Talk:Leo Szilard

Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Assessment

Barely a B. It has a "Miscellany" section, that really needs to be merged into the main body, and only a couple citations.

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 04:42, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Leo Szilard is due much more credit than you giving him. He was the one person who persevered despite all odds to see that allies get the ultimate weapon before Hitler. User:68.100.107.145

Which was, of course going to happen anyway even if we waited until the war was over before starting the Manhattan Project.

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Los Alamos connection disputed

Delete "Los Alamos" as Szilard worked only in Chicago's Met Lab during the Manhattan Project. General Groves, the project's military director, distrusted and disliked Szilard and saw to it that Szilard stayed in Chicago for the duration of the war. William Lanouette, author of "Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb." (Scribners 1992, University of Chicago Press 1994) lanouettew@gao.gov User:161.203.16.1

Please feel free to edit the article if you can improve it. -- Oliver P. 15:05, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's true about Los Alamos, so I changed it. Also corrected the end of the bio, since he was at Salk and not UCSD, in molecular biology (for 17 years). Dandrake 03:45, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

• reference pages? seems spurious reference, opinion not factual. also ironic after Leo had started letter genesis for project that Groves inherited. Army had no visionJuror1 (talk) 09:44, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Einstein, Refrigerator?

Didn't Szilard and Einstein patent a household refrigerator, later manufactured and marketed by Electrolux?

Yes, Einstein Refrigerator

The constant pressure refrigerator was patented with Einstein and is more properly known as the Einstein-Szilárd refrigerator: Dannen, Geene (1997), "The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerators", Scientific American, 276 (1): 90–95 Tachyon 21:51, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

For?

"...while he was waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury."

Surely he would have been waiting for a green light while stopped at a red light. Or is this one of those quirky transatlantic language differences? MrWeeble 09:36, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Either one sounds ok to me (I'm an American). I'd interpret "waiting for a red light" as short for "waiting for a red light to change". --Delirium July 5, 2005 07:13 (UTC)

It's the process. This leads to that. It's not hard to grasp this concept.

Pronounciation

It might be nice to have a phonetic spelling of his name, I keep wanting to say Slizard.

It is similar to the pronounciation of "sea lard".

I thought it was Sih as in window sill - sih Lard - emphasis on second syllable. --SafeLibraries 13:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Effect of use of atomic weapons

Probably not the right page to debate this, but I am restoring the line deleted by anon 132.204.25.73 that removed the crucial effect of the atomic bombs - the near-immediate Japanese surrender. That was the intent of the bombings, and it was a successful one. If we are going to include the passages castigating Truman for his decision "simply to use the weapons," (a phrase I will delete for the second time, as there is abundant evidence that the decision to kill so many thousands of civilians was hardly a "simple" and casual one, then we must also include mention of the practical impact of the bombing on the course of the war. Kaisershatner 15:07, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

"However, it should be noted that the use of the atomic bomb is in a sense humane, because it ended the mass slaughter which characterizes modern industrial warfare"

that's not what one would characterize as "neutral" — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

• James Carroll in his book "the House of War" has exploded the argument. Japan was ready to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped on condition they keep the emperor. The bomb was dropped to intimidate Stalin. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618187804/104-1845262-8855931?v=glance&n=283155

Also see Salon interview and NPR interview. -- Will314159 14:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Really? NPR and Salon prove it? I agree NPR and Salon are authoritative on revisionist history. --SafeLibraries 13:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well how about Gen Curtis LeMay, the man that firebombed Tokyo with flights of 500 superfortresses at a time. From The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1997 (Vol. 16, No. 3), pages 4-11. "General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war." " General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender." [1] Why are you guys so intent on trivializing this great man's principled stand against needless death and depravity? -- Will314159 18:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• is it not obvious, racist elements same as 70 years later,Juror1 (talk) 09:46, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Failed 0.5 nom

I failed the attempted 0.5 nom on Leó Szilárd because there are no refs. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

