The terror of the atom age is not the violence of the new power but the speed of man’s adjustment to it, the speed of his acceptance.

White’s remark shifts the focus from the atom’s destructive capacity to a subtler moral danger: human adaptability. The “terror” is not only that nuclear power can annihilate cities, but that people can quickly normalize its existence—absorbing unprecedented violence into ordinary political calculation and daily life. By emphasizing “speed” and “acceptance,” White suggests that technological leaps can outpace ethical reflection, allowing societies to accommodate the unthinkable with alarming ease. The line reads as a warning about complacency in the face of existential risk and about the way modernity can dull conscience, making catastrophic power seem manageable, routine, or even inevitable.