The most notable scientists in the entire world, names you know, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Leo Szilard, Robert Oppenheimer, Emilio Segre, and many we did not ever hear of, gathered in the chilly late-night air of central New Mexico, July 16, 1945, to witness the single most important event in mankind's history: the unlocking of the atom!
The place was Trinity Site, the event was the testing of the first-ever nuclear bomb explosion. Two methods of achieving it had been explored, the easiest was also the least difficult to consummate, yet, they clung to the hope that the night's experiment would prove "the way". Their device defied conventional physics, which declared solid materials are incompressible. They successfully compressed a metal ball about the size of an orange, to about 3/4 it's size, thus rendering it "critical". It was a chunk of Plutonium, not of this earth, manmade, the second manmade element, after Neptunium.
The 40 lb. piece of Plutonium still weighed 40 lb., after they compressed it by concentrating high-explosive charges symmetrically all about it's circumference, but being smaller for that tiny instant, allowed it's natural emitting of neutrons to split far more neighboring atoms than when not compressed; before, it was simply emitting radiation. Now, in a millionth of a second, the ball disappeared, replaced by an ungodly release of energy in the form of an extremely high-powered X-ray release, enormous heat radiation as well as visible light "brighter than a thousand suns", on the order of a million degrees, a shock-wave of air displaced by this energy moving away from the site at extremely high velocity.
The "bomb" had worked. 3 or 4 years of the most concentrated scientific activity ever seen in the world, culminated that early morning. A blind girl said she saw a flash of light. Numerous cattle grazing died. Folks hundreds of miles away read news reports of an ammunition bunker exploding, after they had felt the shock wave.
The scientists were both elated and disgusted. Most knew this unimaginable force could be harnessed to work slowly, providing usable power, as it is today. But a war HAD to be won; this work would bring that about.
One scientist turned to his neighbor and said, "Now we are all sons of bitches". The other said, "We have released the IMP from his bottle, and the world will never be the same again".
Thus, I chose "imp". imp
The place was Trinity Site, the event was the testing of the first-ever nuclear bomb explosion. Two methods of achieving it had been explored, the easiest was also the least difficult to consummate, yet, they clung to the hope that the night's experiment would prove "the way". Their device defied conventional physics, which declared solid materials are incompressible. They successfully compressed a metal ball about the size of an orange, to about 3/4 it's size, thus rendering it "critical". It was a chunk of Plutonium, not of this earth, manmade, the second manmade element, after Neptunium.
The 40 lb. piece of Plutonium still weighed 40 lb., after they compressed it by concentrating high-explosive charges symmetrically all about it's circumference, but being smaller for that tiny instant, allowed it's natural emitting of neutrons to split far more neighboring atoms than when not compressed; before, it was simply emitting radiation. Now, in a millionth of a second, the ball disappeared, replaced by an ungodly release of energy in the form of an extremely high-powered X-ray release, enormous heat radiation as well as visible light "brighter than a thousand suns", on the order of a million degrees, a shock-wave of air displaced by this energy moving away from the site at extremely high velocity.
The "bomb" had worked. 3 or 4 years of the most concentrated scientific activity ever seen in the world, culminated that early morning. A blind girl said she saw a flash of light. Numerous cattle grazing died. Folks hundreds of miles away read news reports of an ammunition bunker exploding, after they had felt the shock wave.
The scientists were both elated and disgusted. Most knew this unimaginable force could be harnessed to work slowly, providing usable power, as it is today. But a war HAD to be won; this work would bring that about.
One scientist turned to his neighbor and said, "Now we are all sons of bitches". The other said, "We have released the IMP from his bottle, and the world will never be the same again".
Thus, I chose "imp". imp
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