Great is the hand that holds Dominion over Man

[Art Blade]

yes, heard about it and seen that vid, too. Although there'd be a lot of things to say, it still renders me speechless.

[fragger]

There's no doubt that an atomic blast is an awesome spectacle to behold - from a long way away in time and distance, and on film. The fact in the Wiki article that the energy of the Tsar Bomba explosion equalled 1.4% of the sun's energy output was astounding ???

Test film #60 and another quite like it that I came across on Youtube that had a woman speaking as part of the narration were created for the sole purpose (the second film said as much) of putting the general public at ease and open to the suggestion of embracing living with the bomb as a beautiful protector.

Or to paraphrase the subtitle of Dr. Strangelove, "learn to stop worrying and love the bomb..." ::)

Any idea of the date of those test films, mandru? Just curious.

[JRD]

Holey crap  ???

I've been skipping this film at w@&k as I'm not supposed to watch youtube vids during working hours and kept forgetting to watch it at home.

What the hell are they doing to our planet  >:((

[mandru]

fragger, "Test Film #60" was Exercise Desert Rock shot in 1951 and the other video I referred to was actually two clips called "1955 Creepy Nuclear Test! 1 of 2" and "2 of 2".

[fragger]

Cheers :)

[mandru]

 :)  :-X

[Binnatics]

 :o just read the topic...  ??? ??? ???
If you see the beginning movie you somehow expect the earth to blow any moment. Did these guys (I mean the testers) know the risk of actually crashing the earth's crust? Not that I know, but shouldn't there be any risk of creating a vulcano or an earthquake or so? Especially in that valley in Mississippi since they did so much testing on a single piece of land...

And that's what we call civilized

[JRD]

I`m concerned with two things basically

1-) how much radiation was put into our atmosphere that can create a not so high but constant fallout (the long term results of exposure to low levels of radiation can be devastating)  ???

2-) The politicians and war pigs responsible for detonating most of those warheads are the ones claiming that nuclear energy should never be used as a weapon  >:((

[Art Blade]

When you think about what preceded the actual atomic bomb  you come to realise that no matter what (literally no "matter" what) humans discover, they'll try to make a weapon out of it.

Back in the day scientists found out that atoms existed, which had been merely a heretic thought, by throwing pollen into water and watch the tiny pollen swirl around in still water, apparently all by themselves (an observation made and ignored for some time). Actually, the pollen did not move all by themselves, but by something in the water, a lot smaller than any microscope could detect, so there had  to be atoms. Later they found out that atoms had to have a sub-atomic structure. An atom is comprised of a nucleus, which is composed of protons and neutrons, orbited by electrons. Now if protons had an electric charge (positive) while neutrons had no charge, then protons should fly apart, away from one another just like two positive poles of two magnets. Yet inside of a nucleus those protons would stick together.. a new force! Known forces so far were gravity and electromagnetism. The new force was the nuclear  force. Now if you could split an atom you would set free that force and.. well yes. You could use it as a new source of energy but also, perhaps, create a weapon of mass destruction...  :D

[mmosu]

Nuclear weapons aren't even what scare me the most.  Did you know small pox has killed more human beings than every other disease and every war ever fought by human beings combined?  Small pox has essentially been eradicated in nature, but the disease still exists in various laboratories around the world - one of these labs is less than a mile away from my clinic at school!  :o  Now why do you suppose anyone as a nation would want to keep something like that around?  I can sum it up in one word:  deterrence.  If everyone (or at least all the "good guys") have it, nobody will use it . . . we hope  ???

[Art Blade]

So far, the earth has survived nature. Nature itself has survived, and humans are part of nature. I guess.

[mandru]

People are part of nature and so is radiation.  Radiation as it is found in nature doesn't scare me.  People doing stupid stuff with radiation does.

First off I will admit that I hold the opinion that it would really be best if we as a species avoided doing stupid stuff.

I'll leave it up to each individual to determine what level of unsmartness needs to be present in their activities before their neighbors begin to consider it stupid stuff and start showing up with torches and pitchforks.

With that out of the way I'll venture to say that if it wasn't for radiation there wouldn't be any nature.

The liquid core of our earth remains a liquid because of heat from radiation.  Huge massive amounts of radiation and I'm not talking about the type of radiation one speaks of when they are talking about a steam radiator in the corner of the room used to provide radiant heating as found in old apartment buildings.

It keeps getting to the surface too and always has.  The overall Biosphere has the resiliency to deal with and absorb it.

Every volcanic eruption, radon gas seeping out of the ground, newly formed surface material created by plate tectonics are all sources of natural radiation.  There's a naturally occurring place I heard about in France that every time it rains the water boils off out of the ground as radioactive steam because of high uranium content in the soil.  Still we have nice sunny days and nature goes on in spite of that continual leak and historically we are at a low point in over all volcanic activity.  There have been many times in the past that far exceeded our current exposure to those natural sources of hard radiation.

We owe a lot of our existence to all that radiation.  It keeps our massive liquid iron core liquid which rotates with the day.  Spinning liquid iron is the engine that creates the earth's magnetic field.  That's not just something that allows people with compasses to find their way around.  The magnetic field powers the Van Allen belts that in turn keep the much harsher solar radiation from scouring life back off the face of the planet and some would say provided the much needed solar radiation shade needed for life to form in the first place.

Oddly enough I once actually heard a scientist at the top of his professional field that was being interviewed for a television documentary about "Life on Earth" respond to the question "Why is there life on Earth?" with the answer "There is life on Earth because there is life on Earth."

The interviewer pestered him further about supplying such a dodgy answer and the irritated look on the scientist's face clearly said "silly stupid person I've answered your question and you can't even see it" but he sighed and relented saying "Higher life forms are only possible because of lower life forms that have preceded them.  Lower life forms had even lower life forms that proceeded them making it possible for them to come about.  It is a process that keeps going back in time and I'm not prepared to point at a creature or event and say This Is Where It Started" at which point his interview in the program ended.

Looking back at his original answer "There is life on Earth because there is life on Earth" in that light does make it seem like quite a profound answer and not a dodge at all.

Radiation's not our enemy.

People doing stupid stuff with radiation to establish and maintain their personal power base comes much closer to filling that job description.

[Art Blade]

good one  :) :-X

[mandru]

And then there's this bit of good news.  The launch code was all zeroes?  ???

http://www.wimp.com/allzeroes/

[Art Blade]

I followed that vid link until I happened upon this one. Pics speak for themselves.

http://www.wimp.com/japanesetsunami/

[JRD]

 ???

[RedRaven]

Must apologise if my comments about the testing in Australia. On reflection they could be taken as a callous disregard for the suffering caused to the people there, and all Australians. It was not my intention to come across as Cold-hearted about it.

[Art Blade]

I didn't think you were. And it's not as if you had thrown an atomic bomb and said "oops" later  :-D

[RedRaven]

Indeed, not yet up to the standard of evil genius super villain yet.


Working on it though ;)