NPR

“Anyone listening to the conversation regarding the atomic bomb?

Apparently the scientist were afraid that the test bomb might ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world - they set it anyway!

Crazy”

“I've heard that”

“Yeah, they weren't sure what would happen, but said, "eh, what the hell, let's go for it!"


Kind of the scienfic version of "Hold my beer while I try this."
last edited: 8/02/05 12:43:17 PM”

“A-Bomb Operating Instructions

1. Push Button
2. Put fingers in ears
3. Cringe”

“Yes, Fermi thought they had about a 50% chance. Turns out the atmosphere is a lot more resilient than they thought.”

“I always liked the quote below, but I had to dig it up online:

"And there is the story of how fellow scientist Bob Serber prepared for the dangers of the first test of the atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Teller [Edward Teller, so called "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb"] writes that he asked Serber how he planned to deal with the rattlesnakes Oppenheimer had warned them about. Bring a bottle of whiskey was the reply. Then, Teller noted that some scientists feared the bomb could ignite the atmosphere. What would Serber do about that? Take a second bottle of whiskey."

But Fermi did in fact speculate that the chain reaction may not stop and in fact ignite the atmosphere. He speculated out loud about this and apparently really pissed off Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. I can hear him now, "Can it Fermi, as if I don't have enough to worry about with the Japanese and the President and Feynman's antics you want me to worry about igniting the atmosphere?"

I think that the reality of what the atomic bomb meant hadn't really sunk in to many people, however. I mean people were EATING radium 100 years ago. I am betting it was hard for people to take speculation like this seriously no matter how educated it was.”

“Nobody knew anything about it. It all took place in the strictest secrecy. There was no Karl Rove talking to reporters about it.”

“I guess I meant the people working on the project. They had never set off a bomb before and they only knew what to expect in a paper and pencil sense. The bomb turned out to be far more powerful than they thought at 20,000 tons of TNT. Nobody really knew what it meant until they set it off.

I mean conventional bombs were like 1-4 tons back then and huge bombs were 10 tons. Most large bombers carried between 6 - 10 tons of explosives. So here was a single bomb that had more firepower than 2,000 fully loaded very large bombers. The Brits only had 1,200 bombers total at the peak of Bomber Command and most of these didn’t carry 10 tons of bombs (heck, most of ours didn’t either). I just don't think that any of them really knew what these numbers meant until they set off the first one and surveyed the damage.”