Posts Tagged ‘atomic bomb’
“Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye / And where care lodges, sleep will never lie”*…
* Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
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As we keep a stiff upper lip, we might recall that it was on this date in 1952 that Britain became the third country to conduct an atomic bomb test. Its “Operation Hurricane” was carried out at Monte Bello, Australia, using an improved plutonium implosion bomb similar to the U.S. “Fat Man” (detonated over Nagasaki). To test the effects of a ship-smuggled bomb (a threat of great concern at the time), Hurricane was exploded inside the hull of the HMS Plym (a 1,450 ton frigate) which was anchored in 40 feet of water 400 yards off shore. The explosion, 9 feet below the water line, left a saucer-shaped crater on the seabed 20 feet deep and 1,000 feet across.
Hurricane’s mud-laden explosion
“Librarians are the secret masters of the world”*…
Interior view of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos scientific library
If library work was among the most tedious [at Los Alamos], the award for the most unenviable job likely belonged to its head librarian: Charlotte Serber, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, statistician, and freelance journalist who at one point interviewed Frank Lloyd Wright for The Boston Globe.
In 1942, J. Robert Oppenheimer selected Serber to spearhead the project in part because of her lack of librarian experience. He wanted someone who would be willing to bend the rules of cataloguing.
Her appointment was a victory for the women on the Hill. Though women were integral to the success of the Manhattan Project—scientists like Leona Woods and Mary Lucy Miller played central roles in the creation of the bomb—none occupied leadership positions.
In this respect, Serber stood alone. As the head of the scientific library, she became the Manhattan Project’s de facto keeper of secrets, a position that soon saw her targeted for an FBI probe—and almost ended in her being fired from the project…
The remarkable true tale of the woman who dodged accusations of communism, and made the atomic bomb possible: “The Librarian Who Guarded the Manhattan Project’s Secrets.”
* Spider Robinson
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As we check it out, we might recall that it was on this date in 1687 that Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), was published. Often referred to as simply the Principia, the three-volume work outlines Newton’s laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics; Newton’s law of universal gravitation; and a derivation of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). This first edition was written in Latin, the universal language of scholarship at the time; an English edition was published in 1728. It remains one of the most important works in the history of science.
Title page of the first edition
“If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees”*…
Lightning strikes around the world– in real time.
* Lao Tzu
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As we reach for our rods, we might recall that it was on this date in 1957 that the U.S. detonated an atomic weapon on a test range in the Yucca Flats in Nevada-a test of the Air Force’s AIR-2 Genie missile with a nuclear warhead, part of the Plumbbob series, the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental United States: 29 tests, of which only two failed to detonate. Exactly seven years later– on this date in 1964– the Soviet Union performed a nuclear test in Eastern Kazakh.
“Now, you can continue to protect your home and family even after you are gone”…
The craftsmen at Holy Smoke will take the cremated remains of a loved one and pack them into firearm ammunition: one pound of human ash yields 250 shotgun shells, 100 rifle cartridges, or 250 pistol cartridges. The company’s website avers…
The services provided by Holy Smoke are a fraction of the cost of what most funeral burial services cost – oftentimes saving families as much as 75% of traditional costs.
The ecological footprint caused by our service, as opposed to most of the current funeral interment methods, is virtually non-existent.
Now, you can continue to protect your home and family even after you are gone.
Or, as one of the company’s founders suggests in recounting how he conceived the service, one can use the remains to “share the death”:
My friend smiled and said “You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”
[TotH to Gizmodo]
As we aim for the afterlife, we might recall that it was on this date in 1939 that physicists Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin develop a nuclear weapon. Their letter was delivered a couple of months later, and led to the formation of the Advisory Committee on Uranium (the “Briggs Uranium Committee”) and ultimately the Manhattan Project.
Einstein and Szilárd (source)
A megaton here, a megaton there…
from Dr. Strangelove (source)
Further to “Just when you were beginning to feel a little bit safer…,” this piece by Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch, an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Loose Nukes, in Alternet:
Things go missing. It’s to be expected. Even at the Pentagon. Last October, the Pentagon’s inspector general reported that the military’s accountants had misplaced a destroyer, several tanks and armored personnel carriers, hundreds of machine guns, rounds of ammo, grenade launchers and some surface-to-air missiles. In all, nearly $8 billion in weapons were AWOL.
Those anomalies are bad enough. But what’s truly chilling is the fact that the Pentagon has lost track of the mother of all weapons, a hydrogen bomb. The thermonuclear weapon, designed to incinerate Moscow, has been sitting somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia for the past 40 years. The Air Force has gone to greater lengths to conceal the mishap than to locate the bomb and secure it…
For the strong of stomach, the article continues here.
As we practice “duck and cover,” we might console ourselves console ourselves with grateful thoughts of a Divine communicator, Durante degli Alighieri– Dante– born on this date (or so many scholars believe; the exact birth date might also be June 1) in 1265… We might also note that this is both Arnold Bennett’s (1867) and Dashiell Hammett’s (1894) birthday, as well. May 27…a wonderfully eclectic day for literature!
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