18

Inspired by the comments in this question, I'm curious as to the first SF story published before Hiroshima in WW2 that mentions the use of an atomic bomb.

LogicDictates
  • 116,405
  • 22
  • 418
  • 512
Danny Mc G
  • 27,796
  • 7
  • 83
  • 240

2 Answers2

37

H.G. Wells' 1914 publication of "The World Set Free".

Uranium is mentioned as an energy source, the possibility of all its energy and radium being released in an instant, but the bomb itself is composed of a new element: "Carolinum".

Project Gutenberg's HTML version.

Two in a row from an aeroplane:

The gaunt face hardened to grimness, and with both hands the bomb-thrower lifted the big atomic bomb from the box and steadied it against the side. It was a black sphere two feet in diameter. Between its handles was a little celluloid stud, and to this he bent his head until his lips touched it. Then he had to bite in order to let the air in upon the inducive. Sure of its accessibility, he craned his neck over the side of the aeroplane and judged his pace and distance. Then very quickly he bent forward, bit the stud, and hoisted the bomb over the side.

The bomb flashed blinding scarlet in mid-air, and fell, a descending column of blaze eddying spirally in the midst of a whirlwind. Both the aeroplanes were tossed like shuttlecocks, hurled high and sideways and the steersman, with gleaming eyes and set teeth, fought in great banking curves for a balance. The gaunt man clung tight with hand and knees; his nostrils dilated, his teeth biting his lips. He was firmly strapped....

When he could look down again it was like looking down upon the crater of a small volcano. In the open garden before the Imperial castle a shuddering star of evil splendour spurted and poured up smoke and flame towards them like an accusation. They were too high to distinguish people clearly, or mark the bomb’s effect upon the building until suddenly the facade tottered and crumbled before the flare as sugar dissolves in water. The man stared for a moment, showed all his long teeth, and then staggered into the cramped standing position his straps permitted, hoisted out and bit another bomb, and sent it down after its fellow.

lfurini
  • 7,772
  • 3
  • 40
  • 61
Jiminy Cricket.
  • 7,680
  • 2
  • 32
  • 58
  • 20
    1914, when bombs were manually dropped fr9m a biplane... – Spencer Feb 08 '23 at 22:52
  • 9
    It is interesting to note that Leo Szilard was so impressed by HGW's book that he contacted the much-older man about publishing his book in Hungary (iirc). Szilard was the first person to understand how nuclear fission would really work and would be instrumental in starting the USA's a-bomb project by getting Einstein to write a letter in the 1939 to FDR warning of the possibility of Germany working on such a project themselves. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Rhodes) is a good place to read about it, and Teller, who also met Einstein over this, was interviewed. Wells lived to see the bomb. – releseabe Feb 09 '23 at 12:38
  • 2
    @Spencer: I read that pilots of the opposing sides used to just wave at each other at first since planes were for hobbyists and aviation pioneers -- they were not yet seen as have much military use -- even decades later Billy Mitchell got into trouble by describing his vision of planes sinking battleships -- it is amazing that given the usage eventually in ww1 of planes that his ideas were met with such resistance. – releseabe Feb 09 '23 at 12:42
  • 1
    @releseabe Wave, or shoot at each other, but with handheld pistols, not something mounted to the plane. There's also reports of enemy pilots hurling grenades or even just rocks at each other in the early days. – Darrel Hoffman Feb 09 '23 at 14:51
  • 2
    @DarrelHoffman: That makes sense but the point is, if neither pilot was actually involved in fighting or recon, I am sure in the early stages of the war that they were unlikely to attack a fellow hobbyist -- both men would have had their hands full trying to fly and the planes were fragile things that could indeed have been easily damaged even by a rock. I am sure however that once shooting started, it quickly escalated. The story of creating guns that were synched with the props is very interesting and also they added metal to the props although that sounds dangerous to me. – releseabe Feb 09 '23 at 15:13
  • This is fascinating in part because Wells actually called it an "atomic bomb". Is it possible that Wells actually coined that term? Did Szilard et al borrow the phrase from Wells, as per @releseabe? – shadowtalker Feb 10 '23 at 03:10
  • Wells obviously wasn't a pilot ... nor familiar with their jargon ... "Both the aeroplanes were tossed like shuttlecocks, hurled high and sideways and the steersman, with gleaming eyes and set teeth, fought in great banking curves for a balance" – KorvinStarmast Feb 10 '23 at 15:19
  • @releseabe - for an interesting take on relationships between opposing pilots, see the movie The Grand Illusion. (Actually: relationships between opposing officers.) – davidbak Feb 10 '23 at 20:22
9

