Atomic Overlook: a photo series by Clay Lipsky

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You just can’t make a photo like this anymore. :frowning:

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one of my math professors liked to point to statements like that in a proof and say “this is vacuously true.” :slight_smile:

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Looking at a lot of the images the thought I can’t get out of my head is: scorched retinas. There are a few where the scale doesn’t seem right, which is unfortunately jarring.

Once you’re past the first (very short) flash, you are in the phase of a growing fireball. The radiated power is then dependent on the surface area and temperature. The main risk here is thermal-radiation burns, much like with other fireballs (the BLEVE explosions or those when firefighting water accumulates in a storage tank under burning oil and then flashes to steam - these can be an equivalent of a BIG fuel-air bomb). So once you see the first flash, you can open your eyes and turn around. Or just not face the ground zero to start with, and when you see the reflected flash, turn. Or, when you don’t have direct visibility of the first flash, don’t bother.

It’s a nuke, not a Magic Destroying Everything. Its power is fairly limited.

Once you’re past the first (very short) flash, you are in the phase of a
growing fireball. The radiated power is then dependent on the surface
area and temperature.

I’m well aware of the physics. If you look at the pictures, a lot of the individuals look like they would either have been caught off guard, or were staring staring directly at ground zero from the beginning, sans eye shielding.

It’s a nuke, not a Magic Destroying Everything. Its power is fairly limited.

Yep.

They are also pretty far away. I would have to dig up my copy of “Effects of Nuclear Weapons” to get the actual energies/powers/radiative fluxes involved. From that we can calculate the amount of energy that gets to a fully dilated eye pupil and can be focused to retina; the damage thresholds should be either there or borrowed from a laser safety handbook.

Then we could identify the individual tests from the shapes of their +1 shrooms, look up the yields, and calculate the eye-safe distances.

But I am too tired for that today. :frowning:
Todo… a laser-cut keychain version of the nuke yield/damage mechanical calculator…

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