Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 125 posts

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#21

Post by Cthulhu_ »

chasd00 wrote: post #10
api wrote: 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 felt the same, my thinking at the time was they didn’t want the bomb to steal the show. The movie was about the man not the machine. /hah very articulate of me for this early in the morning

I suppose that's true, but it's still positioned as the focal point or climax of the film I think.

But Nolan intentionally hamstrung himself by eschewing CGI in favor of practical effects. I mean in theory you could do a practical effect of a nuke but that requires detonating a nuke; the west hasn't done that since 1992, the last nuclear detonation was done by North Korea in 2017.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#22

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

small_model wrote: post #11
api wrote: 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…

With the films budget they could have sourced a small nuclear bomb the size of the original Trinity test and detonated it just for the movie. Just make sure the camera is rolling as it's a one take shot.

It’s pretty morbid but I think I would go watch if there ever was a public nuclear above surface test again. I hope it will never happen.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#23

Post by ceejayoz »

api wrote: 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…

Yeah, Nolan's well known for practical effects - to the extent of actually driving a 747 into a warehouse! - but this is one spot where that approach failed hard.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#25

Post by q1bz2p »

Finnucane wrote: post #24

I keep a small collection of nuclear testing-photography related books, looks like I'm going to have to add this one.

Would love to know your complete list. My copy of 100 SUNS has lived on my coffee table(s) for decades. https://www.michaellight.net/suns-intro

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#26

Post by chii »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #20
lioeters wrote: post #12

What I find so strange about the awe and horror of the atom bomb, its utter power and violence, is how it was the result of decades - well, centuries - of abstract thinking in mathematics and theoretical physics. And how it required particularly new paradigms about the nature of the material world. Imagine a cosmic being looking at the Earth through a microscope, and seeing this bubble pop on the surface in mid-20th…

The really mad thing is that while you say it's centuries of abstract thinking and the like, it was only 50 years between the discovery of X-rays and radiation and the first atom bomb, or 40 between the first idea that you could use fission to make a bomb. Neutrons and the nuclear chain reaction was only theorized in the 30's, about 10-15 years before the first nuclear bomb was detonated. But likewise, there was only…

as an example, complex numbers were from the abstract thinking of centuries ago, on which the modern physics derive much value from.

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#27

Post by kilobaud »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19
chasd00 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or in a zoo refusing to mate.

Or as something without a mouth and needing to scream.

Hah, if Harlan Ellison were alive for the dawn of LLMs as a widespread technology, he would have had many (dangerous) things to say about the copyright issues, and potential horrors

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#28

Post by thrownthatway »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #22
small_model wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the films budget they could have sourced a small nuclear bomb the size of the original Trinity test and detonated it just for the movie. Just make sure the camera is rolling as it's a one take shot.

It’s pretty morbid but I think I would go watch if there ever was a public nuclear above surface test again. I hope it will never happen.

I would too, and I think it should happen.

I’m in Australia, so it’s only a (relatively) short drive to Woomera.

We should make sure our (the West’s) nuclear deterrent still actually works, and put the fear of God back in to everyone.

And also demonstrate how relatively benign the fallout from a thermonuclear weapon is, ie. relatively little radioactive material is generated from modern nuke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nuclear_tests_at_Maral...

Re: Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored

#29

Post by bragr »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #16

The picture I find most meaningful it the one showing the back side of an instrumentation bunker with the foreground occupied by welders on skids with the broom and shovel in the dirt. Those things are essentially the same today even down to their construction. The way they are used is the same. Yet the world we live in is completely different.

Those units appear to be US Army PE-95 generators, not welders.

https://www.purplewave.com/auction/210310/item/IG9246/US_Arm...

Post reply on HN