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...
"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."
Big oopsie.
However gruesome the goal of these bombs, the rate of advancement in such a short timespan is nothing short of amazing. From the very first successful test (Trinity) to bombing Hiroshima: just 21 days. They were great days for science, but a shame to mankind that it had to come this far.
> "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.
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.
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.
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 efficient and scalable) that it was felt best to validate it before using it in war.
I occasionally wonder about the atomic bombings and the timing of everything. If the project had been delayed by a year or so, the war would have ended without them. But the development would continue, and the Cold War would no doubt kick off something like it did in reality. But without two examples of the horrors of nuclear war, would the superpowers have been as restrained as they were in reality? Rather than the first (and so far, only) use of nuclear weapons in war being two primitive bombs, it could have been hundreds or thousands, in a war run by people thinking that they were just doing a scaled up version of the city bombing of WWII. It seems like the timing ended up being extremely lucky.
It is not clear that dropping the bomb was necessary to end the war. Was it even necessary to develop it?
Eisenhower said "it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
At the time Truman said Japan had been "repaid many fold" for Pearl Harbor. In these new images there is a bit of graffiti on the bomb allegedly written by a Rear Admiral: "a second kiss for Hirohito". It seems to me like the mood in the US camp was "let's hit them hard, teach them a lesson." rather than a more considered or balanced calculation.
Edit: in the documentary "The Fog of War" on McNamara, there is discussion of Curtis LeMay's decision to firebomb Tokyo. In that case there was apparently a degree of cool-headed calculation. http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html
Ignoring the nuclear device aspect of it, I would think that these days anyone spraying any kind of sealant or paint these days in a commercial setting would have PPE to avoid breathing the stuff in.
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.
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 detector starts going off, and then take one away"
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.
To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific...
Consider this: even if that "youngster" wasn't filtered out from his contemporaries due to his skills or character, he still came from a generation that was engaged in a war that had taken the lives of friends, family and neighbors. It was also probably also obvious by then that you don't mess around with bombs, regardless of how they worked.
I'd wager that the average "youngster" during WW2 was a great deal more responsible than their modern-day counterparts of similar age.
"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.
So if the airmen wore shirts and were less sexy, you'd feel the whole situation was more safe? Or, do you need to take a time out and have a cold shower? Because it kinda of sounds like you are one Tom of Finland book away from hyperventilating.
This sort of appeal to superficial appearances generally doesn't hunt on HackerNews.
That's hilarious! Imagine sitting in the mess hall, overhearing two men discussing their day:
"I'm working on a cunning plan. It involves bombs, strapped to bats. What are you working on?"
"Oh, just a nuclear fission device. When it goes supercritical it's.. oh well, never mind. Tell me more about the bats!"
I found out a few weeks ago they made a bunch of those bombs, minus the nuclear elements, for training. They even dropped some on Japanese targets and found they were fairly effective just from the explosive content.
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 would kill and cannibalize their families. I'm not sure whether that latter part is true, but what is true is that the civilians were extremely incentivized to be as hostile as possible to any American invasion army, even to the extent of whole families committing suicide out of fear of being enslaved or tortured, as on Okinawa.
Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population.
Human affairs are sometimes terrible, but they often take the least terrible path out of all terrible paths. This is evidenced by the fact that the cuban missile crisis didn't result in an all-out nuclear war, and also that these bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Americans invading Japan, which would have been far more devastating.
Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high. Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties.
I upvoted you because I agree that everyone should be terrified at the prospect of war, because war only happens when people aren't terrified of it.
There are a number of errors in the photo captions, so for the record:
1. The "Little Boy" device, cylindrical in shape, was a U-235 gun-type device that was so simple in its design that it was dropped -- on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 -- without having been tested first. The U-235 was extraordinarily expensive to produce, taking up a large percentage of the Manhattan Project budget and several years. Two independent programs using different methods were designed to produce sufficient U-235, which needs to be separated from the much more abundant and non-fissioning U-238 isotope. The expense of extracting U-235 is the reason that only one such bomb was used, and only a few were ever built.
2. The "Fat Man" bomb design used an isotope of plutonium (Pu-239) that was bred in fission reactors in Hanford, WA and Oak Ridge, TN over a relatively short time and at much lower cost. This bomb was tested at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, in advance of its use on Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) because its implosion design was much more complex than the uranium bomb.
3. All modern fission weapons, and the trigger devices in fusion weapons, are design descendants of the Pu-239 "Fat Man" device that was dropped on nagasaki.
Given the secrecy surrounding the bombs, it is highly likely that not one of them had any idea what it was they were assembling/loading into the plane. All they likely knew was that it was "some kind of new, secret, bomb". It is questionable whether the "high ranking officials" referenced in the plane alignment photo caption even had much knowledge of just what this "new, secret, bomb" really was.
Just a day on the job as far as they were concerned. As with many things you might do, you only realize what you were doing was important (often) long after the fact.
Edit: He's also the guy who deduced the most probable internal configuration of Little Boy, and built an inert 1:1 scale model which was presented to and signed by the living members of the 509th Bomb Wing.
It is a bit unfortunate that many of the captions and the sequence of photos are inaccurate. There are many misses regarding which bomb was which and on which plane it was loaded and on which city it was felled.
So, look at the pictures and ignore the captions and then read up on Wikipedia to understand the bigger picture.
Most of the radioactivity danger from nuclear weapons and reactors relates to the byproducts of the fission process, rather than to the original fissile material.
[+] [-] dirktheman|11 years ago|reply
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/uranium hemispheres:
"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."
Big oopsie.
However gruesome the goal of these bombs, the rate of advancement in such a short timespan is nothing short of amazing. From the very first successful test (Trinity) to bombing Hiroshima: just 21 days. They were great days for science, but a shame to mankind that it had to come this far.
