Amazing History I Learned Today

[n4gix 4,947]

I've always wondered why the only two cities that were chosen for nuclear bombs were not turned into nuclear wastelands. Today, both are beautiful cities, and they never were irradiated totally. Both bombs were air bursts, so they didn't raise up megatons of soil and debris, which is what irradiates the ground.

I watched a video that explains details on the one dropped on Hiroshima and was totally astounded to learn that although it carried 64 kilograms of uranium, only less than a gram (0.001 kg) actually achieved fission. That is what I find most terrifying, as I can only imagine what might have happened had the full 64 kg actually achieved fission! Frankly speaking, had it all achieved fission it may well have wiped out the whole island of Japan.

No wonder why the scientists were afraid that the bomb might set the atmosphere ablaze! An entire city obliterated by something that had the weight of a butterfly. Really puts not only the might of the atom into perspective, but also e = m × c² as a whole.

Good grief! I had no idea that that was what really happened.

Biography — Kyle Hill

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[n4gix 4,947]

This is of course the results of only the second bomb built. I know that the one used at Nagasaki was much more efficient, and that they used far less uranium. As the US progressed, yields increased, and efficiency improved considerably.

[lownslo 592]

To clarify, the the bomb tested at Alamogordo (July 1945) was a plutonium device, whereas the bomb used of Hiroshima (August 1945) was a (simpler) uranium "gun" device. From the early beginnings of the Manhattan project the priority was on a plutonium (implosion) device... the uranium device used on Hiroshima was a "no fail"  "gun" solution created by the scientists.  It is profound though, that the uranium device showed such a low efficiency (0.001Kg/64 Kg of Filler material) as opposed to the plutonium devices of the mid to late 40's (on the order of 100 times more efficient than Little Boy).  The numbers tell the tale of the physics... the Little Boy (highly enriched uranium) bomb of 64Kg/.001Kg yield at Hiroshima compared to Fat Man's (plutonium) 6.4Kg/ .0015g yield at Nagasaki.  Shockingly more efficient at Nagasaki, and the yields became much more efficient in the late the 40's.

Makes ya kinda wonder of where they're at today... 🥵

Edited July 14, 2023 by lownslo
Correcting the BOLDing's

[BillW 210]

Food for thought before someone says " we ought to go nuke those people".

 

Bill W

[dmwalker 608]

Just now, BillW said:

Food for thought before someone says " we ought to go nuke those people".

I believe someone already did: General Curtis LeMay during the Vietnam War.

[dmwalker 608]

16 hours ago, n4gix said:

I've always wondered why the only two cities that were chosen for nuclear bombs were not turned into nuclear wastelands.

It's the same thing with the Trinity bomb test near Alamogordo, isn't it? Today, the site is a tourist attraction with a little monument.

[n4gix 4,947]

4 hours ago, dmwalker said:

It's the same thing with the Trinity bomb test near Alamogordo, isn't it? Today, the site is a tourist attraction with a little monument.

Yes, it is the same outcome. Compare the residual radiation at Trinity to that of Chernobyl. It still remains very dangerously hot there.

[n4gix 4,947]

12 hours ago, lownslo said:

Shockingly more efficient at Nagasaki, and the yields became much more efficient in the late the 40's.

Makes ya kinda wonder of where they're at today...

Today there exist bombs with very precise yields ranging from small tactical nukes that have a very limited range to one's with very high ranges. The so-called Tsar Bomba was the - so far - most extreme example of the latter! 

[Waldo Pepper 1,953]

Quote

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project's "Trinity" test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan's nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea's two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear). Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing"the fear and folly of nuclear weapons." It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.

 

Kind of renders the phrase "natural background radiation" a bit interesting on this planet.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Waldo Pepper

[188AHC 2,138]

My father was on Okinawa preparing to invade Japan when Hiroshima was ignited by the first nuclear bomb in history. I guess one could surmise numerically that if there was no bomb there would most likely be no me. It has been estimated that the military death toll for an invasion would have exceeded the loss of 1 million combatants combined.

