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A delfinek hangja
A magyar származású amerikai fizikus-biológus 1961-ben, angol nyelven megjelent népszerű politikai szatírája magyar nyelven mindmáig nem látott napvilágot.
Szilárd Leó (1898-1964) tudományos munkássága közismert: ő fogalmazta meg a nukleáris láncreakció elvét, részt vett az első atomreaktor megtervezésében, és fontos szerepet játszott az atombomba létrehozásában.
1939-ben Einstein, Szilárd Leó, Teller Ede és Wigner Jenő kezdeményezésére hívta fel Roosvelt elnök figyelmét az atomkutatás fontosságára. Ennek hatására indult meg később a Manhattan-terv, amelynek célja az amerikai atombomba előállítása volt.
A háborút követően Szilárd elsősorban biofizikai ill. molekuláris biológiai kutatással foglalkozott.
Emellett azonban politikusi és szépírói tevékenysége is figyelemreméltó. A hidegháború idején számos nemzetközi konferencián aktívan síkraszállt a nukleáris fegyverkezési verseny megfékezéséért és szorgalmazta a tudósoknak a leszerelés érdekben folytatott együttműködését.
Élénk szelleme a politikai szatíra műveléséig is elvezette. Legismertebb írása, A delfinek hangja a hidegháborús korszaknak a science-fiction műfajba ágyazott, szatirikus ábrázolása.
A magyar kiadáshoz dr. Rónaky József, fizikus, az Országos Atomenergia Hivatal főigazgatója írt ajánlást.
Szilárd Leó (1898-1964) tudományos munkássága közismert: ő fogalmazta meg a nukleáris láncreakció elvét, részt vett az első atomreaktor megtervezésében, és fontos szerepet játszott az atombomba létrehozásában.
1939-ben Einstein, Szilárd Leó, Teller Ede és Wigner Jenő kezdeményezésére hívta fel Roosvelt elnök figyelmét az atomkutatás fontosságára. Ennek hatására indult meg később a Manhattan-terv, amelynek célja az amerikai atombomba előállítása volt.
A háborút követően Szilárd elsősorban biofizikai ill. molekuláris biológiai kutatással foglalkozott.
Emellett azonban politikusi és szépírói tevékenysége is figyelemreméltó. A hidegháború idején számos nemzetközi konferencián aktívan síkraszállt a nukleáris fegyverkezési verseny megfékezéséért és szorgalmazta a tudósoknak a leszerelés érdekben folytatott együttműködését.
Élénk szelleme a politikai szatíra műveléséig is elvezette. Legismertebb írása, A delfinek hangja a hidegháborús korszaknak a science-fiction műfajba ágyazott, szatirikus ábrázolása.
A magyar kiadáshoz dr. Rónaky József, fizikus, az Országos Atomenergia Hivatal főigazgatója írt ajánlást.
124 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1961
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 30, 2013
So Szilard was one of the original guys who came up with the idea it might be possible to weaponize an atom by unleashing the power via fission. He promoted the science of it to the US with Einstein as a hedge against Hitler's fascism, and later learned to regret this decision after the Trinity test, when it was clear this genie was not going back in the bottle and not only going to be used to fight fascism.
This book, a collection of sci-fi stories written in the late forties about various possible "futures" (circa the 1980's) which is now in the past, was an interesting "meta" read. The hopefulness of atomic arms eradication still seems a possibility enough in these nascent nuke years, enough so to write fiction that lays out a game plan for how to actually end the arms race as it was happening.
The writing is less engaging than the ideas Szilard tries to convey through the stories. On the whole and in historical review, it definitely holds up as interesting when you know the history of it's author and the milieu in which it was constructed.
This is one of those little books that gets lost to history unless you were looking for it, and I feel lucky to work in a library so I didn't miss this meaningful little nugget of history. The book fills in the more aesthetic crevices of atomic era history, that never really get explored much in history books.
This book, a collection of sci-fi stories written in the late forties about various possible "futures" (circa the 1980's) which is now in the past, was an interesting "meta" read. The hopefulness of atomic arms eradication still seems a possibility enough in these nascent nuke years, enough so to write fiction that lays out a game plan for how to actually end the arms race as it was happening.
