75th anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb test! Some wondeful stories about how the Manhattan Project influenced science & culture.
insidescience.org/manhattan-proj…
What would have happened had Trinity test failed? Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Soviet declaration of war & invasion of Manchuria, US rejection of the conditional surrender offer, an abortive coup by Japanese officers all took place in the same week!
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2020/07/16/wha…
Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy" (based on US, Soviet & Japanese archives) was eyeopening. Stalin accelerated plans to invade Japan as soon as Truman told him about Trinity test in Postdam. Both atomic bomb & Soviet invasion about securing terms of surrender.
books.google.com/books?id=iPju1…
FANTASTIC thread. Lots of these stories are part of physics lore. "Last night Fermi took bets on whether the bomb will ignite the atmosphere and roast the entire Earth to a crisp...the guards don’t realise Fermi is joking...
HILARIOUS, FERMI"
The Atomic Age that started 75 years ago wasn't just a rip in time. It changed the very atoms of our atmosphere permanently. It changed geopolitical world-order. It changed biology & physical space too. Thread.
Postwar civilian use of nuclear transformed biology & geosciences more than electricity. Consider
Photosynthesis: trace "hot" C-14 tagged CO2 through plants to crack defining feature of life on earth
Cracking Genetic code w "hot" phosphorus
Carbon dating
insidescience.org/manhattan-proj…
Ecology itself is product of Atomic Age. Physicists, biologists & chemists use of radio-isotopes in 1950s made new view of Nature as series of networks described by flow of energy & materials. Bioaccumulation up food-chain key msg of Carson/Commoner. newyorker.com/magazine/1962/…
8/ Bomb led to ppl seeing physics as queen of Cold War Science. 21stC Global Warming will lead to reevaluation & a new origin story. Biology, Ecology, Geosciences & Climate Science all have their birth in the Trinity atomic bomb test. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs
9/ Without Trinity, radio-isotopes & fallout from insane number of atmospheric nuclear testing, there'd be no scientific understanding of Global Warming or Ecology or modern envtl movement. Its a strange irony.
Nuclear test animation by Isao Hashimoto
10/ Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is remembered for pesticides,but its her Strontium-90 that sparked envtl mvmt. Baby Tooth Survey showed most US children by late 50s had that isotope that came from fallout-> grass -> cows ->milk, in their teeth. It replaced Calcium in food chain
11/ 'Disturbing the Universe' has more tales of how Atomic Age & Ecology are intertwined. Imagine Freeman Dyson sits you down and goes "Listen. Let me tell you what went down in the 20th Century". Highly recommend this interview manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories…
75 years ago, this very moment in August changed the world forever. Much to consider in these Bulletin of Atomic Scientists articles as we navigate, once again, a dangerous period of the Atomic Age as arms-control treaties are ripped up ht @BulletinAtomic thebulletin.org/collections/hi…
Hershey on 6 survivors. #Hiroshima75 #NeverAgain
newyorker.com/magazine/1946/…
"One of the lessons I take from Hiroshima is that while you & your culture are made up of the deeds of the past, where you go from that is up to the living. We can't ignore or deny the past—but we have choices in how we mobilize it towards a better future"
#Hiroshima75 commemorations in America are more critical than yrs past. They "place the use of atomic weapons within the larger history of US violence & white supremacy" and dismiss the now hoary claim that bomb “saved American lives” ht @ColdWarScience neverjustscience.substack.com/p/remembering-…
Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is a riveting book that integrates US/Japan/Soviet archives. Such a fog of war that Japan's physicists took 2 days to verify that Hiroshima was an atomic bomb! Truman too had been kept in dark by US military.Thread on highlights
Thread on Nagasaki atrocity. "The decision to drop the 2nd bomb... was not made by Truman, Stimson, or even Groves — it was made on the island of Tinian, by lower-level people. It was not part of a grand strategy, contrary to popular opinion" #NeverAgain
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