70th Anniversary of Trinity Test: Reflecting On the Bomb 60
Lasrick writes: It's the 70th Anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb test, and Dan Drollette pulls together a series of reflections, over time, by the scientists who were there. The Bulletin reports: "In the middle of May, on two separate nights in one week, the Air Force mistook the Trinity base for their illuminated [training] target. One bomb fell on the barracks building which housed the carpentry shop, another hit the stables, and a small fire started." Other reflections show how perceptions changed over the years. A fascinating history of the beginning of the nuclear age.
You need to watch Trinity and Beyond. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01... [imdb.com]
Movie is utterly fascinating, awesome soundtrack.
If you're into nuke porn (sorry, I am, in a big way) it's beautiful, just incredible.
There's also a couple of very comprehensive docos on the Manhattan Project but I'll be damned if I can recall which was the good one I've seen, it was quite long and detailed.
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I've been wanting to see that documentary for quite some time, but have never gotten around to it. Actually, I've *really* wanted to see a nuke go off in person for a long time as well, as it would be the most amazing fireworks display imaginable. Of course, that's the "irrational" side of me. The "rational" side of me understands fully well that if I ever manage to see a nuke go off in person, it's likely going to be a very, very bad day.
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I think that if and when the US and Russia agree to disarm, they should detonate a few nukes way up in the atmosphere (say, around 20 km or so up) just for show. Of course environmentalists would never allow it, but it's fun to dream.
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I think I'm glad you're not in charge. Scratch that. I KNOW I am.
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Apparently you don't know what sort of thing can happen if they do that..... high-altitude EMP [wikipedia.org] can disrupt/disable/destroy electronics in a huge region. Not to mention the Compton Scattering and resulting ionization of the atmosphere.
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I haven't seen "Trinity" yet, but will include it on my list to watch.
I'm certainly not an authority re this subject, but I can recommend an episode of the PBS series called "Secrets of the Dead." The episode is called "The World's Biggest Bomb [pbs.org]." I've watched it at least four times now. I thought it had great detail and was very informative. I also thought it had a decent amount of historical narrative re each of the significant tests in both the US and the USSR.
Program Summary: Beginning in the 1950s, Ame
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Re:You need to watch Trinity and Beyond. (Score:5, Funny)
If you're into nuke porn (sorry, I am, in a big way) it's beautiful, just incredible.
"I like big bombs and I cannot lie..."
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And also the earlier Trinity movies. They Call me Trinity [imdb.com] and sequel.
Sorry, not related, just magnifico!
The Day After Trinity (1981) (Score:2)
I'd also recommend The Day After Trinity for a touching portrait of the project's human side.
>Scientists and witnesses involved in the creation and testing of the first ever atomic bomb reflect on the Manhattan project and its fascinating leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who upon completion of his wonderful and horrible invention became a powerful spokesperson against the nuclear arms race.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com]
"You may well ask: Why people with a kind heart and humanist feelings... why they wou
Richard Feynman said something I can't forget (Score:5, Insightful)
That every man has the keys to heaven, and those same keys open hell. Paraphrasing, hope I didn't butcher it.
It applies very easily to science as well. The Nuclear age, and the science that sprung from it, is very controversial because of it's great destructive power. But on the flipside, an incredible potential for building and powering the human species. Same goes for all kinds of science, but I'm glad we keep pushing it forward.
Re:Richard Feynman said something I can't forget (Score:4, Interesting)
That every man has the keys to heaven, and those same keys open hell. Paraphrasing, hope I didn't butcher it.
Feynman was quoting someone, probably a Buddhist.
The Meaning of It All - Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist, By RICHARD P. FEYNMAN [nytimes.com]
Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell."
And so it is with science. In a way it is a key to the gates of heaven, and the same key opens the gates of hell, and we do not have any instructions as to which is which gate. Shall we throw away the key and never have a way to enter the gates of heaven? Or shall we struggle with the problem of which is the best way to use the key? That is, of course, a very serious question, but I think that we cannot deny the value of the key to the gates of heaven.
Feynman didn't shy away from making religious references as above, or addressing religion as shown below.
THE RELATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION - Some fresh observations on an old problem, by RICHARD P. FEYNMAN [caltech.edu]
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That's actually philosophy, not superstition. Feynman wasn't discussing supernatural causality - he was discussing the ramifications of human action. Couching his discussion in an older philosophical form(ie, religion) doesn't negate its value simply because your fedora gets triggered by words like "heaven" or "Buddhist". Also, reminiscing about that one time 70 years ago when you were doing science is not science, its history.
Here, I'll help you out. "The key" = knowledge (scientific, philosophical, b
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I don't fault Feynman and the others for working on the bomb during the war. There was good reason to think Hitler might have been after a bomb, and the true nature of the weapon being constructed wasn't known to anyone except a small group of people. Most of the scientists were just given a few anonymous equations to solve and they did it.
I do, however, fault those that chose to stay after the war and continue working on nukes.
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I do, however, fault those that chose to stay after the war and continue working on nukes.