The writing is less engaging than the ideas Szilard tries to convey through the stories. On the whole and in historical review, it definitely holds up as interesting when you know the history of it's author and the milieu in which it was constructed.
This is one of those little books that gets lost to history unless you were looking for it, and I feel lucky to work in a library so I didn't miss this meaningful little nugget of history. The book fills in the more aesthetic crevices of atomic era history, that never really get explored much in history books.
February 8, 2015
Szilard, I think it is fair to say, was a man with one foot in the future - scientifically and politically at least. He, together with Einstein, wrote the letter that kick-started the Manhattan Project. Working on the bomb and using that bomb were quite different things, however, and one suspects that he never quite got over the latter.
The titular story in this collection is essentially a thought experiment: the establishment of a political environment where the threat of atomic war is ameliorated, and peace between nations established. Its interest (and that of the collection as a whole) lies in the connection between this thought experiment and Szilard's own personal/professional context. A second attempt on the same subject ("The Mined Cities") is essentially the same thing, with the added benefit of brevity, and the few remaining stories run along the theme of failure - whether of the dolphins' plan, or all others.
The book is not, one must say, a literary triumph - Szilard tends to didacticism and clearly prefers blueprints to beautiful prose. Still, as a science fiction response to atomic war it has interest and even, I think, importance - even if the latter results from the author instead of the text.
The titular story in this collection is essentially a thought experiment: the establishment of a political environment where the threat of atomic war is ameliorated, and peace between nations established. Its interest (and that of the collection as a whole) lies in the connection between this thought experiment and Szilard's own personal/professional context. A second attempt on the same subject ("The Mined Cities") is essentially the same thing, with the added benefit of brevity, and the few remaining stories run along the theme of failure - whether of the dolphins' plan, or all others.
The book is not, one must say, a literary triumph - Szilard tends to didacticism and clearly prefers blueprints to beautiful prose. Still, as a science fiction response to atomic war it has interest and even, I think, importance - even if the latter results from the author instead of the text.
March 13, 2014
Szilard was a man with many gifts, but a scintillating story teller, he was not. This stuff is, for the most part, *DRY*. Really it's more interesting as a historical document than as fiction per se. The last three stories are more enjoyable, and pretty witty to boot, if a bit dated in style. All in all, it's short enough to be worth a read, but don't necessarily expecting gripping plot so much as huge slugs of fairly tedious exposition that tends to read like the minutes of a political committee meeting.
April 18, 2022
This collection of science fiction stories, originally marketed as "satire," is both a very good representation of its time and a fitting commentary on international politics today. Leo Szilard was a significant scientist of the early 20th century, one of the first to recognize the potential of drawing energy from splitting atoms. He helped seed the idea for what became the Manhattan Project, worked on the Manhattan Project, and after WWII became a major advocate for total world nuclear disarmament. The background is important for understanding these stories, all but one of which are directly about the world political situation in the nuclear arms circumstances and the absurdities (hence the idea that the stories are satire) that come about because of nuclear arms. Of the five stories, only one was written after the late 1940s. The book begins with the poem "Nightmare for Future Reference," which sets the tone for Szilard's stories. The speaker of Benet's poem justifies to his son the supposed reasons for World War III, "the one between Us and Them." That line alone lets the reader in on Szilard's attitude toward nuclear politics. The first of Szilard's stories is the title story, "The Voice of the Dolphins," written in 1960 and taking up over half of this slim volume. It's a future history story along the lines of H.G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come," Alfred Döblin's "Oceans Mountains Giants," and Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men." A historian, identified as "Dr. Szilard," recounts from 1990 the broad world history of 1960 to 1985. That history is shaped in large degree by a cabal of scientists who claim to have decoded the language of the dolphins, and have set up an international foundation / think tank that consults the dolphins, who with their superior intelligence, analyze the political conditions and recommend various actions. Szilard's message seems to be that the world ought to pay much