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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

#101

Post by gambiting »

larrydag wrote: post #52
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 no nuclear physicist but I think there wasn't a danger of dropping the a-bomb accidentally. If I recall from reading about it the a-bomb needed a huge electronic catalyst to start the fission processes. In fact a lot of time was spent setting up the timer to determine when to start the reaction during the bomb descent. I'm just recollecting so i could be wrong.

The original nuclear bombs used hi voltage detonators, detonators which were incredibly highly sensitive - and they all had to be connected by hand just before the bomb was loaded. If you read the command&conquer book that was linked to above you will see that the risks that were being taken with early designs were just insane and it's incredible that we have not had an accidental detonation during the cold war.

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

#102

Post by shangxiao »

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…

> "Immediately, all eight scientists in the room felt a wave of heat accompanied by a blue glow as the plutonium sphere vomited an invisible burst of gamma and neutron radiation into the room. As the lab's Geiger counter clicked hysterically, Louis used his bare hand to push the upper plutonium hemisphere off and onto the floor, which terminated the supercritical reaction moments after it began."

Nit pick: What you have described is the incorrect version in the movie "Fat Man and Little Boy". It was a knee-jerk reaction that stopped the supercritical reaction, and it was the beryllium outer sphere which was dropped, not the plutonium core.

Slotin was holding the top half of the beryllium sphere with his thumb which he immediately lifted up due to the intense heat.

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

#103

Post by maaku »

dirktheman wrote: post #58
larrydag wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no nuclear physicist but I think there wasn't a danger of dropping the a-bomb accidentally. If I recall from reading about it the a-bomb needed a huge electronic catalyst to start the fission processes. In fact a lot of time was spent setting up the timer to determine when to start the reaction during the bomb descent. I'm just recollecting so i could be wrong.

You're right, there wasn't any immediate danger of fission. It's just that now we know how deadly and powerful these things were, it seems almost endearing to see them being handled this way.

Are they? These aren't the multi-megaton nuclear behemoths that people associate with nukes post-cold war. Those bombs are three orders of magnitude more powerful than the one shown in the picture. This bomb is probably comparable to a warehouse full of conventional weapons, which the shirtless youngster was probably manhandling in his everyday work.

And unlike a conventional weapon, it's pretty hard for a nuke of this design to accidentally explode.

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

#104

Post by angersock »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #41
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'm not aware of the ethical details, so feel free to correct me. It's my understanding that invasion was imminent at the time of the bombings, so America's choice was either to send bombs or soldiers. If that was truly their choice, it seems hard to argue that the bomb was the less ethical. It's fine to say that Japan would have surrendered without invasion, but such a strong assertion needs to be backed by equally…

We found Tokyo a city of paper, and left it a city of concrete? Maybe that's more ethical somehow?

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

#105

Post by mladenkovacevic »

yitchelle wrote: post #15

It strikes fear into me that these folks are loading a device that is design to kill thousands of lives, the madness in this thing call war.

It strikes me as pure evil that the very first use of nuclear energy was to drop a massive bomb over a bunch of fellow humans.

Surely the force of nuclear weapons could have been demonstrated without actually dropping it on a concentration of living, healthy people.

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

#106

Post by maaku »

thefreeman wrote: post #45
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…

That is amazing . I have had a lot of oh shit moments in my days, but none gets close to dropping the plutonium onto the uranium and nearly detonating a nuclear payload.

It wouldn't have detonated. The worst that would have happened... is exactly what did happen. Lots of radiation release and the death of one nuclear scientist that should have been more careful (he died of radiation sickness a few days later).

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

#107

Post by vesche »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #20

For those that have not read it, the Richard Rhodes book is one of the finest pieces of science/engineering writing I have read: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp...

Rhodes also wrote Dark Sun (The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb) which is a fantastic follow on read to The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/06848...

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

#108

Post by sehr »

barrkel wrote: post #95
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the purpose of the bomb was to save many thousands more lives than it ended. An invasion of Japan would've cost an enormous number of lives. It would've also had a catastrophic effect on the civilian population, because they were being told that the American troops were there to enslave them. It has even been said that the propaganda being told to the Japanese civilians included the idea that the troops wou…

How many children was it worth killing to make sure Japan lost? What if the alternative to bombing Japan wasn't an invasion of Japan? How about using those bombs on or over invading fleets of Japanese - if Japan ever actually planned to invade the US?

It seems like it was more a declaration of power than anything.

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

#109

Post by angersock »

scrollaway wrote: post #40
ryandvm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because English is like Javascript - it's weird and is riddled with vestigial design errors, but since it's everywhere, we're all forced to use it.

Part of why English is everywhere is because it is extremely flexible, malleable and very lax about its own rules. Otherwise we'd all be speaking French. I prefer to see English like I see Python. Younger, easier, more flexible and more self-aware than the languages it draws its roots from, and fun enough that it has a lot of influence on every other language.

Python? More flexible?

English is more like Ruby than anything else.

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

#110

Post by maaku »

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 project was huge because of the amount of effort it took to assemble and purify the material needed for a bomb. The plutonium bombs were coming online faster, but it was still weeks or months to make one bomb in those days.
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