This was really when people started figuring out how bad fallout from thermonuclear bombs could be. General Fields described it most lucidly:<p>"If Bravo had been detonated in Washington, D.C., instead of Bikini, Fields illustrated with a diagram, that lifetime dose in the Washington-Baltimore area would have been 5,000 roentgens; in Philadelphia, more than 1,000 roentgens; in New York City, more than 500, or enough to result in death for half the population if fully exposed to all the radiation delivered. This diagram was classified secret and received very little distribution beyond the Commissioners." [1]<p>Image reproduced here [2].<p>Thermonuclear bombs are really terrifying. If one goes off and you're in the fallout zone do not go outside for at least 2 weeks. If you survive the initial blast you have about 10 minutes to get inside where you must stay. If you're still outside and it's 'snowing' ash you're already dead. More tips and tricks in [3].<p>Though these days, they say it's likely that a single individual or small group can have even worse impact from a basement bioterror lab.<p>[1] Hewlett and Holl - Atoms for Peace and War around pg 181 (free pdf history book) <a href="https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl-atoms-peace-and-war" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://whatisnuclear.com/img/castle-bravo-if-on-dc.png" rel="nofollow">https://whatisnuclear.com/img/castle-bravo-if-on-dc.png</a><p>[3] Nuclear War Survival Skills (free pdf book) <a href="https://www.oism.org/nwss/" rel="nofollow">https://www.oism.org/nwss/</a>
It’s worth reminding people that the US still refuses to properly clean up or compensate the Marshall Islanders for this and the 66 other nuclear tests done on their islands.
I know it's near trivial in comparison but I really understood the power of atomic weapons as a child when I read what happened to the Saratoga, namely the explosion <i>lifted the ship out of the water</i>, more like thrown it out of the water several meters high. How can anything lift a <i>thirty seven thousand ton ship</i>???
I don't know if anyone else pointed this out, but that fishing vessel got screwed over coming and going.<p>"The crew suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS) for a number of weeks after the Bravo test in March. During their ARS treatment, the crew was inadvertently infected with hepatitis through blood transfusions."<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Fukury%C5%AB_Maru" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Fukury%C5%AB_Maru</a>
Funny timing - I'm reading Topographies, a book of essays by Stephen Benz, and just last night I read a poignant one about visiting a WWII-era atomic testing site in the New Mexico desert. Looks like this link gets you to it in Google Books:<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PnfnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&dq=stephen+benz+alamogordo&source=bl&ots=ZRswlt3tk6&sig=ACfU3U28xV4dZp5-Qsl54ZwKleD9b9mbBA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVz6SGw_TyAhUPUt8KHf9cAnsQ6AF6BAguEAM#v=onepage&f=false" rel="nofollow">https://books.google.com/books?id=PnfnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT91&lpg=P...</a><p>It's remarkable how world-changing (and potentially world-ending) this technology is and how infrequently most of us think about it.
That's an interesting mistake. Fusion reactor designs today mostly target deuterium-tritium fuel, because it's the most energetic and easiest to get net power. They plan to breed the tritium from a blanket of lithium.<p>Based on this article, it sounds like the bomb scientists were using lithium deuteride fuel just as a solid form of deuterium, and didn't realize the lithium would breed tritium and fuel a more powerful reaction.<p>Now I'm wondering whether this unfortunate event was the seed for today's reactor designs.
Nuclear mania! I posted my article in the previous thread about nuclear physics, but I wrote one on the tests in the Marshall Islands as well.<p><a href="https://medium.com/insane-before-the-sun/3-nuked-sinking-the-beautiful-marshall-islands-were-violated-by-the-u-s-and-world-6fb088479518" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/insane-before-the-sun/3-nuked-sinking-the...</a>
See also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba</a>
Unusual and spectacular failure mode:<p>Loads perfectly, then after loading reloads and displays a 500 error and tells me to find something else to read on Medium :-]
The bikini, as in the swimsuit, was named after the devastating effect of these explosions.<p>It's one of the sad ironies of history that it's now virtually impossible to read a line like "We left Bikini and have wandered through the ocean for 32 years" without snickering, because sexy ladies amirite hurr durr.