more attention to anti-war scientists than they do. The next story is "My Trial as a War Criminal," wherein Szilard imagines himself in the near future when the Soviet Union has conquered the US, and the new government is putting on trial all the scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb. It's a kind of apologia, but also a scathing attack on the ways that politicians use science, as the Russians themselves cannot be absolved from guilt, since their their weapon to conquer the US was biological, and the engineered virus, of course, escapes the politicians' control. "The Mark Gable Foundation" is the most story-like story in the collection, and the only one not directly concerned with the Cold War. This one is about a scientist who has perfected cryogenic suspension and had himself frozen so that he can awake three hundred years in the future. However, he is awakened a mere ninety years in the future, where he finds that the social differences are not from the glorious triumph of science, technology, and reason, but from stupid fashions such as everyone having their teeth removed. "Calling All Stars" is in the form of a message from a planet of mechanical beings who have monitored Earth and are now sending a request / warning about what they think is going on. What sorts of creatures would go to all of the extraordinary effort of creating fissionable U-235 just to blow each other up? The last story "Report on Grand Central Station" is another take on the same idea, this time with alien anthropologists trying to work out how all life on Earth was obliterated. The story gets sidetracked into an admittedly humorous description of the supposed "rituals" involved in how humans dispose of their solid bodily wastes. It is a wry commentary on anthropology and archaeology and the assumption that such limited evidence we have of the past would give us a clear picture of what life was like in the past. Szilard is not a particularly literary writer, and the writing is made even more difficult because English was not his first language. The writing tends to be more analytical than artistic. The book does have many interesting ideas, and in the broad strokes, rather than the details, makes some astute observations about how unbelievably irrational human politics and social practices can be.
June 12, 2024
I promise that this is the last book that I’m following up from Richard Flanagan’s “Question 7” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Amongst many other topics, Flanagan’s book deals with the development of nuclear weapons and he mentions Leo Szilard’s role in this. What piqued my interest as a scientist with an interest in literature was Flanagan’s mention that Szilard also wrote fiction, this book to wit.
Szilard was born in Hungary of Jewish parents and lived 1898-1960. Originally he was an engineer but while studying in Berlin became interested in physics and attended lectures by Einstein, Nernst, Planck, von Laue, and other brilliant scientists who taught at the Friedrich Wilhelm Universität in those days. A few years later he took up an academic position there and gained German citizenship in 1930. However, he saw the writing on the wall when Hitler and his fascists came to power in the early 1930s and fled to London. While there, he was the first scientist to conceive of a nuclear chain reaction induced by neutrons (discovered by Chadwick in 1932). Although his concept did not involve nuclear fission (yet to be discovered by Hahn et al., also in Berlin), it was immediately clear to him that such a self-sustaining chain reaction could potentially unleash tremendous amounts of energy, e.g. in the form of an “atomic bomb”, as foretold by H. G. Wells (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). He patented his concept of a nuclear chain reaction in 1934 and assigned the patent to the British Admiralty. He did this because it allowed delayed publication of the patent, which he did not want the Nazis and their scientists, who were working along similar lines, to see. Like many Jewish European scientists, Szilard later emigrated to the USA. In 1939 he drafted, and convinced Einstein to sign, the famous letter to President Roosevelt that led to the establishment of the Manhattan Project. In this letter he appraised the President of the possibility of nuclear weapons and the fact that the Germans already had a programme to develop such weapons underway. Szilard himself became one of the main scientific contributors to the eventual success (if you can call it that) of the Manhattan Project.
After this lengthy detour on Szilard’s background, what about him as an author of fiction? In truth, he may have been a brilliant scientist but a good fiction writer he most certainly was not (so far one star rating). Szilard was always aware of the dangers of nuclear weapons in the wrong hands and was aghast when the USA actually used atom bombs against Japan. He almost certainly wrote this book, which (amongst other things) contains much sarcastic projections of “mutually assured destruction” of the Cold War period, to help himself cope with having been part of the development of such a destructive technology.