The infobox has been removed. Please discuss for & against to reach a consensus. To remind you what it looked like, here is a sample:

bunix 12:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Why remove the box THEN talk about why it was removed on the Tolk page. Would it not have been better to leave up the box THEN talk about why it should be removed on the Talk page? --SafeLibraries 12:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me ask this. Since I'm newish, I'd like to hear from you why it should be removed. To me, the infobox gives a quick overview of the man and is useful for that reason. But I don't know the possible arguments for and against to make an informed decision. So please add why you feel it should stay removed, now that you have removed it. Thanks. --SafeLibraries 13:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, it has been two weeks since it was intially removed. This has now allowed adequate time for free discussion. So far the discussion has supported the box and there have been no arguments against posted here. Therefore I am now reinstating the box. In future, please can removers of large chunks of info always go to the discussion page first before removal, as per wiki policy. Immediate removal without discussion is only justified for vandalism and wiki violations. bunix 13:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I support the inclusion of this info box. Could the persons advocating its removal clarify their rationale? Addhoc 14:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Views on the use of nuclear weapons

I have made two changes. Firstly I have completely removed the sections concerning the effects of the atomic bombings and the reasons for the decision to use the bombs. It is a highly contentious issue and is being debated at length on the WP page about the bombing (Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). There is no point to having a stunted rehash of that article here too, and any interested reader would do MUCH better to refer to the article - which, luckily, is already cited in the text itself. Secondly, I have changed the sentence "...protestations of Szilárd and many of the other top scientists in the project" to " ...protestations of Szilárd and other scientists" because I saw no citations to validate the statement "many top scientists at the (Manhattan) Project." If the original reading is to be retained it must have valid citations. In fact, even this weakened statement might still be an overstatement of the true situation; I will be interested to see the sources cited for it. Possibly it needs to be even further weakened if no sourcing is forthcoming Hi There 23:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Documentation is important. --SafeLibraries 01:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Now look: (cur) (last) 11:43, 10 August 2006 Will314159 (Talk | contribs) (Quit it Hil There you are trivializing man's lilfe) Will314159 has added back what Hi There removed. I still agree with Hi There generally, but the material re-added by Will314159 is not 100% accurate. Regarding "On the other hand, author James Carroll in his book The House of War maintains the obstacle in ending the war was the insistence on unconditional surrender. He writes that Japan was ready to surrender in July, 1945, on the condition that it could keep its Emperor, a condition that was later accepted. He writes the true purpose of the nuclear bombing was to intimidate Stalin," I do not see that one man's opinion gets such prominent appearance on the Leo Szilard page.

But worse, directly regarding Leo Szilard, the following is incorrect and internally inconsistent with other content: "Although Szilárd, before the war, had considered the U.S. the one truly humane government in the world, (that being the reason why he chose to assist the U.S. in developing the atomic bomb,) he abandoned this view after the weapons' use." Not true. Earlier the article says, correctly, "In 1927 he finished his habilitation and became a Privatdozent (instructor) in Physics at University of Berlin. .... In 1933 Szilárd fled to London to escape Nazi persecution." So not "choosing" to work for Germany was "choosen" for him by the Germans. It is incorrect to say, in parenthesis no less, "(that being the reason why he chose to assist the U.S. in developing the atomic bomb.)"

If this is true, I want to see documentation. --SafeLibraries 12:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the section about the effects of and decision to drop the atomic bombs again. My previous remarks and reasons for removing the section are still valid; if you think otherwise please explain why. If you think that James Carroll's opinion is final and definitive, please support such a contention, which you could do, by, let's say, going to http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Debate_over_the_decision_to_drop_the_bombs and citing Carroll there - and if all the participants in the discussions THERE accept Carroll's opinion as final and definitive and if all further debates therewith cease in deference to his opinion, then perhaps it will accepted here too; but if not, not. Hi There 13:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