I'm sure you do since you probably would never expect to be among the 100,000,000 people killed by Communist governments [harvard.edu] and don't appreciate the need and costs to defend a free society. After all, Stalin was going to stop all weapons research after he got the bomb, right?
The Soviet Story [youtube.com]
You should look into what happened to "the old Bolsheviks" [wikipedia.org] sometime. Left politics wasn't any protection.
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Why don't you cite conservapedia when you are at that? It is about as well researched as your usual sources.
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Feel free to indicate what you think is wrong, with some citations of your own.
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Basically everything you've ever written on Slashdot, but from my previous experience it is a waste of time, since you don't let facts stand in the way of your convictions. It is as if you are a bastard of Brzezinski.
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If you knew anything about nuclear weapons you'd know that the soviet weapons program largely tracked the US one, not the other way around. They were constantly in a defensive position.
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If you knew anything about nuclear weapons you'd know that the Soviet nuclear weapons program achieved a number of accomplishments that the US never attained, and had it's own pool of talent fully capable of independent accomplishment as well spies in the US program that helped leverage US research for Soviet purposes. They were going to get what they wanted one way or another.
The Soviets and Communism was an extremely dangerous and well armed menace. Can you acknowledge that?
Aug. 20, 1953: Soviets Say, ' [wired.com]
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The problem is you frequently pull stuff out of your ass to defend you believing in God,...
Where in that post do I discuss anything related to that?
The problem is you frequently pull stuff out of your ass .... how Snowden killed a bunch of people, and so forth.
Where in that post do I discuss anything related to that?
Because of that, no one can possibly take you seriously.
So you are once again making a completely off-topic complaint in replying to a post I made. And you want to be taken seriously?
You are so eager to shit on the face of reality in order to bolster your personal beliefs. You are the very picture of an irrational person.
I see you practice irony .... unintentionally.
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As it is - you can even read that on Wikipedia - the Soviet nuclear weapon program was at a very low priority until Hiroshima happened. Looks like Americans were the actual menace.
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You seem to have missed a key sentence:
However, because of the bloody and intensified war with Nazi Germany, large scale efforts were prevented. -- Soviet atomic bomb project [wikipedia.org]
While the Soviets were engaged in heavy combat against the Germans on the Eastern front there was little opportunity for that. The resource demands in the fight for survival were massive - Nazi Germany was an existential threat to the Soviets. By the time of Hiroshima Germany had been defeated several months prior, resources began to free to pursue other priorities, and the scientific principles were proven to no longer be theory - it was a practical exercise in engi
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Now tell me what nukes had to do with the expansion of Communism. Nukes had no influence before at least the second half of 1945. By then, the postwar borders had been determined in Europe. The nukes used on Japan did have some effect, causing the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets could make more headway. (They were planning an invasion of Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Home Islands. Hokkaido was badly defended, but the Soviets were really bad at amphibious assaults - see what happened in th
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Visit to the Trinity Site this year (Score:5, Interesting)
I am 70 years old, the same age as the Trinity Site, and having majored in Physics in college, visiting the Trinity Site was on my bucket list. The site is only open twice a year, (as it is on the active military White Sands MIssile Range) the first Saturdays in October and April, and I went this last April 4th. The site is about 4 hours from anywhere, and deep within the missile range, and nested within several fences, so it is remarkable (and made the New York Times) that about 5,500 people were there that day. I knew there would be some fascinating reasons why anyone would make such a trek. Sure enough, a bus driver (marine) said his father had worked for the Manhattan project. A group of Japanese from Hiroshima were there, for some sense of closure, I heard. A man I chatted with told me he was from Los Alamos, and told me of his parents: his father had landed at Anzio beach in WWII, and after the war utilized the GI bill to attend college, and eventually earned a PhD in Physics. He then worked at Los Alamos for his career, where his father met his mother, also a PhD Physicist, and the first woman in the United States to get that degree, in the 50's. He was bringing his children to the Trinity Site to try to raise their consciousnesses about Los Alamos, and the legacy of his family. On a personal level, it was awesome to find some green Trinitite pebbles (which we were not to remove), and to have a docent put his Geiger counter near them and hear the clicks rattle off about the faint residual radiation, still from that original Trinity plutonium bomb explosion. And it was profoundly awesome to stand next to the 12 foot stone obelisk, exactly at ground zero. The explosion at the Trinity Site was the beginning of a new era, an era where no nuclear armed country has ever attacked another nuclear armed country, and the world has been at peace from major wars for approaching a century. The discovery of nuclear fission and fusion changed humanity forever. For the good, I hope.
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I visited the Trinity site this year (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
It's nice to see on the photos, that at that time, they were dumb enough to go at ground zero without any protection.
So the air-force can fuck up anywhere (Score:2)
It isn't just front-line soldiers that get bombed by "friendly" air-force. Secret nuclear facilities in no-fly zones at home get the friendly treatment too.
Ralph Pray's Memories of Trinity (Score:2)
http://www.mine-engineer.com/m... [mine-engineer.com]
Somewhere out there, those truckloads of trinite are buried in 55-gal drums, just waiting for the lucky finder.
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