I picked to learn about the hydrogen bomb and
how it was viewed by the people at the time it was created for the topic of my
project. I was really excited about this topic because I knew that atomic bombs
and hydrogen bombs are different but I didn’t know how. I also knew that they
were both WMDs and those kinds of things interest me. It was not hard finding
information on this subject because as it turns out, many people like me were
interested in WMDs too.
After reading Engineering and Science Monthly,
I learned that there was a lot of debating going on between the people about if
the hydrogen bomb should be made or not. The majority of the public thought
that the creation of this WMD was completely immoral while others thought that
it was a strategic way to stop war from occurring. I also found out that when
scientists started telling the public what they were creating the people
started becoming very frightened because many thought that it would lead to
more bad than good. I liked this source because it not only told what was going on at the time but it also tells how the public felt about what was going on.
I wanted to find out how large the explosion of
the hydrogen bomb really was so I went to BBC News. What I found out
absolutely shocked me. I learned that the hydrogen bomb was supposedly 1,000
times the explosion of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WWII. When they tested the
explosion according to the BBC, “One of the
atolls has been totally vaporized, disappearing into a gigantic mushroom cloud
that spread at least 100 miles wide and dropping back to the sea in the form of
radioactive fall-out.” The U.S. created the first hydrogen bomb by using Dr. Teller’s design for the bomb. I liked the website because it was a different countries point of view of what was going on.
After learning about
how much destruction that just one of these bombs could cause, I wanted to find
out why the hydrogen bomb was built. I found out the Harry S. Truman was the
president at the time that gave the okay to start the creation of the hydrogen
bomb. I did some research and found the New York Times newspaper that
was printed the day that Truman made his announcement to the public. He says
that as president it was his job “to see to it that our country is able to
defend itself against any possible aggressor.” I also found out, from a
more recent New York Times newspaper, that the U.S. did not immediately start the
construction of the hydrogen bomb after WWII. It wasn’t until 1949 when Truman
ordered the creation of the hydrogen bomb because the U.S. found out that the Soviets were
successful in their attempt to make and detonate an atomic bomb. I enjoyed reading both of these newspapers because one was from the day the hydrogen bomb was detonated and the other was more recent and it was interesting seeing the difference from back then to now.
After learning all of this
information it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to know how on earth one bomb could
possibly cause that much destruction. After doing some more research I found out,
from a website on Nuclear Weapon Effects, that the explosion had three parts to
it. The first part is the blast. It takes up 50% of the energy from the bomb.
The second was the thermal radiation, which took up 35% of the energy. The last
step was the nuclear radiation using up the last 15%. According to FAS, the last 15% leaves residual nuclear radiation a few minutes after the
blast which is the dangerous part of fallout. I liked this website because it was the only website that I found that gave accurate statistics and told what exactly happens from the blast to the final product of the hydrogen bomb being detonated.
After finding out all this
information, I wondered if a hydrogen bomb had ever been used before or if it
was only tested. I did some research and found out that luckily it had only
been tested and never used on anyone before. I wanted to see this for myself so
I went onto youtube and found a video of the TSAR testing it out and I was
shocked. It was quite the experiencing seeing one of these go off from far
away. I have posted the video here and I hope that there will never come a time
when this weapon will be necessary to use.
Picture: A tenant on East Sixty-first Street, probably between First and Second avenues.
I chose this picture out of all the others pictures that Evans took because I think that it shows the most about how the Great Depression was. Walker Evan's goal was to capture what people saw everyday in regular neighborhoods during the Great Depression and he did exactly that. From this picture I see a man that, from the way he is dressed, seems to usually be a pretty happy guy that is now "depressed". Instead of being at work in the middle of the day he is sitting in front of a house on the steps all alone and doing nothing. From what we have learned about the Great Depression this picture is right on. It sums up exactly how many people had been during that time and he did it as simply as possible.
