Bravo Castle Bravo

This afternoon during my prep as I searched Youtube for a video to show my students some archival footage of nuclear tests to impress upon them the true scale of nuclear weapons as we begin our Cold War unit, something my oral checks for prior knowledge from them earlier today have revealed most of them know dangerously little, brought me to this gem of an excerpt from the award-winning documentary "Trinity & Beyond" which I now share with you here replete with accompanying creepy-ominous sound score. The Castle Bravo above-ground nuclear weapon test on March 1, 1954, went terribly wrong as scientists miscalculated that Lithium-7 would be inert in the reaction when in fact it along with Lithium-6 were both quite reactive. The explosion was supposed to be 6 megatons strong, but actually turned out to be 15 megatons, 250% more powerful than expected. There was unexpected damage as well as unintentional injuries to local islanders and itinerant Japanese fishermen. The fireball started out at 4.2 miles in diameter and maxed out at 7 miles in diameter.

Compelling Portrayal of Hiroshima Nuking

This week I played this video segment for my students in prepping them for a classroom debate on the merits of the decision by U.S. President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 & 9, 1945. I find it fascinating and compelling and the best yet which I have found on Youtube in the short clip category. It also reminds me of this short segment from the 2009 Battlestar Galactica movie The Plan which can be viewed HERE.

Graphic of the Day - Whose Got Nukes

There is a lot of contradictory information about how many nukes each of the nations in the nuclear family of nations possess, especially in regards to the United States and Russia. This seems to be the most reliable source or as good as any of the top sources. The U.S. and Russia have made major reductions since the Cold War and yet still have more than enough nukes to destroy each other and even move piles of rubble around.

Graphic of the Day - Krakatoa vs. Tsar Bomba

Today in my Political Economy of Latin America and the Middle East class (History 214), the most excellent Dr. Cameron Jones gave an overview of the Cold War's beginnings and of the arms race. In light of that it seems appropriate to share this tonight, an image if found on the internet but for whom I can find no attribution aside from first name of Stuart. I give props to Stuart whatever his last name, for creating such an awesome graphical comparison of the 1883 VEI 6 eruption of Krakatoa and the 1961 50-megaton detonation of Tzar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear detonation ever conducted by mankind. The Krakatoa eruption is estimated to be four times more powerful than Tsar Bomba.  Image courtesy of Stuart (all rights reserved).

Atomburbs vs. Atombombs: A Different Type of Distributed Network

Last spring at Cal Poly I took Dr. Lewis Call's History of Network Technology (History 354). Early on we discussed Paul Baran's concept of the "distributed network" in regards to networked computer systems during the Cold War which was s design which thwarted the efficacy of a nuclear assault disabling a computerized command and control network. This concept via ARPANET ultimately evolved into the modern internet and transformed the face of the modern world and how we all live. Fast-forward to today and I am conducting research for my senior project. The moment I found this image it occurred to me that it is a different sort of "distributed network," this one a network of distributed communities thus designed to minimize the efficacy of a nuclear attack by spreading the population out so much that there would be no population centers to target. This concept, christened the "atomburb," was created by the then-Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago later to be called the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Image courtesy of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (all rights reserved). 

Picture of the Day - Dark Mushroom

 This past weekend Scott Carson posted on his Twitter account a series of great images relating  to Cold War Era nuclear tests, especially those of the French. The best one was this one of the French Dragon Test, Fangataufa, balloon test, 945 kilotons, 1970. Courtesy of Scott Carson on Twitter (all rights reserved).

What Post-Apocalypse Looks Like

My friend Blake introduced me to this fascinating short film showing views from both drone and person of Chernobyl, Ukraine, from this year, 28 years after the nuclear disaster there. It brings to mind both the short-lived television series Life After People and the Planet of the Apes movie franchises both old and new as well as themes of zombie apocalypses and other types of world's ends. The musical accompaniment is also rather strikingly effective in an unexpected sort of way. I find it fascinating how quickly the vegetation has taken over the city.
Note: I live exactly 31 miles from Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

Trinity 69 Years Ago Today

Sixty-nine years ago today the Atomic Age officially began with Trinity and the course of human history was forever altered. Under the raw footage below these words are much more profound words about that fateful day 69 years ago which you really must read. They are by a friend of mine who is an aficionado of that entire episode of history whose passion comes out in this wonderful piece of writing. It is everything I strive for in my own writing but rarely achieve: short and sweet!

