Atomic bomb

“ This was the only chance and here, between the hidden place where determined men had worked tirelessly and ingeniously to refine only a small capsule of pure Uranium in a year and the hidden place where other learned men waited to incorporate the product into an atomic bomb that could destroy the city of the invaders completely, lay the greatest danger of defeat. ”

“ Some atomic scientists say that a super-atomic bomb, or several set off at once, could knock the earth out of its orbit. It sounds fantastic, but so is the A-bomb. It’s just possible that some solar-planet race discovered the dangers long ago. They would have good reason to worry if they found we were on that same track. There may be some other atomic weapon we don’t suspect, even worse than the A-bomb, one that could destroy the earth and seriously affect other planets. ”

“ But the blast wave from an atomic bomb is so large that it can engulf whole buildings, no matter how great their size, pushing them over as though a giant hand had given them a shove.
C. Long duration of the positive pressure pulse and consequent small effect of the negative pressure, or suction, phase. In any explosion, the positive pressure exerted by the blast lasts for a definite period of time (usually a small fraction of a second) and is then followed by a somewhat longer period of negative pressure, or suction. ”

“ A wave of high pressure thus rapidly moves outward from the center of the explosion and is the major cause of damage from ordinary high explosives. An atomic bomb also generates a wave of high pressure which is in fact of, much higher pressure than that from ordinary explosions; and this wave is again the major cause of damage to buildings and other structures. It differs from the pressure wave of a block buster in the size of the area over which high pressures are generated. ”

“ It also differs in the duration of the pressure pulse at any given point: the pressure from a blockbuster lasts for a few milliseconds (a millisecond is one thousandth of a second) only, that from the atomic bomb for nearly a second, and was felt by observers both in Japan and in New Mexico as a very strong wind going by.
The next greatest difference between the atomic bomb and the T.N.T. explosion is the fact that the atomic bomb gives off greater amounts of radiation. ”

“ The atomic bomb, first tested in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, had just been used against a military target.
On August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 A.M., Japanese time, a B-29 heavy bomber flying at high altitude dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. More than 4 square miles of the city were instantly and completely devastated. 66,000 people were killed, and 69,000 injured. ”

“ But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others. What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later. ”

“ Apart from the gamma radiation ordinary light is emitted, some of which is visible and some of which is the ultra violet rays mainly responsible for flash burns. The emission of light starts a few milliseconds after the nuclear explosion when the energy from the explosion reaches the air surrounding the bomb. The observer sees then a ball of fire which rapidly grows in size. During most of the early time, the ball of fire extends as far as the wave of high pressure. As the ball of fire grows its temperature and brightness decrease. ”

“ I gave briefings to the technical staff at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Los Alamos laboratory, where the first atomic bomb was built. The theater where this briefing took place wouldn’t hold all of the people who tried to get in, so the briefing was recorded and replayed many times. ”

“ One need not fear that a nuclear reactor might explode 154 like an atomic bomb. Nuclear explosives are very carefully constructed so that they can release a lot of energy in a short time. Nuclear reactors on the other hand are put together so as to make it possible that energy will be released only at a moderate rate. Some reactors if improperly handled may explode, but the violence of the explosion cannot greatly exceed that of a similar weight of high explosive. ”

“ Only five ships out at a time, Eberly thought as two hefty space men prodded him back toward the air-lock. All but a few of the invaders huddled together in a single city that could be utterly destroyed by the blast of one atomic bomb. Such a blast would also destroy the great radiation generators that held Earthmen in sway and the few remaining invaders would soon be overcome or driven away. ”

“ To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb. ”

“ Included on the Trinity Site tour is Ground Zero where the atomic bomb was placed on a 100-foot steel tower and exploded on July 16, 1945. A small monument now marks the spot. Visitors also see the McDonald ranch house where the world's first plutonium core for a bomb was assembled. ”

“ The neutrons have much less damage effect than the gamma rays because they have a smaller intensity and also because they are strongly absorbed in air and therefore can penetrate only to relatively small distances from the explosion: at a thousand yards the neutron intensity is negligible. After the nuclear emission, strong gamma radiation continues to come from the exploded bomb. This generates from the fission products and continues for about one minute until all of the explosion products have risen to such a height that the intensity received on the ground is negligible. ”

“ Not all the radioactivity which is made in the explosion contributes to the fallout, either local or world-wide. Some of the radioactive fission fragments (gamma emitters) have such short half-lives [11] that they actually disintegrate before the bomb has disassembled. A great many others disintegrate in the first few minutes while the atomic cloud is rising. The energetic beta and gamma rays released in these early, rapid disintegrations are stopped in short distances and merely add to the havoc at the scene of the explosion. ”

“ The causes of many of the deaths can only be surmised, and of course many persons near the center of explosion suffered fatal injuries from more than one of the bomb effects. The proper order of importance for possible causes of death is: burns, mechanical injury, and gamma radiation. ”

“ It was only natural that the American public and its political and military leaders in Washington should have been much concerned about a weapon with the capability of wiping out a medium-size city in a minute.47 Their anxiety was heightened by President Truman’s announcement on 23 September 1949 that Soviet Russia had exploded an atomic bomb. ”