SafeLibraries: I have no personal stake in the sentence "Although Szilárd, before the war, had considered the U.S. the one truly humane government in the world, (that being the reason why he chose to assist the U.S. in developing the atomic bomb,) he abandoned this view after the weapons' use." If the statement is not true, it should be gotten rid of. It was in the article when I first saw it and I kept it because I assumed that it was accurate. If it isn't, it needs to be gotten rid of. However, I do not quite see your reasons for saying the statement is incorrect, as you seem to tie together his non-participation in the German project and participation in the American project. These two things would seem to be independent, and the statement in the article about his participation in the American project can be true irrespective of the reasons for his non-participation in the German project. So a clarification of your objection might be in order Hi There 13:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Let me chuck aside the fancy language. Basically what I am saying is this. Had the Germans not decided to chuck away diversity and make everyone blond haired and blue eyed, Szilard might have choosen instead to do his work for the Germans. After all, he was teaching physics at the University of Berlin. He could have just stayed there. His leaving, however, was forced on him. If he did not leave, his contribution to Germany would have been as a lampshade. So I'm saying that his choosing America might not have happened in the first place if he were not first forced out of Germany for fear of his life. Mind you, I am not an expert in this area. I am just making observations on the particular language used that makes it appear Szilard had free will and freely choose America. Indeed he may have, but having been forced out of Germany first forced his hand at least somewhat. Or maybe I'm being too picky. But at least there should be some cite to it for support. Who knows, maybe another wiki author, just as unfamiliar with the subject as myself, made the sentence initially. --SafeLibraries 14:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I see your point but on the other hand, I would have to assume that physicists such as Szilard could have chosen other countries for a place of refuge and the US was not their only possible choice. As the article states, he initially went to London, and there is no reason to assume that he was forced to leave London at some later date and was only able to go to the US. Also, once having gotten to the US, there is no reason to assume that he was compelled to participate in the bomb project. That is how I understand the phrase under discussion - he thought that the US government was humane and therefore he helped the US develop the bomb even though he was not under any obligation to do so. Hi There 15:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I see. Okay. Citation might still be needed. --SafeLibraries 17:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I see a new thread was opened. It doesn't have to be James Carrol that validated Leo's view. It can be Curtis Lemay or McArthur. I used James Carrol because I heard him on NPR talking about the evolution of the desentitivity to the horrors of bombing and the loss of morals. It is important to state in the article to state that Scilard's views have been validated by experts in the field. The Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs were totally superflous. You would think that Gen Curtis LeMay and Gen McArthur would know. the cite to LeMay and McArthur is in the original thread I started when I made the original Carrol addition. Best Wishes Will314159 21:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Greetings

I looked into the history of the article, and it appears we do have a serious issue with all of the reversions. Communication is of paramount importance. An edit war is not needed here, if the concerns are verifiable.

Cheers,

Sabotage

We also appear to have attracted anti-semitic vandalism of this site and (surprise surprise) just as it was featured on today's Wiki Main Page.

I was actually CITING this article on a forum when I spotted the sabotage. It made me look like a fool and Wikipedia once again was made to look unreliable and also insulting to Jews!!!???. I was totally incensed. ALL articles on the main page should be LOCKED or only allowed to be edited after peer revue. This situation stinks.--Phil Wardle 08:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Torinir _{( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options )} 19:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Agree. --SafeLibraries 19:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

'Developing the idea of the nuclear chain reaction', paragraph 4

To me this reads more like a piece of journalism than a scholarly article, notably: "The entire history of the world could have been changed..." and "and the rest is history". I believe the tone, but not necessarily the meat, of this paragraph should be changed to reflect the scientific nature of the subject matter. Pretender 19:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I spotted that as well and agree with you.--Phil Wardle 01:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Later views on nuclear weapons

The last section begins with two sentances:

"In 1947, Szilárd switched fields of study because of his horror of atomic weapons, moving from physics to molecular biology, working extensively with Aaron Novick. He proposed, in February of 1950, a new kind of nuclear weapon using cobalt as a tamper, a cobalt bomb, which he said might wipe out all life on the planet."

