Question

The author tells us about two important letters that Einstein wrote, one to the president Roosevelt and the other to the United Nations. What prompted Einstein to write those letters? What impact did they make?

Answer 1

The author talks about two important letters that Einstein wrote - one to President  Franklin D. Roosevelt and the other to the United Nations.

Einstein wrote the first letter to the American President,  Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War in order to warn him about the atomic bomb developed by Germany. He feared that the bomb based on the principle of nuclear fission could create mass destruction by destroying a port along with its surrounding territory. This letter made a deep and rapid impact as it led America to develop its own atomic bombs for military defense. These bombs were later dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These bombs caused large scale destruction which greatly disturbed Einstein and prompted him to write his second letter to the United Nations.

In the second letter to the United Nations, Einstein proposed  the formation of a single world government to put an end to the enmity between nations and stop destructive operations like the use of atom  bombs. Unlike his first letter, this letter failed to make any impact.