Live data from Hacker News

Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

spectrum.ieee.org

41–50 of 125 posts

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#41

I used to teach a class on the history of contemporary science (WW2-present) and I started the class with Trinity. There’s no other moment better. We know how it turned out, but the people there waiting for the test did not know how it would turn out. The bomb might not have worked. Or it might have ignited a fusion reaction in the atmosphere and destroyed the world. Hans Bethe had sat down and done the calculations…

Do you mind linking the photo you mentioned? I’d love to see it if you are able to find it

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#43
We should get the AI to launch all of the world's nukes at one spot to make the biggest boom we possibly can to mark "world independence day." It would require a little blind trust on the part of a few different nations, but it would be talked about for generations. "Remember when the world blew up all the nukes in a singular huge explosion over Antarctica, grandpa?"

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#44
post #41

I used to teach a class on the history of contemporary science (WW2-present) and I started the class with Trinity. There’s no other moment better. We know how it turned out, but the people there waiting for the test did not know how it would turn out. The bomb might not have worked. Or it might have ignited a fusion reaction in the atmosphere and destroyed the world. Hans Bethe had sat down and done the calculations…

Do you mind linking the photo you mentioned? I’d love to see it if you are able to find it

It's in the TFA, there a photo of a fellow holding a small box thing that looks like a battery from a car or an old box torch.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#46

> And physicist George Kistiakowsky found himself certain that “at the end of the world—in the last millisecond of the Earth’s existence—the last human will see what we saw.” I highly doubt it. The last human will likely live many years in agony, fighting disease and starvation.

I doubt it. I've ruminated a little on this and what I think is that as people start dying off, the survivors will find a rather pleasant existence before the end.

People start dying off, and all of a sudden housing prices go down. There's more parks open. The air feels fresher gradually. It's a gradual decline as human influence tapers off near the end. I think it will be more "The Last of Us" than "Mad Max"

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#47
post #4

One of my big gripes with the film Oppenheimer was the blast itself, obviously a climactic moment in the film. It looked like someone set off a bunch of chemical explosives. That’s not how it looked in real life. Totally bizarre decision. I don’t know if they were trying to avoid effects on purpose of go gritty and retro or something but the “unearthly cosmic horror” feel of the first a-bomb blast is important. It’s…

I'm never watching this movie again. The dead silence to 100dB boom was unreasonable, dangerous, and amateurish filmmaking. And not the least of which Atomic bombs aren't that loud.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#48
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind linking the photo you mentioned? I’d love to see it if you are able to find it

It's in the TFA, there a photo of a fellow holding a small box thing that looks like a battery from a car or an old box torch.

I saw that but not a picture of the plutonium core which I thought the OP was referring to

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#49

I used to teach a class on the history of contemporary science (WW2-present) and I started the class with Trinity. There’s no other moment better. We know how it turned out, but the people there waiting for the test did not know how it would turn out. The bomb might not have worked. Or it might have ignited a fusion reaction in the atmosphere and destroyed the world. Hans Bethe had sat down and done the calculations…

Was it a single solid core that was imploded? I thought it was at least two non-critical-mass hemispheres, or more, that were smashed together by the conventional explosives/detonators, to create a critical mass.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#50
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind linking the photo you mentioned? I’d love to see it if you are able to find it

It's in the TFA, there a photo of a fellow holding a small box thing that looks like a battery from a car or an old box torch.

That’s the one I meant. It’s the core, but in a box, which makes it look even more innocuous, like he is indeed just lugging a piece of industrial equipment around. There’s lots of photos of the actual (unboxed) cores online if you search.
Post reply on HN