July 16, 1945. 5:29 a.m.

We are approaching the end of World War II. A war that has cost 55 million lives globally & introduced some of the most inhumane events to the history of humankind.

Japan is now encircled & being bombarded by the... American Navy. Okinawa has fallen at the cost of 12,000 American, 100,000 Imperial Japanese, & 100,000 civilian Okinawan lives.
2.1 billion dollars has been spent on the Manhattan Project, based upon the idea that splitting the nucleus of an atom will release such tremendous energy that, if enough atoms are split in a chain reaction, one bomb could destroy an entire city. A single bomb.

On July 16, all of the key players—Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Fermi, General Groves, etc.--are gathered at the Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The countdown begins. At zero, the test bomb detonates atop a tower there in the desert.

At 16 microseconds (16 thousandths of a second), this photo is captured on film. The explosion is already 400 feet wide & spreading at an impossible pace. The center of the explosion is as hot as the sun. It is equally as bright throughout this area of New Mexico. As the nuclear explosion casts off such a bright flash that it turns night into midday, it is documented that a blind woman, 150 miles away, asks, "What's that brilliant light?"

The tower beneath the atomic bomb disintegrates & the white sand throughout the area melts to green glass, now called Trinitite. Watching the growing ball of flame, Dr. Oppenheimer murmurs a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "NOW I AM BECOME DEATH; THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS."
World War II will be over in 29 days.

Science has demonically but successfully united with government & military. For his role in the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer would be nicknamed "The American Prometheus." (Prometheus was the Greek god who introduced fire to mankind before we were ready for it.) It was Oppenheimer who code-named the Trinity Test after a line from the poem by John Donne: “Batter my heart, three-personed God.”

Now here's the rest of the story:

The planet Uranus was 1.8 billion miles from earth in July of 1945. Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. It takes 9,677 seconds, or 161 minutes, for light to travel between the two planets.

The U.S.S. Indianapolis, bound for the island of Tinian & loaded with enriched Uranium & Plutonium for the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs, respectively, has left port from Hunter’s Point, San Francisco. She crosses the San Francisco Bay & is passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge & entering the Pacific Ocean at 7:11 a.m. local time, July 16, 1945.

This is 161 minutes after the apex of the Trinity Test.
At precisely this moment, as the tragically--fated USS Indianapolis is bringing hell to the Pacific Theater, the light from the Trinity Test would be reaching Uranus. The planet Uranus, after which "Uranium" is named.

The Atomic Age has begun. 

By Andy Piantanida

The Day Of The End Of The World

My entire life I have been haunted by this theme to the depths of my soul. Here is one fictional visual account of such a day. It shows this event from the perspective of the Battlestar Galactica television series from the 2000's. We see this calamitous coda to civilization known in the series as "the Destruction of the Twelve Colonies" from three perspectives: the planet Caprica, Colonial Fleet Headquarters at Pycon, and the Battlestar Galactica itself, the last remaining survivor of about 120 capital ships of the Colonial Fleet the rest of which are destroyed in this Pearl Harbor-esque assault. Below is a musical tribute ("Journey to the Line" by Hans Zimmer) to this fictional calamity derived from both the television series' movie pilot and and its two spin-off movies "Razor" and "The Plan".
Check out the follow up posting to this which shows the series conclusion: "It's All Happened Before But Will It Again?" 

Nuke Testing Sequence (1945-1998)

A friend of mine posted this on his Facebook Wall. I noticed it and was immediately taken with it. Enjoy!
Note: for more info on this please read HERE.

Forever Young

Last April I wrote about and shared "99 Luftballons" in which I not only discussed the song but the context in which it was created. I then connected that theme to the currently rising fears here on the West Coast of the United States of a nuclear attack upon California by way of North Korea. In that piece I mentioned that song by German artist Nena was to my mind the best and most famous of songs + music videos to express the 1980's generation's fears and opposition to the "nuclear Sword of Damocles" looming over them and threatening to snuff them out in their prime. Certainly it was more obviously a protest song and was rather region-specific to Germany although it certainly applied in principle to everybody everywhere. To my mind the second best and second most famous of 1980's songs + music videos to address this concern and in a not-so-regional-specific way and most certainly more existentialist fashion was another German artist Alphaville's "Forever Young" which I share below as well as its lyrics below that. This 1984 song was one of the best early examples of the future direction of pop music as it pertained to the coming growing emphasis of synthesizers in pop music which now are basically just another instrument as integral to a pop band as a guitar or drums and in the case of a deejay or electronic band is their ONLY instrument or nearly so.

