60 years ago, E=mc^2 lit up the sky

[Pengwuino]

Well today is the 60th anniversary of the first atomic bomb test. It was the bomb that ended arguably, the worst war in human history.

 

[cronxeh]

wars are for fools. i'd like to celebrate the day we achieve controlled fusion

 

[zoobyshoe]

Eyewitness Account

"...the next thing that happened, of course, was the test. I was actually at home on a short vacation at that time, after my wife died, and so I got a message that said, `The baby is expected on such and such a day.'

I flew back, and I arrived just when the buses were leaving, so I went straight out to the site and we waited out there, twenty miles away. We had a radio and they were supposed to tell us when the thing was going to go off and so forth, but the radio wouldn't work, so we never knew what was happening. But just a few minutes before it was supposed to go off the radio started to work, and they told us there was twenty seconds or something to go, for people who were far away like we were. Others were closer, six miles away.

They gave out dark glasses that you could watch it with. Dark glasses! Twenty miles away, you couldn't see a damn thing through dark glasses. So I figured the only thing that could really hurt your eyes (bright light can never hurt your eyes) is ultraviolet light. I got behind a truck windshield, because the ultraviolet can't go through glass, so that would be safe, and so I could see the damn thing.

Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there is so bright that I duck, and I see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. I said, "That's not it. That's an after-image." So I look back up, and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. Clouds form and disappear again-from the compression and expansion of the shock wave.

Finally, a big ball of orange, the center that was so bright, becomes a ball of orange that starts to rise and billow a little bit, and get a little black around the edges, and then you see it's a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside, with the heat of the fire going outwards.

All this took about one minute. It was a series from bright to dark, and I had seen it. I am about the only guy who actually looked at the damn thing - the first Trinity test. Everybody else had dark glasses, and the people at six miles couldn't see it because they were all told to lie on the floor. I'm probably the only guy who saw it with the human eye.

Finally, after about a minute and a half, there's suddenly a tremendous noise - BANG, and then a rumble, like thunder-and that's what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole thing. We were just watching quietly. But this sound released everybody - released me particularly because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant it had really worked."

-Richard P. Feynman


From the chapter titled Los Alamos From Below
In his book of autobiographical sketches, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

 

[stoned]

Few months later SOB's tested nuclear bomb on real people.

 

[Pengwuino]

Few months later SOB's tested nuclear bomb on real people.

ending a war. As opposed to the largest invasion mankinds ever planned for with predictions of slaughter on all 5 sides that would have made hiroshima's statistics look like a skirmish

 

[stoned]

according to other less know views, japanese wanted to surrender unconditionally to americans, but ofcourse usa wanted to have show of force. all the talk about invasion of japan and horrendous losses is another bs.

 

[Danger]

ending a war. As opposed to the largest invasion mankinds ever planned for with predictions of slaughter on all 5 sides that would have made hiroshima's statistics look like a skirmish

More Yank propoganda bull****. The actual projected casualties (of strictly military personnel) were less than the civilian casualties of Hiroshima alone; Nagasaki was just rubbing it in.

 

[Pengwuino]

according to other less know views, japanese wanted to surrender unconditionally to americans, but ofcourse usa wanted to have show of force. all the talk about invasion of japan and horrendous losses is another bs.

2 cities leveled and they still don't surrender. What kind of logic tells you that they wanted to surrender?

 

[Pengwuino]

More Yank propoganda bull****. The actual projected casualties (of strictly military personnel) were less than the civilian casualties of Hiroshima alone; Nagasaki was just rubbing it in.

Yes, military personnel but there were orders (along with teh fact that it was rather well known throughout the country) for all civilians to take up arms to defend against the invasion. Typical anti-US propoganda BS that sees the world is rosey colors.

Lets all waste our time on this...

http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/invade.htm

If it says I am wrong, ill say its stupid.
If it says I am right, I am sure you'll say its propoganda lies.

