Science Man's Destroyer
A 1924 New York Times Magazine article warned that nuclear weapons may soon be invented.
Journalist Eugene S. Bagger noted the rapidly increasing pace of recent technological innovation, sometimes to fatal effect:
Thirty years ago flying by heavier-than-air machines was still regarded as an impossibility. Twenty years ago it was an accomplished fact. Six years ago German airplanes dropped on England explosives at the rate of twelve tons a month. Today it would be perfectly easy for French airplanes to drop on England explosives at the rate of two hundred tons per day.
Which type of weapon could be invented next?
We have heard repeatedly of the disastrous consequences that may follow upon the release of atomic energy, which today is regarded as a possibility of a future none too remote.
The first would be dropped on Japan 21 years later.
Science Man's Destroyer
Published: Sunday, March 30, 1924