Note: I placed parenthesis around "nuclear Sword of Damocles" above because I can proudly say that although I came up with that from my own creativity yet I also discovered when looking up Wiki link to the expression "Sword of Damocles" to place here for those not familiar with it I found that President Kennedy used that very same precise expression in a 1961 speech to the United Nations regarding the threat of nuclear war at that time.



Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we're getting in tune
The music's played by the, the mad men

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever?
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever? Forever young

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later, they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?

It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fading horse
Youth's like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever

So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
We let them come true

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever?
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever?

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?

Lyrics courtesy of AZLyrics.com

99 Luftballons

With all the concern lately about North Korea and their ambition to develop the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon via ICBM to the continental United States combined with a growing concern regarding Iran's similar aims and now add to that the terrorist attack in Boston, MA, the other day and it feels like there is a level of stress of impending doom not felt in my homeland since 9/11 but with more of a nuclear fatalism attached. I must admit that I myself have been mentally contemplating and preparing emotionally for that possibility in the not-to-distant future for some months now and it continues. I am not fearful but I am feeling a growing sense of possibility regarding it and in my mindset I intend to survive. However, that requires I start gaming for it now and mentally-emotionally I already am all the while I'm hoping it is unnecessary.

With that in mind below is the best and most famous song of the 1980's in regards to expressing a young generation's fears of nuclear apocalypse and protestation against that possibility. German band Nena created the pop rock gem "99 Luftballoons" (99 Balloons). There was a German and an English version but the German version sounded better and was more true to the artist as it was in their mother tongue and the subsequent English version had some revisions. Below the music player are the English-translation lyrics. Enjoy!

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got.
Set them free at the break of dawn
'Til one by one, they were gone.
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, Something's out there.
Floating in the summer sky.
Ninety nine red balloons go by.

Ninety nine red balloons.
Floating in the summer sky.
Panic bells, it's red alert.
There's something here from somewhere else.
The war machine springs to life.
Opens up one eager eye.
Focusing it on the sky.
Where ninety nine red balloons go by.

Ninety nine Decision Street.
Ninety nine ministers meet.
To worry, worry, super-scurry.
Call the troops out in a hurry.
This is what we've waited for.
This is it boys, this is war.
The president is on the line
As ninety nine red balloons go by.

Ninety nine Knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Everyone's a superhero.
Everyone's a Captain Kirk.
With orders to identify.
To clarify and classify.
Scramble in the summer sky.
As ninety nine red balloons go by.

Ninety nine dreams I have had.
In every one a red balloon.
It's all over and I'm standing pretty.
In this dust that was a city.
If I could find a souvenir.
Just to prove the world was here.
And here is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go.

Source: Songmeanings.net

Christmas At Ground Zero

This is Weird Al Yankovic at his zany best... and NO, this does not refer to 9/11 as some have erroneously suggested elsewhere on the internet in taking misplaced umbrage.I have placed the lyrics below the music player below.

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
There's music in the air
The sleigh bells are ringin' and the carolers are singin'
While the air raid sirens blare

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
The button has been pressed
The radio just let us know
That this is not a test

Everywhere the atom bombs are droppin'
It's the end of all humanity
No more time for last minute shoppin'
It's time to face your final destiny

Well, it's Christmas at Ground Zero
There's panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris while we trim the tree
Underneath a mushroom cloud

You might hear some reindeer on your rooftop
Or Jack Frost on your windowsill
But if someone's climbin' down your chimney
You better load your gun and shoot to kill

Oh, it's Christmas at Ground Zero
And if the radiation level's okay
I'll go out with you and see the all new
Mutations on New Year's Day

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
Just seconds left to go
I'll duck and cover with my yuletide lover
Underneath the mistletoe

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
Now the missiles are on their way
What a crazy fluke we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday
What a crazy fluke we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday

Source: AZLyrics.com