 

[Archon]

2 cities leveled and they still don't surrender. What kind of logic tells you that they wanted to surrender?

I could have sworn Japan surrendered after the bombs were dropped.

Oh well. I'm probably just uninformed. Must be the propaganda.

 

[Kazza_765]

There was a stir as of a very polite first-night audience. Only a handful of scientists were present, a sprinkling of high brass, some Congressmen, a few newsmen.
Alvin Horner of the Washington Bureau of the Continental Press found himself next to Joseph Vincenzo of Los Alarnos, and said, "N 0 W we ought to learn something."
Vincenzo stared at him through bifocals and said, "Not the important thing." Horner frowned. This was to be the first super-slow-motion films of an atomic explosion. With trick lenses changing directional polarisation in flickers, the moment of explosion would be divided into billionth-second snaps. Yesterday, an A-bomb had exploded. Today, those snaps would show the explosion in incredible detail.
Horner said, "You think this won't work?" Vincenzo looked tormented. "It will work. We've run pilot tests. But the important thing ~"
"Which is?"
"That these bombs are man's death sentence. We don't seem to be able to learn that." Vincenzo nodded. "Look at them here. They're excited and thrilled, but not afraid."
The newsman said, "They know the danger. They're afraid, too. "
"Not enough," said the scientist. "I've seen men watch an H-bomb blow an island into a hole and then go home and sleep. That's the way men are. For thousands of years, hell-fire has been preached to them, and it's made no real impression."
"Hell-fire: Are you religions, sir?"
"What you saw yesterday, was hell-fire. An exploding atom bomb is hell-fire. Literally."
That was enough for Horner. He got up and changed his seat, but watched the audience uneasily. Were any afraid? Did any worry about hell-fire? It didn't seem to him.
The light went out, the projector started. On the screen, the firing tower stood gaunt. The audience grew tensely quiet.
Then a dot of light appeared at the apex of the tower, a brilliant, burning point, slowly budding in a lazy, outward elbowing, this way and that, taking on uneven shapes of light and shadow, growing oval.
A man cried out chokingly, then others. A hoarse babble of noise, followed by thick silence. Horner could smell fear, taste terror in his own mouth, feel his blood freeze.
The oval fireball had sprouted projections, then paused a moment in stasis, before expanding rapidly into a bright and featureless sphere.
That moment of stasis — the fireball had shown dark spots for eyes, with dark lines for thin, flaring eyebrows, a hairline coming down v-shaped, a mouth twisted upward, laughing wildly in the hell-fire-and horns.

Hell-Fire by Isaac Asimov

I like this one

 

[Pengwuino]

I could have sworn Japan surrendered after the bombs were dropped.

Oh well. I'm probably just uninformed. Must be the propaganda.

August 6, 1945, Hiroshima bomb detonated

August 9, 1945, Nagasaki bomb detonated

August 14th, Japanese Cabinet is finally unanimously convinced to declare a surrender after rumors that Tokyo was the next target were received.
August 15th, 6 days later, Japan finally surrenders

So unless waiting 8 days after one of your cities gets whipped off the map meant "oh they were ready to surrender before that"... doesn't seem like they were ready to surrender. As to why I say they didnt surrender, i mean they didnt surrender immediately. If they truly were ready to give up, August 7th would have been the day to give up, not 8 days later after the 2nd one went off.

And stoned, why is it you never once gave a source for this idea that the Japanese were begging to surrender?

 

[Lyuokdea]

I had a huge debate about this on these forums about two years ago, I'm going to have to dig through and see if it still exists.


edit: here is a link, https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=4615


~Lyuokdea

 

[Pengwuino]

haha what really gets me out of that thread is "What ifs are meaningless". I mean the guy was totally off base. Hes trying to say atomic bombs are horrible.No one disputes it but the whole discussion was about what would happen if we didnt use em and he says that's not relevant in the discussion.