These sentences seem to contradict each other. On the one hand he abandoned physics because of the horror it had unleashed. Yet he comes up for the design for an even more horrific weapon. If both of these sentences are indeed true (they should be cited) there should be an explanation concerning these actions. Harley peters 20:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

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There are two reasons that this seems contradictory. First because Szilard was of a somewhat contradictory nature and could, while campaigning for peace also make suggestions such as this on national radio (personally I think it was supposed to be a scare tactic but that is purely conjecture) and second because it is not strictly accurate. In fact Szilard had been seriously considering going into biology in 1933 before striking upon the chain reaction idea that would take over his life for well over a decade. In truth he maintained an interest in Atomic developments but was forced out of working in this field by General Groves. See the excellent "Genius In The Shadows" Chapter 20 p305 Arachniddave (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Fame is a strong motivator sometimes. Better be the first to come up with it lest someone else get credit for it in history or through patents. Angry bee (talk) 20:42, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The World Set Free (H.G. Wells)

Does anyone know whether Szilard read H. G. Wells's book The World Set Free or not? See The World Set Free. --Cbdorsett 08:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

According to The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Richard Rhodes, 1987) he did. I just read on page 24 in that book: "Just then, in 1932, Szilard found or took up for the first time that appealing orphan among H. G. Wells' books that he had failed to discover before: The World Set Free." Regards, --Dna-Dennis (talk) 05:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Jewish origins

There are 3 reasons why to mention Leo Szilard Jewish origins in the third paragraph ( i.e early life ):

1.Being a Jew, He escaped Europe and settle in the USA ,where he worked at Los Alamos.

2.Its written in the paragrph that:"...Szilárd's family had Jewish, German, Hungarian, and Slovak Cultural Influences , however, his father's primary language was German..." .One's can get confused and think that Szilard was of multiple ancestries.

3.having informative value.--Gilisa 17:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

What kind of "slovak cultural influences" had his family?

You are right, there is no indication for "Slovak cultural influences", nor did his father language make any difference for him since it wasn't his own primary language. I deleted any reminding for him as a "German", I really cant understand how he can be considerd as one-culturally or ethnically.--Gilisa 18:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The phrasing in the previous version was odd. However,

(1) His being in danger of being classified as a Jew was presumably only one of several reasons for emigrating from Hungary. There are two points here, really: (a) he was politically active; (b) strictly speaking, nobody can be persecuted for "being a Jew"; somebody can be persecuted for being classified as a "Jew" by somebody else - in this case, by the Hungarian fascist government or the Nazis, according to racial laws. We have to be careful here: the fact that we acknowledge that X classified Y by blood does not mean that we should classify Y by blood, or that X's classification is somehow objective or valid.

(2) Exactly who does not have multiple ancestries (what scandal!)?

(3) What informative value?

Deleting the Spitz former surname of Szilard family for good reasons

Szilard family was from an Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, that's mean that almost all of the chances were that they would have a German surname-that's is true for the vast majority of the Jewish people from all over Europe back then (and so is for the Jewish people of the USA, Canada,Australia,South Africa, China and etc)-it have nothing to do with being German or even having German roots (Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of Jews that immigrate to Germany at the 10th and then spread all over Europe).The same is true about Yiddish which was spoken by most of the Jews, from Romania to Germany, and was 90% made from German language. Even people like Steven Spielberg,Milton Friedman and many other famous Jews that had, in a sense, family german history and had German surname but didn't came out of Germany, at least not in a way that affect their own lifes . So, I find it only just to delete the note about Szilard surname (Jews changed there surname according to the place and culture when they were given with emancipation or even when they just start talking the language or from many other reasons) which have only a misleading value.--Gilisa 18:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a value in censoring history in this manner. If they changed their surname, then it is encyclopedic to mention that fact.—RJH (talk) 16:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Leo's brother

During the war his brother was working in the prison laboratory under Andrei Tupolev developing planes. Source: Leonid Kerber's memoirs. Will have a look around to fix the quote and edit to the effect. 212.188.108.216 (talk) 22:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Szilard's contributions to biology

Perhaps Szilard's work in biology deserves its own heading, as his career was devoted to biology after 1947. As it is now, details relating to this work are scattered throughout the article with no mention of the fact that he was appointed a professor of biology at the University of Chicago in 1948, running a lab with Aaron Novick. Also missing is mention of Szilard's assistance of Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob's work on gene regulation in e. coli for which they won the Nobel Prize in 1965. Inoculatedcities (talk) 17:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Switching Around Two Sections

I think that it might be a bit more fitting if we were to switch the section about the Manhantan project with the one directly after it that talks about his views on nuclear weaponry. It might make for a smoother and more orderly read. Soloman212 (And my pet tortoise.) (talk) 03:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would resolve the issue. It almost appears that they could be merged together to provide a better flow. Neither section is adequately developed at this point.—RJH (talk) 16:09, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Szilárd and The World Set Free, again

Hi fellow wikipedians! I changed these sentences During 1932, Szilárd had read about the fictional "atomic bombs" described in H. G. Wells's science fiction novel The World Set Free. This inspired him to be the first scientist to examine seriously the science of the creation of nuclear weapons.

to

In 1932, Szilárd read the science fiction novel The World Set Free by H. G. Wells, a book which he said made a great impression on him.

(And I referenced it). There are no clear accounts I know of how Szilárd was inspired by the book. These are the quite interesting parts in The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Richard Rhodes, 1987):

page 24: "Just then, in 1932, Szilard found or took up for the first time that appealing orphan among H. G. Wells' books that he had failed to discover before: The World Set Free."

page 24: "Yet The World Set Free influenced Szilard less than its subject matter might suggest. "This book made a very great impression on me, but I didn't regard it as anything but fiction. It didn't start me thinking of whether or not such things could in fact happen. I had not been working in nuclear physics up to that time"."

page 266: "After Bohr's arrival Szilard traveled down from New York to visit his sick friend and won a long-overdue surprise: "Wigner told me of Hahn's discovery. Hahn found that uranium breaks into two parts when it absorbs a neutron.... When I heard this I immediately saw that these fragments, being heavier than corresponds to their charge, must emit neutrons, and if enough neutrons are emitted ... then it should be, of course, possible to sustain a chain reaction. All the things which H. G. Wells predicted appeared suddenly real to me.""

page 331: "Something other than Briggs' penurious methodology triggered a new burst of activity from Szilard. He had spent the winter preparing a thorough theoretical study, "Divergent chain reactions in systems composed of uranium and carbon" - divergent in this case meaning chain reactions that continue to multiply once begun (the document's first footnote, numbered zero, cited "H. G. Wells, The World Set Free [1913]")."

Regards, --Dna-Dennis (talk) 05:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

After the war: incomprehensible non-sequitur

"In February 1950 Szilárd proposed a cobalt bomb, a new kind of nuclear weapon using cobalt as a tamper, which he said might destroy all life on the planet. U.S. News & World Report featured an interview with Szilárd in its August 15, 1960 issue, "President Truman Didn't Understand." He argued that "violence would not have been necessary if we had been willing to negotiate.""

Wha...? There must be at least a couple sentences missing here. It's gone from encyclopedic to cryptic! Shenme (talk) 02:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Good Article review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Promoted to GA status

29 May 2015

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Leó Szilárd/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ian Rose (talk · contribs) 00:09, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd assumed this particular mad scientist had been to GAN and beyond long ago, so happy to help him on his way now... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:09, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Toolbox checks

• No dab or EL issues.

Structure

• Well, you read my mind -- when I began drafting my review the lead was two sort paras and I'd written "Suggest an article of this size could use a somewhat longer lead. I'd say the first para is fine as is, since it highlights some of his most notable points, but the second could be expanded to more fully summarise the rest of his life." but you've now gone even better, so no action required after all... ;-)

Prose/content

• In the lead, infobox, and first para of the main body you use three different versions/links of his country of birth: Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, and Hungary. I think the first two are both correct for the time of his birth, but probably simpler to adopt one and be consistent in all three spots.

  Yes, all are correct. Standardised on Kingdom of Hungary Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• "Szilárd and his brother Béla founded their own political group, the Hungarian Association of Socialist Students." -- do we know if they in fact had Soviet/socialist sympathies, or does this appear to have simply been a pragmatic response to the prevailing political wind at the time?

