Abstract

In this essay, adapted from his 2014 Linus Pauling Legacy Award Lecture, Zia Mian, from Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, argues that the ideas Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and other scientists struggled hard over the decades to teach the world have now become widely accepted: The world understands the danger of nuclear weapons. But in the essay, Mian argues that absent an aroused and insistent public demanding an end to nuclear weapons, which the early scientists believed was necessary to curb the nuclear danger, the prospects for nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future appear grim. He concludes: “This is where the scientist has to step aside and the citizen has to step forward.”