Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Is It Really Possible for a Nuke to Ignite the Atmosphere?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Is It Really Possible for a Nuke to Ignite the Atmosphere?
At exactly 5:30 AM on July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb,
codenamed Trinity, detonated over the desert in New Mexico, unleashing
in an instant the power of 18,000 tons of TNT. The atomic age had begun.
As night turned to day and a fireball 200 metres across rose into the
sky, the scientists of the Manhattan Project who had built the bomb
reacted in different ways. Some were jubilant, others more somber. J.
Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the project, famously
recalled a line from the Hindu scripture (ba-ga-vad gee-ta) Baghavad
Gita: “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds”; while Kenneth
Bainbridge, director of the Trinity test, was more blunt, stating: “Now
we’re all sons of bitches.” Elsewhere around the test site, money
frantically changed hands as scientists settled a series of private
bets. Some had wagered that the test would be a dud, or that it would
reach just a fraction of its predicted yield. But others, including
Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, had wagered on a more disturbing
outcome: that the intense heat of the bomb would ignite the atmosphere,
setting off an unstoppable chain reaction that would wipe out all life
on earth. This apocalyptic bet has since become an infamous part of
nuclear lore, but does it have any basis in reality? Could the Trinity
test - or any nuclear weapon, for that matter - actually have set
earth’s atmosphere ablaze?
Well, let’s dive into it, shall we?
Author: Gilles Messier
Host: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By Cloud10
4.9
13701,370 ratings
At exactly 5:30 AM on July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb,
codenamed Trinity, detonated over the desert in New Mexico, unleashing
in an instant the power of 18,000 tons of TNT. The atomic age had begun.
As night turned to day and a fireball 200 metres across rose into the
sky, the scientists of the Manhattan Project who had built the bomb
reacted in different ways. Some were jubilant, others more somber. J.
Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the project, famously
recalled a line from the Hindu scripture (ba-ga-vad gee-ta) Baghavad
Gita: “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds”; while Kenneth
Bainbridge, director of the Trinity test, was more blunt, stating: “Now
we’re all sons of bitches.” Elsewhere around the test site, money
frantically changed hands as scientists settled a series of private
bets. Some had wagered that the test would be a dud, or that it would
reach just a fraction of its predicted yield. But others, including
Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, had wagered on a more disturbing
outcome: that the intense heat of the bomb would ignite the atmosphere,
setting off an unstoppable chain reaction that would wipe out all life
on earth. This apocalyptic bet has since become an infamous part of
nuclear lore, but does it have any basis in reality? Could the Trinity
test - or any nuclear weapon, for that matter - actually have set
earth’s atmosphere ablaze?
Well, let’s dive into it, shall we?
Author: Gilles Messier
Host: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More shows like The BrainFood Show
View all
Lore
45,026 Listeners
Astonishing Legends
9,487 Listeners
Skeptoid
2,666 Listeners
Last Podcast On The Left
51,319 Listeners
Myths and Legends
23,473 Listeners
Our Fake History
3,484 Listeners
Revisionist History
58,967 Listeners
Help Me Be Me
1,814 Listeners
Dark Histories
1,880 Listeners
MURDERISH
3,431 Listeners
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
8,317 Listeners
Behind the Bastards
15,699 Listeners
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities
8,401 Listeners
Enneagram & Coffee
1,051 Listeners
Advantage Connors
192 Listeners
The Casual Criminalist
2,747 Listeners
Black Girl Gone: A True Crime Podcast
2,277 Listeners
Hungry for Conversation with Natalie Puche
1,668 Listeners
Forever Young
54 Listeners
History of Everything
708 Listeners
The Codependent Podcast
930 Listeners
Decoding The Unknown
928 Listeners
Scorched Justice
413 Listeners
Dirty Money Moves: Women in White Collar Crime
320 Listeners
Raising and Rising
20 Listeners
CHRISTORY with Chris Manzo
96 Listeners
Funny Energy
73 Listeners
Untangling Toys
20 Listeners
Are You There Pod? It's Me, Dad
21 Listeners
Fantasy Foes
15 Listeners
The Moderns
0 Listeners
The Bad Good Parent
20 Listeners
The Reality Informant
20 Listeners
Warfronts
50 Listeners