JF Ptak Science Books Post 2770
There are some early suggestions for the atomic bomb that occur earlier than when it was first tested on July 16, 1945: there was H.G. Wells who famously wrote about it in 1914 (in The World Set Free), which came a few years after a very obscure mention by the semi-polymath Gustave Le Bon who wrote about its scientific possibility in 1905 in the Revue Scientifique. That said I was surprised to see the atomic bomb referenced in a comic in 1940 (book five years before the Trinity test): "The Atomic Bomb, Lucky Bird, Flier of G2"1 definitely suggests a bomb of high power, which so far as I can determine from my non-existent comic book expertise seems to be the earliest of its kind. The very intriguing aspect of the story is that it shares an interesting coincidence with the Real Thing.
The story--only seven pages long--revolves around the Zorians (from where I don't know) who make it known that they have a smallish shell (a "ten pounder") that has the yield of 2,000 pounds of t.n.t. We are informed that the Zorians actually don't have this weapon, this "atomic bomb", but they intended to "fake it" and convince the world they had it and confound the U.S. They weren't planning to use their non-existent bomb though they did plan to demonstrate it, that bombing 10 labeled secret sites to display its effectiveness. The fakery part was that the Zorians hid 2,000 pounds of t.n.t. beneath each labeled targets that would be ignited by the 10-pounder and thus make that shell look like a lot more than what it was. The hero of the story, Lt. Lucky Bird of "G2" figures out that the test would actually be a fraud and sets out to prove to the world that the Zorrians do not have such a devastating weapon, and thus go on to save the U.S. from having to react to a fraud atomic bomb.
Spoiler alert: Lt. Byrd succeeds, the Zorians are exposed, and they of course blow themselves to kingdom come in the end.
The big real-life coincidence? The Zorians were going to demonstrate the weapon in the "Shiprock Desert", north of Gallup, New Mexico, which means I guess they planned to use the thing on land in the Navajo Nation. It so happens that the Trinity Site (of the plutonium implosion explosion) is only 100 miles or east of the Gallup area and the beautiful Shiprock.
There's plenty of desert in the U.S. to experiment with a weapon like this, so choosing a location so close to the one that was used for an actual atomic explosion is pretty interesting. It doesn't mean anything, of course, but it does have a certain amusement value.
And then there's some fabulousness, like this:
[Source: Both images from Comic Books + http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17561]
The newspaper Daily Tab announces with a flourish Lt. Byrd's success with the the sub-header: "Bogus Bomb's Big Blast of Bunk".
Here's one more thing: the 10 pounder of the Zorians was supposed to deliver the equivalent explosion of 2000 pounds of t.n.t. The real thing, the Fat Man bomb, weighed 10,000 pounds and delivered 20,000 tons of t.n.t. For the Zorian weapon to have that sort of yield it would need to be about ten times the weight of Fat Man.
Notes:
1. Target Comics, published by the Novelty Press, December 1940, with ink and color by Harry Francis Campbell.
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