Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Trinity Anniversary Edition

78 years ago today at 5:29:45 AM (Mountain War Time) about 35 miles SE of Socorro, New Mexico, the nuclear age began with a big bang when the United States Manhattan Project successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon codename "Trinity". The scientists referred to it as the "Gadget." Contrary to popular belief, the area surrounding the remote Trinity test site was not uninhabited, and the fallout did not drift away harmlessly.



In fact, some 40,000 people lived in the vicinity. Manhattan Project scientists methodically tracked the radioactive cloud from that first test. The Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment Project created a more recent graphic (bottom pic) using the same data...




The scientists expected some fallout, but assumed that detonating the device at the top of a 100-foot tower would minimize it. But the explosion was larger than they anticipated and the fireball touched the ground, generating substantially more.

Some scientists involved had feared it might set the earth's atmosphere on fire. Long before the test itself, Edward Teller did some calculations and concluded that was a serious possibility. Hans Bethe checked Teller's math and found the calculations to be not correct and the likelihood was exceedingly small. Nevertheless, some non-physicsts continued to believe it was a risk. They had a poor track record in the years to come with thermonuclear bombs, most notably Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, which was a biblical explosion beyond imagination at that time.



The occult scientists do love obelisks & pyramids. Trinity Site obelisk. The black plaque on top reads: 


Trinity Site Where The World's First Nuclear Device Was Exploded On July 16, 1945 
Erected 1965 White Sands Missile Range
 J. Frederick Thorlin Major General U.S. Army Commanding 
The gold plaque below it declares the site a National Historic Landmark, and reads: 
Trinity Site has been designated a National Historical Landmark This Site Possesses National Significance In Commemorating The History of the United States of America 
1975 National Park Service United States Department of the Interior.

In 2021, scientists at Los Alamos reassessed the yield of the Trinity test using high-precision mass spectrometry and found the actual yield was 24.8 ± 2 kilotons, significantly larger than the longtime accepted value of 21 kilotons.

A New Yield Assessment for the Trinity Nuclear Test, 75 Years Later

Although first raised in late 1947, but ignored for decades, Trinity’s radioactive fallout had significant immediate and long-term consequences. This Atomic Bulletin article reveals evidence of a dramatic increase in infant mortality in the downwind region in the months after the test.


It’s very difficult to gauge how large the Trinity explosion was in photos or films. Fortunately, a nuke historian created this composite image which stacks photos at a consistent scale and includes the Empire State Building as a reference.




In 2019, "Atom Central" released a shock 'n awe restored black-and-white HD footage of the Trinity test, which was conducted in New Mexico’s aptly-named Jornada del Muerto desert (translates from Spanish as "Dead Man's Journey"). The cleaned-up film reveals a remarkable amount of detail previously unseen.





Also, Atom Central released this 11 second rare view of the Trinity test from a 16-mm high-speed Eastman camera shooting through a prism. As filmmaker Peter Kuran notes, “it displays some interesting anomalies not seen in other footage of the Trinity test.”

Those present at Trinity had a variety of reactions. Los Alamos director Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Physicist Kenneth Bainbridge, the test director, was more blunt: "Now we are all sons of bitches."

On September 9, 1945, General Leslie Groves, the military director of the Manhattan Project, opened up the Trinity site to journalists in order to refute disturbing reports coming from Hiroshima and Nagasaki of deadly radiation-caused illnesses.



At one point, Groves ordered Patrick Stout, a 29-year-old Army counterintelligence agent and his driver, to join him at ground zero to prove it was safe. Stout who also witnessed the Trinity test, remained there for 30 minutes. He later became severely ill with leukemia and died 22 years later.


A medical expert at Stout’s military disability compensation appeal estimated his total exposure at nearly 100 roentgens (the crews of two lead-lined tanks sent into the crater several times to collect soil samples the day of the test received 7-15 roentgens). Stout died in 1969.



There is only one in-focus, properly-exposed, color photograph of the Trinity test fireball.



It was taken with this Perfex 33 camera with a 35mm lens, using a shutter speed of 1/100 at f4 and Anscochrome color movie stock film by Jack Aeby, a 21-year-old civilian Manhattan Project employee based at Los Alamos who was not a professional photographer.





In a 2003 interview, Aeby discussed the making of that historic photograph.

Jack Aeby was one of the first civilian employees on the Manhattan Project, and captured the only color photograph of the Trinity test. He worked in many areas, starting with transporting people from Lamy to 109 E. Palace Avenue in Santa Fe and then on up the Hill. He was put in charge of the chemical stockroom. Aeby moved to P-5 (Physics Group 5) with Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain. He reactivated the Los Alamos Ranch School’s Boy Scout Troop 22 on demand of the school superintendent. He discusses working with Emilio Segrè at Los Alamos, and how his famous photo of the Trinity test came about.

Aeby: It wasn’t long after that General Groves, who wasn’t anywhere around, said he wanted that picture. Well, he got it [chuckle]. So it was published fairly widely once the secrecy was off and they could at least announce that they had then bombed Japan and it became public knowledge that such a weapon existed.

So then they started publishing that picture as what happened at Trinity under the auspices of the US Army photo, so my credits didn’t stop or start til later on. I was interviewed by a couple newspapers and they finally started giving me credit.

That’s where that is and that’s what I did and this is only the most important event in my life. There were other things, yes I carried water as it were, dug ditches, moved sand, ran around our bunkers and this kind of thing, but that isn’t terribly interesting.

Aeby: There was some pressure of course to get done by—there wasn’t any deadlines or any such like this except with a man like General Groves somewhere in the background always. It was like the big eye in the sky, “Hey, you aren’t doing enough” or I don’t know—there was that feeling that you could do more and you should do more.

Kelly: You mentioned General Groves, did you ever hear him speak or—

Aeby: Oh yeah. Often.

Kelly: Tell me how he came across?

Aeby: Upon various occasions, he came across like a strong leader, ambitious, and in a word: a bumptious ass upon occasion. But that’s personal opinion and I assure there are others.

Kelly: I get the sense from talking to people that he was often sort of the butt of some jokes.

Aeby: Oh yes, often.

Radioactive fallout from the Trinity test drifted across the country, but the government never alerted people to the danger. Some of it fell into rivers in Indiana and Iowa, contaminating the strawboard Kodak used to package its X-ray film and ruining it.



Popular Mechanics


When the same problem occurred after the first open air tests ("Operation Ranger", originally named "Operation Faust") dropped by B-50D bombers in Nevada in early 1951, Kodak threatened to sue the gov’t. In response, the Atomic Energy Commission offered to alert Kodak before each future test and provide classified daily maps showing areas of potentially heavy fallout.


Excerpt from "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940" (1998) By Stephen I. Schwartz:



A Kodak executive and personnel at other film companies were issued "Q" clearances to receive and use this secret information to ensure their company’s products were not harmed by radioactive fallout. By contrast, the AEC consistently lied to the public about fallout’s dangers.

I think this was the beginning of how Kodak had accidentally injected itself into the Cold War secrets and later the top secret Corona satellite program and many other DoD projects.