“ Reconvert and release instantaneously. One-hundred-percent-conversion atomic bomb, tailored exactly to fit the job. Very effective."
"It would be. My God, Clee, can you do that?"
"Sure—so can you. Any Operator can."
"Well, I won't. I never will. Besides, I'd probably kill too many people, besides the monster. No, I'll 'port back to the Main if anything attacks me. ”

“ Down in the valley, perhaps one kilometer toward the city from us, several peasant homes are on fire and the woods on the opposite side of the valley are aflame. A few of us go over to help control the flames. While we are attempting to put things in order, a storm comes up and it begins to rain. Over the city, clouds of smoke are rising and I hear a few slight explosions. I come to the conclusion that an incendiary bomb with an especially strong explosive action has gone off down in the valley. A few of us saw three planes at great altitude over the city at the time of the explosion. ”

“ Never before in the history of warfare had there been a continuing explosive; indeed, up to the middle of the twentieth century the only explosives known were combustibles whose explosiveness was due entirely to their instantaneousness; and these atomic bombs which science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men who used them. Those used by the Allies were lumps of pure Carolinum, painted on the outside with unoxidised cydonator inducive enclosed hermetically in a case of membranium. ”

“ In an atomic explosion, a chain reaction picks up speed as atoms split, releasing neutrons plus great amounts of energy. The escaping neutrons strike and split more atoms, thus releasing still more neutrons and energy. In a nuclear explosion this all occurs in a millionth of a second with billions of atoms being split.
Project leaders decided a test of the plutonium bomb was essential before it could be used as a weapon of war. From a list of eight sites in California, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, Trinity Site was chosen as the test site. ”

“ Each was a flaming centre of radiant destruction that only time could quench, that indeed in many instances time has still to quench. To this day, though indeed with a constantly diminishing uproar and vigour, these explosions continue. In the map of nearly every country of the world three or four or more red circles, a score of miles in diameter, mark the position of the dying atomic bombs and the death areas that men have been forced to abandon around them. ”

“ This pressure of course most largely effected flat roofs. Some telegraph and other poles immediately below the explosion remained upright while those at greater distances from the center of damage, being more largely exposed to a horizontal thrust from the blast pressure waves, were overturned or tilted. Trees underneath the explosion remained upright but had their branches broken downward.
B. Mass distortion of buildings. An ordinary bomb can damage only a part of a large building, which may then collapse further under the action of gravity. ”

“ The first large-scale application of thermonuclear energy was the so-called hydrogen bomb, or “H-bomb.” For a brief time an exploding fission bomb develops a temperature 28 of hundreds of millions of degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause some light nuclei to fuse. In the hydrogen bomb, light nuclei of deuterium and/or tritium are exposed to this temperature during such a fission explosion. The resulting fusion of these nuclei causes the explosion to be hundreds of times more powerful than that of the fission device alone. ”

“ It was essentially a rifle and infantry struggle. The aeroplanes do not seem to have taken any decisive share in the actual fighting for some days, though no doubt they effected the strategy from the first by preventing surprise movements. They were aeroplanes with atomic engines, but they were not provided with atomic bombs, which were manifestly unsuitable for field use, nor indeed had they any very effective kind of bomb. And though they manœuvred against each other, and there was rifle shooting at them and between them, there was little actual aerial fighting. ”

“ As a result of the explosion of the bomb at 8:15, almost the entire city was destroyed at a single blow. Only small outlying districts in the southern and eastern parts of the town escaped complete destruction. The bomb exploded over the center of the city. As a result of the blast, the small Japanese houses in a diameter of five kilometers, which compressed 99% of the city, collapsed or were blown up. Those who were in the houses were buried in the ruins. Those who were in the open sustained burns resulting from contact with the substance or rays emitted by the bomb. ”

“ The attached detailed report concerns the possibility of constructing a "super-bomb" which utilises the energy stored in atomic nuclei as a source of energy. The energy liberated in the explosion of such a super-bomb is about the same as that produced by the explosion of 1,000 tons of dynamite. This energy is liberated in a small volume, in which it will, for an instant, produce a temperature comparable to that in the interior of the sun. The blast from such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area. ”

“ Every living thing within a mile of the tower was obliterated. The power of the bomb was estimated to be equal to 20,000 tons of TNT, or equivalent to the bomb load of 2,000 B-29, Superfortresses!
After witnessing the awesome blast, Oppenheimer quoted a line from a sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita: He said: "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."6 In Los Alamos 230 miles to the north, a group of scientists' wives who had stayed up all night for the not so secret test, saw the light and heard the distant sound. ”

“ And aside from the natural hazards of collision, how could it imperil mankind? Then as a thin cloud of dust billowed up from the fallen rocks, a vision of its war potential burst upon him. Clumsy, costly rockets with a single payload were obsolete. Atomic bombs could be showered almost instantly on an enemy. ”

“ They were the guided missiles which were to destroy America. They carried atomic bombs. They should make the better part of the continent into blasted, radioactive craters.
From the nations which were satellites of the European Power other columns of vapor streaked skyward. More bombs. They should surge furiously through the air to the chill emptiness beyond it, and they should circle a good part of the earth and then drive furiously down and spout ravening atomic flames! ”