Little Boy and Fat Man--an anniversary

Little Boy [foreground] and Fat Man [background]

An anniversary in a way of the beginning of nuclear weaponry development and politics--the assertion of world power and dominance. The debate of the use of nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities is still current and probably will be for some time. It is a complex issue of politics and a nation's desire to curtail one nation's imperialism and the desire to end armed combat. This date of the deployment of Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 claimed an estimated 70,000 to 130,000 immediate loss of indiscriminate life and three days later the deployment of Fat Man on Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945 claimed an estimated 45,000 immediate loss of indiscriminate life. Numerical estimates of deaths after the bombings is lacking but burns, radiation effects, and genetic mutations certainly were manifest.

Little Boy

Fat Man

Emilio Gino Segrè--early atomic physics

Emilio Gino Segrè
February 1st, 1905 to April 22nd, 1989

One of those physicists of relative unknown status during the infancy of atomic physics. He is credited with the discovery of the first artificially synthesized chemical element not occurring in nature--technetium as well as astatine and plutonium-239. And along with Owen Chamberlain discovered antiprotons.


atomicarchive.com

NobelPrize.org

ScienceMatters@Berkeley


Emilio Gino Segrè's online autobiography book:

Emilio Gino Segrè's autobiography