1. Part 4: Human Cost
• Your goal:
Be able to
explain, using
examples, why
suffering is
sometimes
deemed
acceptable.

2. What is Human Cost?
• The impact of an event on people.
• The price in suffering paid to achieve a goal.

3. Cost Benefit Analysis
• Decision-making tool
• Compares costs to benefits
• Is it worth it?

4. Cost Benefit Analysis
Going to the State Fair
Costs Benefits
$12 ticket Fun with friends
Unhealthy food Good food
Sunburn Live shows
Vomit Free exhibits
Sore feet Art
$20 souvenir t-shirt Goats
$20 ride tickets Carnival rides

5. Acceptable Risk
• Understanding
what suffering
might result
• Deciding that
the benefits
outweigh the
costs

6. Cost Benefit Analysis
Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan
Costs Benefits

7. The Nuclear Bomb
The United States ended World War II by
dropping nuclear bombs on Japan.
•Where did this idea come from?
•What is “nuclear”?
•What were its effects?

8. Where did this idea come from?
•Decades of research in physics
and chemistry
•Not bomb development
It all came from the idea that
matter can produce energy.

9. 2
E=mc
Albert Einstein
1905

10. 2
E=mc
E = mc², is based on the fact that
the speed of light, c, is very fast and
just a small
amount of mass, m, can
release large quantities
of energy, E.

11. Physicists were leaving Europe.
Oppenheimer Szilard Teller
American Hungarian Jew Hungarian Jew
Educated in Germany Came to US in 1938 Came to US in 1935
Why?

12. Physicists were leaving Europe.
Why were such great physicists in Europe?
Why were they leaving?
Why?

13. Physicists were leaving Europe.
Why were such great physicists in Europe?
Why were they leaving?
•Fascism
•Communism
•Anti-Semitism
Why?

14. US paid for research.
Once it was shown to have the potential to be a significant weapon, the US
was willing to spend lots of money on research.
It required LOTS of money, but …
•Some country will discover it soon.
•It might be Nazi Germany.
•We’d rather have it ourselves.

15. What is “nuclear”?
This is an atom. All matter is made
up of atoms.
This is a nucleus. Every atom has a
very tiny nucleus.

16. What is “nuclear”?
When an atom’s nucleus is hit, it
breaks apart and sends out energy.
LOTS of energy
This nuclear fission can be
a chain reaction.

17. What is “nuclear”?
When an atom’s nucleus is hit, it
breaks apart and sends out energy.
LOTS of energy
This is a nucleus. Every atom has a
very tiny nucleus.

18. What is “nuclear”?
We need energy for everything we do.
This is a great, clean way to do it!
Oh, … and it also makes a pretty
powerful bomb

19. What is “nuclear”?
Two incentives for developing nuclear
fission:
•A country needs energy.
•A country needs weapons.

20. What did we do?
In 1945, the US
was planning an
invasion of Japan:
Operation Downfall
Starting in
Okinawa, it would
be long and it
would be bloody.

21. What did we do?
Operation Downfall might cost as many as 1
million American casualties.
US President Truman wanted to minimize
American casualties.
The atomic bomb made that possible.