The title of the book refers to a molecular biology research institute in Vienna, which acquired some dolphins, learnt how to communicate with them, and found that dolphins are far more intelligent and compassionate than the average human. Consequently the human researchers of the institute started to follow lines of research suggested by the dolphins, with tremendous success. Szilard’s thoughts on the Cold War don’t really hang together with the dolphin stuff, but the latter would appear to be a classic case of narcissistic projection, unless I’m very much mistaken. In the end I really felt sorry for Szilard, who clearly had a conscience (extra star!) but was unable to express it in words.
Szilard was born in Hungary of Jewish parents and lived 1898-1960. Originally he was an engineer but while studying in Berlin became interested in physics and attended lectures by Einstein, Nernst, Planck, von Laue, and other brilliant scientists who taught at the Friedrich Wilhelm Universität in those days. A few years later he took up an academic position there and gained German citizenship in 1930. However, he saw the writing on the wall when Hitler and his fascists came to power in the early 1930s and fled to London. While there, he was the first scientist to conceive of a nuclear chain reaction induced by neutrons (discovered by Chadwick in 1932). Although his concept did not involve nuclear fission (yet to be discovered by Hahn et al., also in Berlin), it was immediately clear to him that such a self-sustaining chain reaction could potentially unleash tremendous amounts of energy, e.g. in the form of an “atomic bomb”, as foretold by H. G. Wells (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). He patented his concept of a nuclear chain reaction in 1934 and assigned the patent to the British Admiralty. He did this because it allowed delayed publication of the patent, which he did not want the Nazis and their scientists, who were working along similar lines, to see. Like many Jewish European scientists, Szilard later emigrated to the USA. In 1939 he drafted, and convinced Einstein to sign, the famous letter to President Roosevelt that led to the establishment of the Manhattan Project. In this letter he appraised the President of the possibility of nuclear weapons and the fact that the Germans already had a programme to develop such weapons underway. Szilard himself became one of the main scientific contributors to the eventual success (if you can call it that) of the Manhattan Project.
After this lengthy detour on Szilard’s background, what about him as an author of fiction? In truth, he may have been a brilliant scientist but a good fiction writer he most certainly was not (so far one star rating). Szilard was always aware of the dangers of nuclear weapons in the wrong hands and was aghast when the USA actually used atom bombs against Japan. He almost certainly wrote this book, which (amongst other things) contains much sarcastic projections of “mutually assured destruction” of the Cold War period, to help himself cope with having been part of the development of such a destructive technology.
The title of the book refers to a molecular biology research institute in Vienna, which acquired some dolphins, learnt how to communicate with them, and found that dolphins are far more intelligent and compassionate than the average human. Consequently the human researchers of the institute started to follow lines of research suggested by the dolphins, with tremendous success. Szilard’s thoughts on the Cold War don’t really hang together with the dolphin stuff, but the latter would appear to be a classic case of narcissistic projection, unless I’m very much mistaken. In the end I really felt sorry for Szilard, who clearly had a conscience (extra star!) but was unable to express it in words.
December 20, 2018
Unusual speculative scenarios by an Atom Bomb 'insider'. Dry, descriptive style reads more like a report or written thought experiment than prose. Seemingly rational (to a fault) and clinically detached, an apt reflection of the paradoxical nature of Cold War thinking. Strategy calculated to levels of mathematical precision at the limit of human ability (and beyond) masks bitter ironies and insanity. Only something greater than our own sense of self-importance could save us. Being a logical man, Szilard abandons any hope of Divine or Extraterrestrial intervention, and takes to the oceans. Like near-contemporaries John Lilley and Arthur Clarke, Szilard looks to the Dolphin as a possible exemplar of high intelligence. A now-negelcted (discredited?) corner of (pseudo?)scientific research, Dolphin-human communication was quite in vogue. The need to escape the potential hell of technological society and reconnect with nature is obvious, poetic and moving.
A strange and quite fascinating book - not exactly dazzling on a literary level, but certainly of considerable interest. Szilard felt the burden of being party to unleashing a world-changing force into the world, and concerned himself with how to mitigate or neutralise it's effects. In this sense, the book could almost be considered writing by a man who found himself to be a character in an SF novel.