  Yes. I have added a bit of explanation. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• "He reached New York on the liner RMS Franconia on January 2, 1938. He conducted experiments with indium at the University of Rochester ... In November 1938, Szilárd moved to New York City..." -- he arrives in NY, he works at Rochester in NY, then he moves to NYC; if we retain the move to NYC in Nov '38 then I feel we need to know where he lived immediately after arriving in the US in Jan '38.

  Here and there. Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Referencing

• Sources look reliable, nice to see the traffic-light quote from Rhodes.

  It get used every year in OTD it seems. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• You seem to use hyphens in the citation page ranges, but I think they really should be short dashes (at least they're consistent)!

  Ran a script that converted them into endashes Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Images

• Consider alt text, though admittedly not a requirement.
• File:Szilárd Leó 1916.jpg probably needs US-PD tag.

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• The Army Intelligence report on Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard makes interesting reading but I'd have thought it requires comment in the main body given it suggests Fermi and Szilard were pro-fascist/German and hence needed further investigation before being granted security clearances.

  Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:18, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• All points addressed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:01, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Tks, passing as GA. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:49, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Legobot (talk • contribs) 00:20, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:47, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

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Leó Szilárd → Leo Szilard – Szilard himself never used the acute accents in his name after leaving Hungary. He always spelled it Leo Szilard. Since that was his clear choice, I think that his choice should be honored. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:17, 31 May 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 01:31, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support WP:UCN, WP:UE, MOS:IDENTITY, per nom. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 03:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Szilárd was 40 when he arrived in the US and only lived there 26 years. He was still a Hungarian during his most notable work in London during the 1930s. Dealing with British people writing in English in 1930s he probably did leave off the accent, but this is 2015 and in 2015 en.wikipedia gives Hungarian names to Hungarian bios. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:42, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

  Szilard took out German citizenship during the Weimar Republic, so he was a German citizen when he was living in Britain. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:03, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Support per User:In ictu oculi: "when an East European takes American citizenship and swears allegiance, they lose their original name". Szilard left Hungary for good when he was 21. Given that he spent most of his adult life in English-speaking countries, and held German and U.S. citizenship longer than Hungarian, dropping the diacritics is appropriate. Also per IP65. Dohn joe (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Dohn joe that is a little stalky isn't it, how many of my contributions did you have to go through to find that from Sept 2014? I could have changed my mind, but in fct I feel the two cases are different, and I clearly have Opposed here. There's a difference between intellectuals nationality hopping in the anti-semitic climate of the 1920s and 1930s and with e.g. modern sportsmen moving to America. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:11, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I searched my memory, not your contributions. It stuck because you changed your mind there when presented with new evidence, and because you and I wound up agreeing on a diacritics issue! This looked like a similar situation, so I thought this might another opportunity to find common ground.... Dohn joe (talk) 00:00, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

*Support. We give him an English-language name because this is an English-language encyclopedia. His passport has nothing to do with it. See Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Atomic Archive, Britannica, and Columbia. As you can see here and here, these sources are perfectly capable of including Hungarian diacritics when the need for them arises. Too hip to be cool (talk) 12:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC) Striking comment by sock puppet of banned user. Dohn joe (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

And User:Too hip to be cool, asking a second time - are you yet another sock of community-banned editor Kauffner? Your edits appear to follow exactly the pattern in previous SPIs. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:17, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

*Oppose, English-language media rarely uses punctuation marks and accents, which are not part of the English language (e.g. "Lech Walesa", "Francois Hollande" or "Nicolas Maduro"). However WP is a reliable encyclopedia (I hope...) and I think it should not be used that kinds of primitive journalistic methods. --94.21.211.65 (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

• The difference here is that, unlike Hollande, Szilard left Hungary and spent the majority of his adult life in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., and took citizenship in Germany and the U.S., where the accent marks at issue are not generally used. See Talk:Zydrunas_Ilgauskas for an example of this distinction. Dohn joe (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Your argument is irrelevant and contains original research. Szilárd could easily use the accent marks in his name. Please provide a source which prove that he wrote his name without 'á' and 'ó'. --188.143.112.22 (talk) 19:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

1. "The accent disappeared from Leo Szilard's name."
2. "Leo Szilard only dropped the “accents” (which are not really accents but indicate modifications in how the vowels sound) in his name; so Leó Szilárd became Leo Szilard" Dohn joe (talk) 19:48, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
3. ID card from 1927 with Szilard's signature
4. postcard from 1931 signed by Szilard.
5. Szilard petition from 1945 Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:35, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Mr. Dohn joe, see, this is a reliable argument with sources (especially signature). Now I support move. --188.143.112.22 (talk) 21:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

There are alot of redirects. If someone can do this I can close some more RMs...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:05, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Chain reaction

I am confused by the language in this article. It gives the clear impression that Leo Szilard was the original inventor of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction. However, in 1944, the Nobel Foundation awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Otto Hahn "for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei". The Nobel Foundation got part of the matter wrong because Lisa Meitner was a key part of the team, and should have shared the 1944 Prize with Hahn. §Heavy nuclei are inherently neutron-rich so that even when a heavy nucleus splits and creates isotopes that are rich in neutrons, there is almost never a fission path available which can accommodate all of the neutrons into the fission products - i. e., there are almost always extra fast-moving neutrons left over to lead, upon their sufficient cooling, to further neutron-activation of heavy nuclei and a resultant chain reaction. So did the Nobel Foundation get it totally wrong? Or was the Hahn-Meitner team the first to discover just the fission of heavy nuclei without noticing the release of a surfeit of free neutrons? Then Szilard came along later (1933? was it) to note that along with the fission of heavy nuclei, there was also the release of neutrons, setting in motion the possibility of a chair reaction? Please someone, research this issue and clear up the discrepancy. ColgatorBob (talk) 01:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hahn discovered fission in November 1938, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Meitner and Frisch provided a theoretical explanation of fission, using Bohr's liquid drop model of the nucleus soon afterwards, in December 1938. Szilard had already propounded the nuclear chain reaction back in 1933, but had not been able to achieve one. He wasn't the only one to realize that fission could be used for a chain reaction. He knew it was not enough to just have neutrons released; with Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn he determined that 1.73 were released on average. In order for a chain reaction to occur, they would need certain circumstances, such as a moderator, a reflector and/or compression. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Leo Szilard/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

== Biography assessment rating comment == WikiProject Biography Assessment Barely a B. It has a "Miscellany" section, that really needs to be merged into the main body, and only a couple citations. The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 04:42, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Substituted at 21:49, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

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"Further Reading" item should (probably) be removed.

Under "Further Reading", the short-story collection "The Voice of the Dolphins" is listed, and a link given to an on-line copy at Stanford University (it's an archive.org copy of it). But when you go there, it does not seem to be possible to access the full text. Immediately available is only a limited preview of a few pages, most without significant content. It seems full access requires membership - or if there is a way of finding the full text, it is certainly not easily apparent when you visit the page.

As a result, I am wondering whether the item should be removed from the "Further Reading" list. What is the policy of Wikipedia about giving links like this to items which depend on membership of an organization, or are behind a pay-wall? I had an idea (but am not sure) that the usual policy is to exclude such links.

The book is freely available at fadedpage.com, but it is not the expanded edition like the Stanford University one is. I will add a link to that in a minute. M.J.E. (talk) 09:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

... on second thoughts, perhaps I won't - a link is already there to the author page for Szilard on the Faded Page site. M.J.E. (talk) 09:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I take back my original comment (top of this thread), and might even be tempted to delete it, but I think you don't do that on Talk pages. The reason is that I have just realized the link in question was a reference to a printed edition of a book, to which an on-line link was also given, and I seemed to overlook that and focused on the on-line aspect. Clearly a reference to a print book is always acceptable. So never mind what I said above. M.J.E. (talk) 09:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Early Life: high school

There is some ambiguity between reáliskola and gymnasium. I entered Föreáliskola as the high school that Szilard attended, according to reference provided by Gene Dannen. The Wikipedia article Minta Gymnasium claims that both Szilard and Teller attend this school. An authority on Hungarian and schools in Hungary needs to speak out. Tachyon (talk) 13:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)