Today marks the 64th anniversary of the start of the atomic age. At 05:29 on July 16, 1945, the very first atomic weapon was detonated in the Jornada del Muerto in New Mexico under the code name Trinity.
I have always been fascinated by this event. Several years ago I started to learn what I could about the origin, development, testing and use of nuclear technology. I collected videos and articles from the very scientists who developed the methods that made nuclear fission possible. It was clear from their writings that they both loved and hated what they were doing. The end result of their labor could only have one possible outcome, yet they pressed on. From some, it was the thrill of finding the answer first. For others it was a very strong feeling that this secret was going to be cracked sooner or later. Better it be ‘us’ than ‘them’.
The single most fascinating item I learned was that this whole race was essentially kicked off in Germany, where scientists there had split a Uranium atom. The implications of that discovery were obvious to a few key scientists. Given the aggression of Germany, they felt that action needed to be taken in order defeat Germany before they created the weapon above. In the long run, it was discovered that Germany was nowhere near developing a bomb. Where have I heard that before?
The single most frightening thing I learned was just how easy it is to build a bomb like the one featured above, at least on a conceptual level. Given enough time and enough leeway, any country could develop the technology and means to produce a crude atomic weapon. The plutonium implosion weapon featured above would be considered highly primitive and it still has the explosive power of twenty thousand tons of TNT. (Just to put that size into perspective, the largest weapon detonated by the US was Castle-Bravo. It came in at fifteen megatons, or fifteen million tons of TNT.)
There is a family story about my Pop, my maternal grandfather, who owned a saw mill in northern Kentucky. During the War, materials were very scare and he needed some parts to keep his mill operational. A friend of his told him to go do the dealer and tell him the parts were for the Manhanttan Project. The next day he had the parts.
I withhold judgement on whether or not the United States should have gone down the nuclear path. I leave that question for people far smarter that myself. It is of little difference to me what we did or did not do. The history of the development and use of this weapon is far, far more complex than most people realize. The players who brought this scene to life were both egotistical and humble, both madmen and saints. I do not envy the leaders who were faced with the decisions leading up to this event. I can only say that I hope that I am never in a place where I would be faced with such a terrible choice.
The title of this post is from the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific leader of the Manhattan project, later said during an interview that this quote went through his head as the bomb detonated. The director of the Trinity test, Kenneth Bainbridge, had a more colorful remark: ‘Now we are all sons of bitches’.
Sorry for the long absence, but I have not been feeling particularly inspired lately so I took a break. It would be a shame if I were to pump out poor quality posts just to fill pages. My loyal readers are used to only the highest quality posts. On that note, did you hear that the ghost of Elvis married another ghost?
Personally, I was shocked. How could he do that to all of us loyal, living fans. Whatever.
Noelle was in a her annual talent show at school. Here is the video.
It is really neat to see Noelle perform like that. The best part is that she does not even seem nervous. There were other kids who did similar acts, but none of them did it with her verve.
Tonight we are enjoying a rare Sacramento thunderstorm. The kids think it is great. I don’t ever remember having these storms when I was growing up. Curse you global warming!
I am will be continuing my ‘This is my life’ section, with 1980-83 on deck. Highlights include a six week trip to Kentucky, my first grade graduation and the time I boiled water to make tea and managed to trip while holding the pan and scaled myself. All this and more, next time, on Fermatd.
When I am not busy at work or rearing four kids, I like to take some time to play Fantastic Contraption. Here is the idea:
You are given five objects. A wheel that rotates clock-wise, one that rotates counter-clockwise, and one that is neutral. You also have a solid rod and a liquid rod. Nothing can pass through the solid rod while most objects can pass through the liquid rod. You also have a construction area, a goal area and a goal object. You simply try to get the goal object (a ball or square or combinations) into the goal.
Observe:
or
and
The best part is that you can pay a one-time $10 fee and design your own levels and play other people designs.
Hope this wastes a lot of time for you, because this is pretty fantastic.
Those of you who know me, and now those of you who don’t, know that I generally eat raw foods as much as I can. That being said, I still love one animal based slice of goodness. I speak of course of Bacon.
Check out this story this story. Note to my raw and vegan friends. Don’t watch. Just don’t do it. If you do, don’t blame me later.
A few years ago I decided to deep fry a turkey. Just for fun, I bought a pound of bacon to deep fry afterwards. Once the turkey was done, I dropped the bacon into the oil and it sank like a rock. About two minutes went by and the bacon started to float to the top of the oil, looking golden and perfect. I plucked it out of the oil onto a paper towel lined plate and let it cool for a minute or two before devouring. Tasty.
Bacon has a very loyal following in other places than my stomach. I became a fan of bacon on Facebook. Then there is BacoNation. If you like pigs that poop bacon, this is the place for you. It was on this site that I first encountered the term, ‘food porn’. Good stuff.
Let me give you a brief history of bacon:
The earliest recorded history of bacon dates back to the year 3200 BC where cave painting show us pictures of man making bacon. It was initially unclear as to what man was making, but microscopic images revealed that the man was smiling, so it must be bacon.
Flash forward several hundred years to the area now occupied by the North Eastern United States. One of the natives of the area was chasing a wild pig through the forest when it collided with a maple tree, felling the tree in the process. The sap leaked on the pig as the man slaughtered it. The maple syrup made the bacon extra tasty.
Moving on to June 14, 1215, the nobles and along with King John prepared to sign the Magna Carta. When it was discovered that no bacon was available for the signing, it was delayed to June 15.
Prior to the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was misquoted as saying, ‘Let them eat cake!’. The French folks got mad and over threw the government (or something like that. Look it up). What she really said was, ‘Let them eat bacon!’. Had they heard correctly, she would be been installed as Queen ruler over all the land.
That brings us to today where bacon, better know as pork bellies on the CME, are traded daily.
And that is about all I feel like making up tonight. Good day.
Sorry for the slow slow blog month. Casey and I are waiting for the arrival of Leela Joy and the antcipation is a but distracting.
But tonight, something else imporant is happening. Not as imporant as the birth of your fifth child, but important none the less. Tonight I finished my Pity Whiskey. Some seven months have passed since mom gave me a 1.75l of Makers Mark the day I left that other job of mine. Seven months.
The sign above is showing your internet address, the interweb service you are running, your operating system and the internet browser you are using. When you are online, there is a great deal of information about you that just hangs out there for someone to pick up.
For example:
Have you ever looked at the left hand side of your screen when you are search Google? There will be ads for your area. Mine say things like, ‘Buy a home in Sacramento!’ They know that I am surfing from Sacramento because of that 10 digit number above. The XX.XXX.XX.XXX number that Mr. McCain (which who should be holding the sign at this moment. It rotates through the candidates) is holding is registered to an area of the country that can be referenced by the ad software.
So what else do they know about us? Cookies. They know about cookies. Cookies are little text files that are stored on your computer so a website can more quickly identify you. For example, you check your mail and go to bed. You wake up and power your system on and go to your e-mail site. It usually at least remembers your name. All it did was read a cookie on your system. These same cookies can be used to track your internet usage and send it back to companies to try and further evaluate your habits.
Now when it comes to cookies tracking me, I used to believe that it was absolutely wrong and I would do anything to stop it. I would wipe out my cookies every 15 minutes and routinely purge my browsing history. But then I got to thinking: Why not make it harder to figure me out? So now I get online, go to Woot, then to the Starbucks website, surf on over to AARP and pull up a few articles. From there I head to my favorite bodybuilding website for albino midgets and wrap it up with a trip through the Green, Libertarian, Reconstructive Monarchist site just for good measure. All in all, it make me feel better.