A strange and quite fascinating book - not exactly dazzling on a literary level, but certainly of considerable interest. Szilard felt the burden of being party to unleashing a world-changing force into the world, and concerned himself with how to mitigate or neutralise it's effects. In this sense, the book could almost be considered writing by a man who found himself to be a character in an SF novel.
August 22, 2022
Scientist Leo Szilard's "The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories" is about big issues which continue to plague humanity- nuclear weapons, advancing biomedical technologies, and human societies facing those challenges. The stories are short and to the point in raising those pertinent questions from decades ago, which at the dawn of the atomic age. The disguise of science fiction to ask these questions and Szilard's solutions makes for fascinating reading in how he views the "Great Powers" question and the interaction between those burgeoning atomic powers. There is interesting solutions to the "Doomsday" scenario of all out thermonuclear war in his proposal of "mining" cities and of the "one for two" doctrine. This is well worth reading about a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was a co patent holder of the nuclear fission process by the U.S. Patent Office.
January 15, 2025
A series of pleasant thought experiments, this book definitely deserves three and a half stars, and maybe I will end up giving it four when I have thought about it more. I was worried that Szilard, a scientist, would, understandably, not write the most elegant or readable prose, and while he chose forms that did not require particularly creative or expressive story telling, the ideas he conveyed and the creativity that was evident in them carried his writing. The writing was not bad at all, certainly not poetic, and so if the topics are interesting to you, sci-fi or magical realism are a genres you appreciate, the book will likely be quite interesting and worth the short time it takes to read. Thank you Szilard for making this creative work and giving the world your expertise’s less heard perspective and wonderings.
March 5, 2017
An interesting of short stories by an actual Manhattan project physicist; they are certainly not the most fantastic works of literature (witness the repeated references to committees, memoranda, meetings...) but give an interesting and at times powerful look into the mind of a man who was clearly very deeply aware of his moral responsibility for both the horrors and promise of the atomic age.
July 11, 2022
Man, does his use of language make it hard ro get into the short stories! but then he's got dope ass Sci fi ideas like the trains marked "smoking" and "non smoking" having to do with segregation by smoky appearance, how difficult the bathrooms are to get in Grand Central, dolphins controlling the world's government.
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June 8, 2024I forgot to mark that I finished this months ago.
You should not go into this expecting amazing prose. I believe this book is clever and valuable with historical context in mind: that’s the reason I’d suggest it. Personally, I really enjoyed it.
You should not go into this expecting amazing prose. I believe this book is clever and valuable with historical context in mind: that’s the reason I’d suggest it. Personally, I really enjoyed it.
December 2, 2020
Brief stories of alternative realities... not the best, but good enough and short enough to look at our future through the eyes of one of the greatest physicist and father of nuclear fission.
September 29, 2022
How does this exist?
August 12, 2025
Rövid, ütős és szédítően szellemes.
Szilárd Leó szatirikus jövőképe a XX. század második feléről és úgy általában a hatalomról, emberekről és a kicsinyességről.
5/5 nálam.
Szilárd Leó szatirikus jövőképe a XX. század második feléről és úgy általában a hatalomról, emberekről és a kicsinyességről.
5/5 nálam.
August 26, 2014
Short stories, ostensibly science fiction, although more political satire than science. The one liked best was "My Trial as a War Criminal", originally published in 1947. Set in a ficticious future in which Russia has won the Third World War by a biological attack on the US and brings to trial those responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using the Nueremburg Principles. Szilard was one of the first to recognize the possibility of developing atomic weapons and the danger of Hitler doing so. Having sympathized with communism in the 1930's he worked on the Manhattan project, petitioned Truman to not use the bomb against Japan, and was also critical of the communist state of the Soviet Union. Most of the stories are in protest of the cold war and the arms race.
January 9, 2011
I read this a while ago, and all I can remember is that it is a rather silly collection of Cold War-inspired stories by the guy who pretty much created the Manhattan Project.
March 28, 2015
How on Earth had I not known about/read this before?
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews