/01/2016 7:11:38 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Sometimes I feel like I've been tied to the whipping post.")
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To: MtnClimber

Yes,a Carl Zeiss scope on your rifle is a beautiful thing.


7 posted on 06/01/2016 7:11:47 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (Never be more than two steps away from your weapon.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
But he won't have long to regret it.

You mean like this guy?

Who invented

Who eventually did this:

That guy?

8 posted on 06/01/2016 7:19:01 PM PDT by Tonytitan
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To: Farmer Dean

Indeed it is.


9 posted on 06/01/2016 7:19:06 PM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: MtnClimber

I suspect that Oppenheimer just regretted that he didn’t make the bomb for the Soviet Union.

I could see someone regretting something like say a deadly disease but all the items mentioned are objects which could be used for good or bad. For example the A-Bomb probably saved millions of lives mostly Japanese.

Dynamite has done tremendous good in construction.

Gavrilo Princip used a Browning .32 auto to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Browning continued to invent weapons of war. He charged the U.S. a fee of one dollar for the patent rights to his model 1917 machine gun.

Pepper spray has probably saved a whole lot of lives. I can’t imagine why it’s inventor would be anything but proud.


10 posted on 06/01/2016 7:20:03 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: MtnClimber

John Sylvan was the inventor of K-Cups (or Keurig Cups) for making coffee.
He regrets his invention because of all the litter his empty cups have created. Enough cups to encircle the earth over one dozen times!


11 posted on 06/01/2016 7:20:14 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: MtnClimber

Nobel should really regret not creating stronger rules for awarding that damn peace prize that bears his name.


12 posted on 06/01/2016 7:20:15 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: MtnClimber

BS. I did not invent kill him before he kills me, but I used my senses to kill him first.

I would do it again if need be.


13 posted on 06/01/2016 7:24:23 PM PDT by soycd
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To: MtnClimber

Oppenheimer was the administrative genius behind the atom bomb. He was the one who founded the site where it was developed and brought in the scientists needed to complete the project. He oversaw every aspect of it. Read:http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/jewish_scientists_helped_america_build_the_atom_bomb.html


14 posted on 06/01/2016 7:25:16 PM PDT by SkyDancer ("They Say That Nobody's Perfect But Yet Here I Am")
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To: MtnClimber

The last section about Oppenheimer is in error. The Trinity test of a nuclear weapon was not a hydrogen bomb. A hydrogen bomb uses a Fission (atomic splitting of uranium or plutonium) to get enough temperature to start fusion of hydrogen atoms. The Trinity est was just fission (splitting) of uranium atoms. The 18,000 tons (18 kilotons) of TNT is very small by nuclear warhead standards. A hydrogen bomb can be in the Megatons range.


15 posted on 06/01/2016 7:25:52 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Misleading headline. If you read the article most of them actually didn’t regret inventing them, even if they were disappointed in how they were used.


16 posted on 06/01/2016 7:26:03 PM PDT by Hugin (Conservatism without Nationalism is a fraud.)
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To: SkyDancer

If neither Oppenheimer nor Nobel had done the work on the inventing, someone else would have.


17 posted on 06/01/2016 7:27:46 PM PDT by Sasparilla (Hillary for Prison 2016)
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To: Tonytitan

What is that?


18 posted on 06/01/2016 7:30:41 PM PDT by wastedyears (I'm actually going back to school. I kinda don't believe it.)
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To: Hugin

Not just misleading, but deliberately meant to be misleading.
In this case intentions matter.


19 posted on 06/01/2016 7:34:55 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there....)
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To: MtnClimber
If these scientists did not invent these things, someone else would have.

Exactly. Science is discovery, not art.
20 posted on 06/01/2016 7:35:35 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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