A Peaceful Reminder

Sixty three years ago, on August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped a 15 kt nuclear device, nicknamed “Little Boy,” onto the unsuspecting city of Hiroshima (view the 360 degree panorama of the aftermath). Just a few days later, a 21 kt device nicknamed “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki.

Robert Oppeheimer, the “Father of the Nuclear Bomb,” hoped that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima could be avoided, and along with other scientists, argued unsuccessfully for a demonstration of the new bomb with leaders of Japan before any wartime use of such a weapon. However, he admitted it might have needed to be done in order to stop the WWII.

However, for the next several decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even to the day of his death, Oppenheimer questioned what made Nagasaki necessary and publicly wondered why we hadn’t tried more diplomacy before dropping the second device.

When I designed a scale on the floor for "Nuclear Dichotomies" (a show at the Bemis Underground a couple of years back that I roped my brother into), I created a simple conversion to illustrate the differences between the sizes of atomic devices like “Little Boy” and the Hydrogen Bombs that would be tested about a decade later.

For the conversion scale I simply took one kiloton of explosive power and converted it to one foot. This does not calculate the size of the fireball, but rather, it is a simple game of numbers. So, the conversion scale became this:

1 kt = 1 ft

This positioned “Little Boy” about 15 feet from a wall that displayed a looping video of nuclear explosions. Every distance that would not fit in the gallery was plotted with the help of land surveryor, Larry Van Fleet (below), who I worked with at Ehrhart, Griffin & Associates years ago when I was learning surveying at Mark's company.

In addition to plotting the more than 1,000 devices exploded by the U.S., we also plotted Russia’s largest test, Tsar Bomba or “Big Ivan.” It exploded with an estimated 50 to 57 Megatons of power (depending on which estimate you want to go with) and an original design of 100 Mt. Converting the original design of the 100 Mt bomb and comparing it with the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, this was the difference in the scale:

Hiroshima = 15 feet
Ivan = 20 Miles

No, that is not a typo. 15 feet vs. 20 miles.

Visit Google Earth (you must download this file and Google Earth [free] in order to view it)

Don’t forget to take a moment to remember the souls lost on Aug 6th, 1945, and say your own prayer that bombs like Ivan will never be used.