75th anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb test! Some wondeful stories about how the Manhattan Project influenced science & culture.
https://insidescience.org/manhattan-project-legacy https://twitter.com/dschwa8059/status/1283592807878467585
What would have happened had Trinity test failed? Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Soviet declaration of war & invasion of Manchuria, US rejection of the conditional surrender offer, an abortive coup by Japanese officers all took place in the same week!
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2020/07/16/what-if-the-trinity-test-had-failed/
Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy" (based on US, Soviet & Japanese archives) was eyeopening. Stalin accelerated plans to invade Japan as soon as Truman told him about Trinity test in Postdam. Both atomic bomb & Soviet invasion about securing terms of surrender.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iPju1MrqgU4C&q=atomic+bomb#v=onepage&q&f=true
Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy" (based on US, Soviet & Japanese archives) was eyeopening. Stalin accelerated plans to invade Japan as soon as Truman told him about Trinity test in Postdam. Both atomic bomb & Soviet invasion about securing terms of surrender. https://books.google.com/books?id=iPju1MrqgU4C&q=atomic+bomb#v=onepage&q&f=true
Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy" (based on US, Soviet & Japanese archives) was eyeopening. Stalin accelerated plans to invade Japan as soon as Truman told him about Trinity test in Postdam. Both atomic bomb & Soviet invasion about securing terms of surrender. https://books.google.com/books?id=iPju1MrqgU4C&q=atomic+bomb#v=onepage&q&f=true
FANTASTIC thread. Lots of these stories are part of physics lore. "Last night Fermi took bets on whether the bomb will ignite the atmosphere and roast the entire Earth to a crisp...the guards don’t realise Fermi is joking...
HILARIOUS, FERMI" https://twitter.com/ChemistryKit/status/1283702920123428864
The Atomic Age that started 75 years ago wasn't just a rip in time. It changed the very atoms of our atmosphere permanently. It changed geopolitical world-order. It changed biology & physical space too. Thread. https://twitter.com/UrbanFoxxxx/status/1283856122231885824
Postwar civilian use of nuclear transformed biology & geosciences more than electricity. Consider
Photosynthesis: trace "hot" C-14 tagged CO2 through plants to crack defining feature of life on earth
Cracking Genetic code w "hot" phosphorus
Carbon dating
https://www.insidescience.org/manhattan-project-legacy/radioisotopes
Ecology itself is product of Atomic Age. Physicists, biologists & chemists use of radio-isotopes in 1950s made new view of Nature as series of networks described by flow of energy & materials. Bioaccumulation up food-chain key msg of Carson/Commoner. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/06/30/silent-spring-part-3
Ecology itself is product of Atomic Age. Physicists, biologists & chemists use of radio-isotopes in 1950s made new view of Nature as series of networks described by flow of energy & materials. Bioaccumulation up food-chain key msg of Carson/Commoner. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/06/30/silent-spring-part-3
Ecology itself is product of Atomic Age. Physicists, biologists & chemists use of radio-isotopes in 1950s made new view of Nature as series of networks described by flow of energy & materials. Bioaccumulation up food-chain key msg of Carson/Commoner. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/06/30/silent-spring-part-3
8/ Bomb led to ppl seeing physics as queen of Cold War Science. 21stC Global Warming will lead to reevaluation & a new origin story. Biology, Ecology, Geosciences & Climate Science all have their birth in the Trinity atomic bomb test. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1211745526971944960
9/ Without Trinity, radio-isotopes & fallout from insane number of atmospheric nuclear testing, there'd be no scientific understanding of Global Warming or Ecology or modern envtl movement. Its a strange irony.

Nuclear test animation by Isao Hashimoto
10/ Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is remembered for pesticides,but its her Strontium-90 that sparked envtl mvmt. Baby Tooth Survey showed most US children by late 50s had that isotope that came from fallout-> grass -> cows ->milk, in their teeth. It replaced Calcium in food chain
10/ Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is remembered for pesticides,but its her Strontium-90 that sparked envtl mvmt. Baby Tooth Survey showed most US children by late 50s had that isotope that came from fallout-> grass -> cows ->milk, in their teeth. It replaced Calcium in food chain
10/ Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is remembered for pesticides,but its her Strontium-90 that sparked envtl mvmt. Baby Tooth Survey showed most US children by late 50s had that isotope that came from fallout-> grass -> cows ->milk, in their teeth. It replaced Calcium in food chain
11/ 'Disturbing the Universe' has more tales of how Atomic Age & Ecology are intertwined. Imagine Freeman Dyson sits you down and goes "Listen. Let me tell you what went down in the 20th Century". Highly recommend this interview https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/freeman-dysons-interview https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1233467055137054721
75 years ago, this very moment in August changed the world forever. Much to consider in these Bulletin of Atomic Scientists articles as we navigate, once again, a dangerous period of the Atomic Age as arms-control treaties are ripped up ht @BulletinAtomic https://thebulletin.org/collections/hiroshima-nagasaki/
Hiroshima & Nagasaki Archives - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

It’s been 75 years since the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and, a few days later, on Nagasaki, Japan.

https://thebulletin.org/collections/hiroshima-nagasaki/
Hershey on 6 survivors. #Hiroshima75 #NeverAgain
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1291368427811209217
"One of the lessons I take from Hiroshima is that while you & your culture are made up of the deeds of the past, where you go from that is up to the living. We can't ignore or deny the past—but we have choices in how we mobilize it towards a better future" https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1291363016114679811
#Hiroshima75 commemorations in America are more critical than yrs past. They "place the use of atomic weapons within the larger history of US violence & white supremacy" and dismiss the now hoary claim that bomb “saved American lives” ht @ColdWarScience https://neverjustscience.substack.com/p/remembering-the-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is a riveting book that integrates US/Japan/Soviet archives. Such a fog of war that Japan's physicists took 2 days to verify that Hiroshima was an atomic bomb! Truman too had been kept in dark by US military.Thread on highlights https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1292196537179803648
Thread on Nagasaki atrocity. "The decision to drop the 2nd bomb... was not made by Truman, Stimson, or even Groves — it was made on the island of Tinian, by lower-level people. It was not part of a grand strategy, contrary to popular opinion" #NeverAgain https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1159799358650499072
18/ Johnny von Neumann's role in bomb & computers is known but his work w father of climate science Charney isn't. Problems posed to early computers were all hydrodynamics:Shockwaves & planetary dynamics! Fascinating essay @curiouswavefn #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/10/what-john-von-neumann-really-did-at-los-alamos.html
What John von Neumann really did at Los Alamos | 3 Quarks Daily

by Ashutosh Jogalekar During a wartime visit to England in early 1943, John von Neumann wrote a letter to his fellow mathematician Oswald Veblen at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,...

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/10/what-john-von-neumann-really-did-at-los-alamos.html
19/ @BulletinAtomic's 75th anniversary issue has some spectacular essays by scientists old & new. Biology, Ecology, Geosciences, Climate Science & world-order all have their birth with the Atomic bomb & Space Race. Brilliant one⬇️ https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-12/the-edge-of-our-existence-a-particle-physicist-examines-the-architecture-of-society/ https://twitter.com/yangyang_cheng/status/1335932674091913217
20/ “We want to be read in the White House, at the Kremlin, & at the kitchen table.”

Celebrating 75 years of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. A magazine that's given me sleepless nights since wandering into a meeting in college! ht @etammykim https://www.cjr.org/special_report/panic_time.php
Panic Time

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists may be the only outlet whose approach to climate change is explicitly existential

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/panic_time.php
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