A prominent scientist visits the United States at election time and records a "conservative turn in American politics and an eagerness to talk about preventive war". Rather than trim his sails to meet the prevailing wind, he redoubles his determination to speak the truth about weapons of mass destruction. He subsequently writes a book that is criticized from all sides, and is labelled a defeatist, even a traitor of sorts. It will take many years for the historical consensus to catch up. The scientist was Patrick Blackett, and the book was his 1948 work The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy."The experiences of Blackett in his public campaign against nuclear weapons," writes his biographer Mary Jo Nye, "illustrate the risks to a physicist of writing about a subject other than physics, as well as the circumstances that might compel one to do so."
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机译：一位著名的科学家在选举时访问了美国，并记录了“美国政治的保守转折和热衷于谈论预防性战争”。他没有修剪帆以迎合盛行的风，而是加倍决心说出关于大规模毁灭性武器的真相。随后，他写了一本书，遭到了各方的批评，被称为失败主义者，甚至是叛徒。要达成历史共识，将需要很多年。这位科学家是帕特里克·布莱克特（Patrick Blackett），这本书是他1948年的著作《原子能的军事和政治后果》。“布莱克特在他的反核武器公共运动中的经历，”他的传记作者玛丽·乔·奈（Mary Jo Nye）写道，“说明了物理学家面临的风险。关于物理以外学科的文章，以及可能迫使人们这样做的环境。”
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