Power of Writing Quotes
While the racial incidents of Jena became a national cause célèbre, the quotation is memorable because it illustrated the huge de facto power that even a small town district attorney has. Though most do not abuse it, some do, and few Das threaten the way that Walters did. The reality is that simply by determining the charge, the DA is capable of incredible consequences on people’s lives. In the Jena situation, Walters had charged Black juveniles with “Attempted Second Degree Murder” for engaging in a fight with white juveniles. The penalty was from 50 to 100 years without any possibility of parole. A white student who had assaulted a Black was only charged with “Battery” a minor crime. Jena became the location of national civil rights protests.
The “scribbles” were the equations of the theoretical physicists that enabled them to design and make the atomic bomb. Mathematics is at the heard of nuclear physics and most of the other sophisticated sciences. Mathematical equations can change the world far more than politicians in many instances. In the case of the atomic bomb development, there was little time for long sequences of orderly empirical experiments, so advanced physics had to used extensively, and advanced physics is mostly higher mathematics. The equations essentially are the blueprint for a nuclear weapon. The same is true of much science and technology.