[+] [-] shangxiao|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jnsaff2|11 years ago|reply
Very well written and interesting book.
http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser-ebook/d...
[+] [-] Involute|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|11 years ago|reply
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 efficient and scalable) that it was felt best to validate it before using it in war.
I occasionally wonder about the atomic bombings and the timing of everything. If the project had been delayed by a year or so, the war would have ended without them. But the development would continue, and the Cold War would no doubt kick off something like it did in reality. But without two examples of the horrors of nuclear war, would the superpowers have been as restrained as they were in reality? Rather than the first (and so far, only) use of nuclear weapons in war being two primitive bombs, it could have been hundreds or thousands, in a war run by people thinking that they were just doing a scaled up version of the city bombing of WWII. It seems like the timing ended up being extremely lucky.
[+] [-] theoh|11 years ago|reply
Eisenhower said "it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
At the time Truman said Japan had been "repaid many fold" for Pearl Harbor. In these new images there is a bit of graffiti on the bomb allegedly written by a Rear Admiral: "a second kiss for Hirohito". It seems to me like the mood in the US camp was "let's hit them hard, teach them a lesson." rather than a more considered or balanced calculation.
Edit: in the documentary "The Fog of War" on McNamara, there is discussion of Curtis LeMay's decision to firebomb Tokyo. In that case there was apparently a degree of cool-headed calculation. http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html
Some discussion of the nuclear bomb decision here: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/it-wasnt-necessary-to-hit-... (I have no idea what the politics of that paper are, caveat lector)
[+] [-] cpwright|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrydag|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leef|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hamiltonkibbe|11 years ago|reply
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 detector starts going off, and then take one away"
[+] [-] thefreeman|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MrZongle2|11 years ago|reply
Consider this: even if that "youngster" wasn't filtered out from his contemporaries due to his skills or character, he still came from a generation that was engaged in a war that had taken the lives of friends, family and neighbors. It was also probably also obvious by then that you don't mess around with bombs, regardless of how they worked.
I'd wager that the average "youngster" during WW2 was a great deal more responsible than their modern-day counterparts of similar age.
[+] [-] AJ007|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedjdziuba|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] samplonius|11 years ago|reply
This sort of appeal to superficial appearances generally doesn't hunt on HackerNews.
[+] [-] qwerta|11 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
[+] [-] dirktheman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Icybee|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bomb
[+] [-] mendort|11 years ago|reply
EDIT:
Even more amazing when you consider that they weighed about 10k pounds.
[+] [-] pseudometa|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dabeeeenster|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp...
[+] [-] easytiger|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vesche|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/06848...
[+] [-] tcopeland|11 years ago|reply
http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=...
[+] [-] LiveTheDream|11 years ago|reply
http://web.archive.org/web/20140930151228/http://www.alterna...
(Original site exceeded its traffic quota and was suspended)
[+] [-] yitchelle|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillysaurus3|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa
Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population.
Human affairs are sometimes terrible, but they often take the least terrible path out of all terrible paths. This is evidenced by the fact that the cuban missile crisis didn't result in an all-out nuclear war, and also that these bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Americans invading Japan, which would have been far more devastating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high. Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties.
I upvoted you because I agree that everyone should be terrified at the prospect of war, because war only happens when people aren't terrified of it.
[+] [-] creativityhurts|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|11 years ago|reply
Surely the force of nuclear weapons could have been demonstrated without actually dropping it on a concentration of living, healthy people.
[+] [-] agumonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lutusp|11 years ago|reply
1. The "Little Boy" device, cylindrical in shape, was a U-235 gun-type device that was so simple in its design that it was dropped -- on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 -- without having been tested first. The U-235 was extraordinarily expensive to produce, taking up a large percentage of the Manhattan Project budget and several years. Two independent programs using different methods were designed to produce sufficient U-235, which needs to be separated from the much more abundant and non-fissioning U-238 isotope. The expense of extracting U-235 is the reason that only one such bomb was used, and only a few were ever built.
2. The "Fat Man" bomb design used an isotope of plutonium (Pu-239) that was bred in fission reactors in Hanford, WA and Oak Ridge, TN over a relatively short time and at much lower cost. This bomb was tested at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, in advance of its use on Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) because its implosion design was much more complex than the uranium bomb.
3. All modern fission weapons, and the trigger devices in fusion weapons, are design descendants of the Pu-239 "Fat Man" device that was dropped on nagasaki.
[+] [-] tonteldoos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thathonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ewest|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RankingMember|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] junto|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eltoozero|11 years ago|reply
It's self-published, and he's a great fellow; he'll email you and offer to sign your copy, as well as answer any questions you've got.
http://www.amazon.com/Atom-Bombs-Secret-Inside-Little/dp/B00...
This next year is the 70th anniversary of the Trinity test, which is open to the public once a year: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx
Edit: He's also the guy who deduced the most probable internal configuration of Little Boy, and built an inert 1:1 scale model which was presented to and signed by the living members of the 509th Bomb Wing.
[+] [-] symmetricsaurus|11 years ago|reply
It is a bit unfortunate that many of the captions and the sequence of photos are inaccurate. There are many misses regarding which bomb was which and on which plane it was loaded and on which city it was felled.
So, look at the pictures and ignore the captions and then read up on Wikipedia to understand the bigger picture.
[+] [-] jcfrei|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BuildTheRobots|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kghose|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nmridul|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|11 years ago|reply
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Tickling_...
[+] [-] privong|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vixin|11 years ago|reply
"Its casing". Why do people have such a problem with it's and its?
[+] [-] black_|11 years ago|reply