Speaking of the Oppenheimer movie,
while the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have been possible without the work of many accomplished female scientists, the only women seen in the movie’s trailer are either hanging laundry, crying or cheering the men on.
Saw Oppenheimer on Thursday, and I was underwhelmed by the Trinity detonation. It looked like a very large gasoline explosion, but smaller than a BLEVE.
It reminded me though of what was called a large-area gas mine, which was a wagonwheel of det-cord with containers of mogas and fuel thickener spread along the cord. When triggered you could create a massive fireball about 200 meters across with this setup.
Here’s what it looks like about a second after detonation. If you add more fuel you can get a much more impressive fireball, but thats just a waste of fuel
How does it compare to David Lynch’s take on trinity? I’m guessing it contained 100% less Bob?
What? Is this in one of his shorts?
Ah, thanks! I haven’t watched that one yet; still in the pile of DVDs that somehow accumulated over the lockdown…
Looks like they got that one slightly wrong as well. To the best of my knowledge they didn’t include any smoke trails to record the passing of the shock wave in the Trinity test.
And why would they, they were making up nuclear testing as they went along…
I think either Fermi or Johnny von Neumann dropped a handful of paper scraps and, based on their distribution, did a first quick ballpark calculation of the blast’s strength right there and then.
ETA:
I mean, it’s not like David Lynch is known for making documentaries, so…
In Nolan’s film it looks like he is trying to do a representation of a nuke, not a faithful reproduction of what Trinity actually looked like. The representation of the detonation isn’t critical (zing!l) to the story being told in Oppenheimer.
I had not seen the lynch clip. From the looks of it they are trying to leave two different impressions.
BLEVE
At least that Spanish truck driver saved a three dollar toll.
Given that it gives creates Bob I was not expecting it to be historically accurate… 
It’s intense, though. Because… Lynch.
Yep, same with Lynch…
That’s a particularly polarizing episode of a particular polarizing show but I thought it was pretty amazing. Maybe not scientifically accurate or anything but c’mon it’s a show about transdimensional demons and supernatural shenanigans couched in a small town murder mystery, so what do you expect?
It’s a Nolan movie, so it’s not going to have, you know, a surplus of well developed women. Really only two women with significant roles in the whole film. They are not in the hard sciences and they both have sex with Oppenheimer. There’s a third smaller role of a wife of a prominent physicist… who you learn later in the film was fucking Oppenheimer.
There’s one woman scientist who comes on in the Manhattan project section and complains that HR is trying to make her a secretary. Oppenheimer gives her a position in the chemistry group. Her 15 seconds or so are Nolan’s hand wave to the women who contributed.
Edited: full disclosure changed an instance of using female to woman