[n4gix 4,947]

Pure insanity! I'm surprised that New Mexico and Arizona were not totally irradiated with so many "bomb tests" conducted. Did we really need 1032 of such tests?

[dmwalker 608]

On 7/14/2023 at 10:37 PM, n4gix said:

Pure insanity! I'm surprised that New Mexico and Arizona were not totally irradiated with so many "bomb tests" conducted. Did we really need 1032 of such tests?

From a recent article:

"We identify locations where radionuclide deposition significantly exceeded levels in areas covered by the U.S. Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).9 These findings include deposition in all 48 contiguous U.S. states. They provide an opportunity for re-evaluating the public health and environmental implications from atmospheric nuclear testing."

"Our deposition estimates indicate that direct fallout from Trinity, a plutonium device, reached Crawford Lake in Canada, the proposed “golden spike” site marking the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch"

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2307/2307.11040.pdf

Edited July 27, 2023 by dmwalker

[Waldo Pepper 1,953]

On 7/14/2023 at 10:37 PM, n4gix said:

Pure insanity! I'm surprised that New Mexico and Arizona were not totally irradiated with so many "bomb tests" conducted. Did we really need 1032 of such tests?

Quite insane, as far as I'm concerned.   I'm always reminded of the words of Neutron Bomb creator Samuel Cohen,

As an American,   during the cold war we were always taught that the Russians were the threat.   But when I watch that testing,  to me at least,  it looks more like we were the craziest sobs on the block.   If anything,  it looks like the Russians began their major escalation in response to us testing hundreds of devices.   I truly think we scared the living word not allowed out of them,  enough to bankrupt them.   (and nearly us)

Our own president and many of our scientists had plans to build harbors, canals,  frack gas,  excavate mountain passes,   create lakes, connect underground aquifers,  with atomic devices.    They called it,  "Project Plowshare".

In Operation "Gas Buggy",   they used a nuke to frack.   It worked,  but the gas was too radioactive for commercial use.  So they lit a flare and let it burn.   It's hard to argue that we didn't contaminate the globe.

Today sunken WWII ships are being salvaged with their war dead aboard,  because their uncontaminated steel has extreme value in the medical or scientific industries.

But it's striking to consider how fast and loose our government played the game.     Contaminating neighborhoods,  lying.

But there were other sites like the Hanford site, the Paducah Kentucky Gaseous Diffusion Plant,  etc.   The legacy of contamination is real.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Waldo Pepper

[Waldo Pepper 1,953]

21 hours ago, dmwalker said:

From a recent article:

"We identify locations where radionuclide deposition significantly exceeded levels in areas covered by the U.S. Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).9 These findings include deposition in all 48 contiguous U.S. states. They provide an opportunity for re-evaluating the public health and environmental implications from atmospheric nuclear testing."

"Our deposition estimates indicate that direct fallout from Trinity, a plutonium device, reached Crawford Lake in Canada, the proposed “golden spike” site marking the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch"

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2307/2307.11040.pdf

During "Operation Large Area Coverage",  the US government dusted several American cities with radioactive particles containing the isotope Radium 226.    St. Louis,  Missouri for example.

https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills161/hlrbillspdf/5803H.01I.pdf

[dmwalker 608]

22 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

During "Operation Large Area Coverage",  the US government dusted several American cities with radioactive particles containing the isotope Radium 226.    St. Louis,  Missouri for example.

https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills161/hlrbillspdf/5803H.01I.pdf

I think someone must have had a book entitled "Fifty Fun Things to do with Radioactive Materials'. Another fun thing was Starfish Prime where a 1.4 megaton thermonuclear device was detonated at 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean, creating an electromagnetic pulse which disabled three satellites and caused electrical damage in Hawaii, 900 miles away.