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Today is the 64th anniversary of the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the pre-dawn New Mexico desert. I've made a number of posts about that event, as well as the decision to use the bomb along with its consequences and subsequent control. Mostly the posts can be found here. I've reposted parts of the beginnings of two of those posts relating to 16 July below. [That's Oppenheimer and Groves standing at the remnants of the base of the tower that held the suspended weapon on 16 July, everything pretty much gone.]
Trinity at 63: the Explosion of the First Atomic Bomb, 16 July 1945
Now we are all sons of bitches—Kenneth Bainbridge, Trinity
Director.
There were many profound thoughts in many profound heads there in the desert, at the reaches of the Jornarda del Muerto ("The Dead Man’s Walk", a formerly nearly-impenetrable stretch of desert in the Llano Estacado) at the Trinity Test Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945 for the successful testing of the first atomic bomb. Robert Oppenheimer famously cited the Gita (“Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds…”): Enrico Fermi was so busy with his little and excruciatingly wonderful experiment with strips of paper calculating the effect of the blast (he reckoned a very-close 10,000 tons) that he didn’t actually hear the explosion; Edward Teller thought Tellerian thoughts, and so on. Actually the observation points (like S-10000 and Campania Hill)were crowded with big brains: in addition to Oppenheimer, Teller and Fermi were people like Hans Bethe, James Chadwick (whose discovery of the neutron sort of started the whole thing), Richard Feynman, George Kistiakowsky, Phil Morrison, Robert Serber, Vannevar Bush, James Conant, and many others. The were all thinking pretty big things (except for the occasional if-you-can-believe-it stuff like that which maybe came from Feynman’s mouth, which was “hot dog!”). I think that Bainbridge’s statement was the best, and truest, summation of the morning’s activities...
[Continue reading via link above]The truth of the matter was that it was a very complex issue, an easily
misunderstood tapestry of circumstance and consequence. The major issue of
course was that the Japanese would not surrender, and that there would be
“fanatical resistance” once the invasion of the Japanese islands had
begun. The battle of Okinawa had just been fought—it was a
horrible confrontation taking 12,5000 American lives and more than 1000,000
Japanese , demonstrating that even in impossible circumstances that the
Japanese simply would not surrender (unconditionally). This is just
one instance—there are many others, not the least of which was t he recent
firebombing of
[Continue reading via link above]
Wow, by chance my husband and I had a discussion with his Mother last night on the atomic bomb and it's consequences. He is not a blog reader...yet. I think he will love your insights and interests. I do.
Posted by: gwyn | 16 July 2009 at 07:34 AM
Thanks so much Gwyn! I'll be posting another 10 or so short essays about this topic between now and August 8, including some more unpublished documents on arms limitations from 1945/6.
Posted by: John Ptak | 16 July 2009 at 10:16 AM
Will you still need me, will you still feed me. . .
When I'm Sixty Four?
http://the-wonderful-wizard-of-uus.blogspot.com/2009/07/beatles-sing-when-im-sixty-four-in.html
Posted by: Robin Edgar | 16 July 2009 at 04:49 PM