1. He invented the bomb, a device that kills people with subatomic particles but leaves buildings and stuff intact, and spent the rest of his life going “What? It’s fine! What’s your problem?” when people suggested there might be something weird about that.
2. Including in the interview for his own obituary, which the Times conducted this past September (he died Sunday). “It’s the most sane and moral weapon ever devised,” he said. “It’s the only nuclear weapon in history that makes sense in waging war. When the war is over, the world is still intact.” (Don’t even “Well yes, but…” him. Like we said, he died on Sunday. Have some respect.)
3. “His mother was a housewife who rigidly controlled family diets and even breathing habits (believing it unhealthy to breathe through the mouth).”
4. As a boy, he “had allergies, eye problems and other ailments, and for years was subjected to daily ice-water showers to toughen him up.”
5. He changed the title of his book Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb to Fuck You! Mr. President after the U.S. under George W. Bush dismantled its neutron bombs.
Neutron Bomb Was His Life’s Mission [WSJ]
Samuel T. Cohen, Neutron Bomb Inventor, Dies at 89 [NYT]
