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Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

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Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#81

Post by ceejayoz »

hamiltonkibbe wrote: post #78
dirktheman wrote: post #31

It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific... It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ( http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear-dragon/ ) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uraniu…

There were a few nearly identical incidents. Another involved someone working alone after hours dropping the last block of plutonium/uranium onto a stack during criticality testing after realizing that it was going to go critical, and removing it by hand. Its pretty amazing that the test procedure for determining the critical mass was essentially "stack these blocks of plutonium/uranium (by hand) until the neutron de…

> There were a few nearly identical incidents. Another involved someone working alone after hours dropping the last block of plutonium/uranium onto a stack during criticality testing after realizing that it was going to go critical, and removing it by hand.

IIRC, that incident happened with the same sphere of plutonium, causing it to be called the "Demon Core".

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#82

Post by tedjdziuba »

dirktheman wrote: post #31

It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific... It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ( http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear-dragon/ ) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uraniu…

"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-25th-Anniversary/dp... is a fantastic book for anybody in a technical field. It describes in precise detail how a team of scientists, materials engineers, and government came together to make possible something that started as theoretical physics.

J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves were a fascinating team, Oppenheimer being a physicist and Groves an Army general.

A must for anyone in technical management.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#83

Post by mrbill »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #75
jnsaff2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read Command and Control which is about the history of nuclear accidents and management in the US. Carelessness didn't go away for a long time, especially in the upper management. Very well written and interesting book. http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser-ebook/d...

Weird, says not currently available for purchase - I don't even have the option to add it to the wish list.

Click one of the formats (Kindle, hardcover, etc) and you should be able to purchase then.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#84

Post by ceejayoz »

nwatson wrote: post #55
marktangotango wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of them had an idea about atomic bombs back then, and what they were doing could end the war. Robert Heinlien was investigated by the FBI in the late 30's due to a description of atomic bombs in a story he'd written. So the idea was out there so to speack. What they were ignorant of, I'm pretty sure, was the actual magnitude of the destruction caused by the devices. My father was about 10 yrs old at the…

The atomic bombs were not more devastating to Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were conventional bomb campaigns to other similar cities in Japan toward the end of World War II. The damage from atomic bombs did not stand out as extraordinary to the Japanese leadership at the time. What forced Japan to surrender was Russia's declaration of war. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_di... " ... But if you…

> Hiroshima was clearly within the parameters of the conventional attacks carried out that summer.

That's like saying we'd treat a shooting incident where 500 people died the same as 500 individual murders.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#85

Post by pavel_lishin »

mrbill wrote: post #83
pavel_lishin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, says not currently available for purchase - I don't even have the option to add it to the wish list.

Click one of the formats (Kindle, hardcover, etc) and you should be able to purchase then.

Ah, thank you!

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#86

Post by tedjdziuba »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #50
dirktheman wrote: post #31

It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific... It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ( http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear-dragon/ ) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uraniu…

You should read Command and Control which is about the history of nuclear accidents and management in the US. Carelessness didn't go away for a long time, especially in the upper management. Very well written and interesting book. http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser-ebook/d...

Also worthwhile is "Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons" http://www.amazon.com/Five-Myths-About-Nuclear-Weapons/dp/05...

A very well-researched book that challenges, adequately in my opinion, some of the fundamental assumptions about nuclear weapons. First and foremost, that "the atomic bombs ended the war with Japan".

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

Involute wrote: post #80
dirktheman wrote: post #31

It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific... It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ( http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear-dragon/ ) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uraniu…

The bomb that was tested during Trinity was a plutonium, implosion device, completely different from the uranium, gun-type device dropped on Hiroshima. The designers were so confident of the latter that it was never tested before being deployed.

As I underestand, it was not purely confidence, it was also that there was a major war going on and the expected production rate was low, so the risk of failure in the field was judged a lesser cost than the using up another bomb in testing.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#88

Post by sillysaurus3 »

kordless wrote: post #47
shabda wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are many people who subscribe to your view, there are an equal number who believe that Japan would have surrendered within months/weeks with no ground invasion. The allies had complete air and naval superiority and Russia had joined the the Japanese war theatre. If you have read the ethics of atomic bombings in any detail you are already aware of the details, so I would refrain from linking to wikipedia.…

I believe the parent was relating what was believed at the time , not what is common knowledge today. I'm not sure he's pushing his views on anyone, but more relating what the view at the time was. Careful of cognitive dissonance here - what once once was isn't necessarily what is today.

I apologize if it sounded like I was pushing my opinion on anyone. It wasn't my intent. I'm only here to learn, so I genuinely hope people will correct me when I'm wrong.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#89

Post by drzaiusapelord »

mikeash wrote: post #61
dirktheman wrote: post #31

It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific... It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ( http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear-dragon/ ) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uraniu…

I'm not sure the interval from test to drop is all that meaningful. If you can build one, you can build two. Also note that the design tested at Trinity was not the design used on Hiroshima. The Little Boy design used on Hiroshima was a gun-type design that was so obvious it would work that it wasn't felt that any testing was required. The Fat Man design used on Nagasaki was vastly more complex (but much more efficie…

>the war would have ended without them.

How do we really know this? The Japanese were ready for a long drawn out decades conflict. The US forces were war-weary and war was draining the economy. This could have gone on with quite some time, or ended in a frozen conflict that would reignite periodically. Who knows, but a quick non-nuclear win was certainly not in the cards.

>would the superpowers have been as restrained as they were in reality?

Arguably, if the US used nukes on Chinese soldiers during the Korean conflict, as some generals advised, there would be no North Korea. We'd have a cowed China and built a single free and democratic Korea, essentially one large South Korea. Instead we have one of the worst regimes the world has ever seen as a client state of China, who uses China's political influence and muscle to threaten the West with nuclear war every day. So, progress?

Conflicts need to happen. The more we put them off or try to find conditional surrenders or half-assed peace, the more we're asking for more trouble down the line.

imho, the cold war thinkers had no love for humanity and weren't influenced by the bombings in Japan. From a game theory perspective they had no incentive to fight a full scale war because it would annihilate both sides quickly. Its a losing outcome for all. Instead, it led to dozens of brutal proxy conflicts in non-nuclear states paid for by the lives of young men of those states. How many died because of the advance of Communism in Asia? How many states failed because of it? How many did Stalin send to their deaths?

These are not trivial numbers. You still had conflict by the USSR's expansionist agenda, and a serious amount of it, just with conventional arms while nuclear arms largely protected the West from a Soviet surprise nuke attack. Countries without nukes were gristle for the Soviet oppression machine.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#90

Post by IneffablePigeon »

scrollaway wrote: post #26
sophacles wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's backwards of how apostrophes normally work. In all other cases, it is the right place to use an apostrophe: * ...about to be placed in Fat Man's casing. * ...about to be placed in the bomb's casing * ... about to be placed in its casing. One of those is not like the others.

It helps to understand how it actually works. The s in its does not point towards possession, it is simply part of the word "its". My, His, Hers, Ours, Yours, Theirs, Its. Not Me's, He's, She's, Us's, Your's, Their's, It's. English is an easy language. Most languages use a lot more words than all that to convey all that. English speakers don't have to deal with the singular second person, with a separate objective no…

"Ours" is not the same as "its":

"placed in its casing" vs. "placed in ours casing"

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