Sixty years ago today the US government conducted the first nuclear explosion test.

Betting pools were set up among the observers for the results of the test. Some predictions ranged from zero, a dud, to 18 kilotons (predicted by I. I. Rabi), to destruction of the state of New Mexico, to ignition of the atmosphere and incineration of the planet (this result was calculated to be impossible beforehand, fortunately, though for awhile it caused some of the scientists some anxiety). As it turned out, Rabi won the bet, with a test result of 18.6 kilotons.

Oh those naive times.

The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers. The shock wave was felt over 160 km away, and the mushroom cloud reached 12 km. As Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the demonstration, he later said that a line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, came to mind:

"Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds."

Test director Kenneth Bainbridge, in an attempt to be less poetic or perhaps more so, stated "Now we are all sons of bitches."

Following the success of the Trinity test, two bombs were prepared for use against Japan. The first, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, was code-named "Little Boy", and utilized uranium-235 as its fissile source. It was an untested model, but seemed very likely to work. The second, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, was code-named "Fat Man", and was a plutonium bomb of the type tested at the Trinity test. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 100,000 people outright and many more over time, but were credited by the government for saving many more lives in the long run (see the previous link for information on this historical question and the controversy that surrounds it).

It's a dangerous world to have bombs like these. As soon as they're used, they lose their purpose.

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