Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The world's first atomic bomb.
[00:00:02] The Gadget bomb was a spherical device with a plutonium core lifted to the top of a 30 meter tower during the famous Trinity test explosion.
[00:00:12] The first ever nuclear test, codenamed Trinity, took place on July 16, 1945, a date often considered the beginning of the atomic age.
[00:00:23] The atomic bomb detonated during the test was named Gadget. Developed as part of the US Manhattan Project aimed at creating nuclear weapons.
[00:00:33] Gadget was a plutonium implosion device with a design similar to the Fat man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, just weeks after the Trinity test.
[00:00:45] The two bombs had only minor differences, most notably in the trigger and outer casing.
[00:00:51] Gadget was a spherical implosion device made up of 32 hexagonal or pentagonal lenses formed from two types of high explosives.
[00:01:01] These lenses surrounded a plutonium core at the center.
[00:01:05] Special detonators were designed to ignite the explosive lenses in perfect synchrony, compressing the plutonium core and triggering a nuclear explosion.
[00:01:16] At the core of Gadget, shock waves converged to create pressure 500,000 times greater than atmospheric pressure at Earth's surface.
[00:01:26] The assembly of gadget began on July 13, 1945 at McDonald Ranch House in New Mexico.
[00:01:35] After the polonium beryllium initiator was assembled, physicist Louis Sloten placed it inside the two hemispheres of the plutonium core.
[00:01:44] Metallurgist Cyril Smith then placed the plutonium core inside a cylindrical uranium tube. The gaps in the tube were sealed with 0.013 millimeters gold foil and the two halves were joined with a uranium gasket and screws.
[00:02:03] Once complete, the Manhattan Project team transported Gadget to the base of the test tower and lifted it to the top.
[00:02:11] Some feared the Trinity test could ignite Earth's atmosphere, wiping out all life. Although calculations showed this was impossible, even with devices far more powerful than the bombs of that time.
[00:02:24] More conservative estimates suggested that the state of New Mexico might be incinerated. The predicted yield of gadget ranged from zero if it failed to 20 kilotons of TNT.
[00:02:38] At 5:29am on July 16, 1945, Gadget exploded, leaving behind a radioactive glass crater 3 meters deep and 340 meters wide in the desert at the moment of the explosion. The surrounding mountains were illuminated brighter than daylight for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported to be as hot as an oven.
[00:03:04] The colors of the light changed from purple to green, finally turning white.
[00:03:09] The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers.
[00:03:14] The shock wave could be felt over 160 km away, and the mushroom cloud reached a height of 12.1 km.
[00:03:23] Once the initial excitement of witnessing the explosion faded, the test director, Kenneth Bainbridge, turned to theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, a key member of the Manhattan Project, and said, now we are all sons of bitches.
[00:03:41] Oppenheimer later reflected on the test, recalling a verse from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita.
[00:03:49] Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
