The recent "end of the world" hysteria got me thinking about nuclear bombs. I find them fascinating in a "what have we done?" kind of way.

Years ago, I read a book called Dark Sun about the making of the hydrogen bomb. It included the following eerie, other-worldly photograph of a nuclear fireball. To give you an idea of its size, those tiny objects at the bottom are Joshua trees.

This picture filled me with both awe and dread. It had me questioning whether humanity should really be messing around with something that has so much nightmarish power. But I guess that's a moot point, as humanity *is* messing around with it.

Here are more pictures:

 
All of these photos were taken with a rapatronic camera, which is capable of capturing intricate details of a nuclear explosion starting one ten-millionth of a second after detonation. Exposure time is as little as ten nanoseconds. By then, a typical fireball is about 100 feet in diameter with temperatures three times hotter than the surface of the sun.

The "rope trick" effect was captured in some of the images. This occurred when the nuclear test devices were suspended above the ground and anchored by mooring cables. As the ball of plasma expanded, the radiating energy superheated and vaporized the cables just ahead of the fireball, creating the "spikes."

The mottled appearance of the fireball is the result of the vaporized debris of the bomb and the shot cab splashing against the back wall of the fireball’s hydrodynamic shock wave.

they look like marshmellows over a camp fire...

Nuclear bombs are quite both beautiful yet also mind boggling at why we'd create them.

I remember watching an episode of Billy connolly's Route 66 where he went to a musuem or something where people that actually helped make the bomb lived and owned it. They talked about how when they realized what the bomb was capable of, and what it was for, they actually took up a huge petition amongst themselves to try and get the higher ups not to use it, but that didn't do anything really.

edit - here is a little more info i found out about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szil%C3%A1rd_petition

I have actually been to Oak Ridge (we went on a school trip in high school, back in 2000 or so), not that far away from where I live actually. They have currently the worlds fastest supercomputer there.