"Now we are all sons of bitches."

The quote above was spoken by Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, on July 16, 1945, sixty-three years ago today, after the detonation of the first atomic bomb.

I advocate scientific research and education nearly above all else, but we need to remember all advances must walk hand in hand with responsibility and maturity. By learning about the structure of matter, we also gained the ability to extinguish hundreds of thousands of lives in a matter of milliseconds.

Research cannot and should not operate in a vacuum. I would never advocate halting advances, but they must happen with the knowledge of the consequences. I ask that everyone, including myself, think about what happened 63 years ago and how it changed the world.