Not as early as Jiminy Cricket's answer but, if you want all pre 1940 answers:

Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men from 1930 has a scene where a test bomb is detonated using the power of the atom, an Englishman at the test remarks "God help us" but gets misunderstood as "Gordelpus" which becomes the name for fission. Eventually civilization is destroyed, but following civilizations rediscover the "Gordelpus".

Glorfindel
  • 1,164
  • 1
  • 14
  • 23
Alex Dawn
  • 109
  • 3
  • 3
    The question specifically asked for "the first SF story" rather than all pre-1940 examples. If the question had asked for all pre-1940 examples, it might've been deemed off-topic and closed on the basis of being what we refer to as a 'list question,' as per this page in the [help]. – LogicDictates Feb 09 '23 at 10:46
  • 2
    @LogicDictates I think this contributes to question even if it isn't exactly on as asked – Eat at Joes Feb 09 '23 at 15:18
  • 2
    @Eat at Joes - It only makes a valid contribution if you view this question as seeking examples in general, rather than the first example specifically. However, if you do view this question as asking for examples in general, then -- as per my previous comment-- it could be considered a list question, and closed on that basis. – LogicDictates Feb 09 '23 at 15:57
  • @LogicDictates sometimes a question here is not just for the asker but for the thousands who view it later. My point is simply that Alex's answer provides some nuance that doesn't hurt this question for future viewers. If it needs to be pure to the literal question asked then sure, it shouldn't be here. – Eat at Joes Feb 09 '23 at 16:05
  • @Eat at Joes - It may be true that answers like this would be of interest to some users of this site. However, this page in the [help] makes it clear that questions asking for open-ended lists of a certain type of story are off-topic here. Welcoming answers like this effectively turns this question into a list question, putting it in conflict with that rule. – LogicDictates Feb 09 '23 at 16:34
  • @LogicDictates But it's OK to just regard it as "not quite as good an answer as the highest-scored and accepted answer" the way we do for hundreds of other story-id and history-of questions. – Spencer Feb 09 '23 at 19:05
  • @Spencer - The issue isn't that this isn't "quite as good" as the highest scoring answer. The issue is that this isn't strictly an answer to the actual question asked, whatsoever. – LogicDictates Feb 09 '23 at 21:50
  • 1
    I don't like this kind of questions altogether, but as far as this answer goes, I wonder if Stapledon's portrayal of the bomb had more to do with the actual realisation than Wells's? – Mithoron Feb 10 '23 at 00:22
  • 2
    This would be a good answer if Stapledon's bomb actually used fission, but that's not very likely, since uranium fission was only discovered in 1938, and the early fission experiments involved light atoms, which aren't suitable for a bomb (because they convert kinetic energy to mass, not mass to kinetic energy). OTOH, hydrogen fusion as the source of the Sun's energy was suspected by 1920. – PM 2Ring Feb 10 '23 at 07:05
  • @LogicDictates my answer was prior to the edit to the question. The question's title originally asked for pre 1940 examples of atomic bombs in stories. Not all, not the first. – Alex Dawn Feb 10 '23 at 12:42
  • @Alex Dawn - The body of the question always specified that the OP was looking for "the first SF story published before Hiroshima in WW2 that mentions the use of an atomic bomb". I edited the title to match that, so that the question could only be interpreted as asking one question, not two different ones. As I've now repeatedly mentioned, there's a specific rule against questions asking for open-ended lists, so if you choose to interpret the original title as a separate question, it's a question that would be off-topic here, and therefore a question that should not be answered here. – LogicDictates Feb 10 '23 at 12:51