Wednesday, March 5, 2014

fission

Fusion, fission, same difference, they're both explosions.

No it isn't.

Regarding nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, fission is splitting of atoms and fusion is fusing them together into bigger atoms.

Declassified historical photographs at alternate wars. Loading the bomb. I am shocked. Frankly, I'm shocked how gay everybody looks. Short pants, Really short pants. You would call these men scrawny. Boy, people in the past sure were thin. I could photoshop cocktails in their hands and it will look like they're enjoying a summer party.

Somehow my attention landed on the weldings (riveted on the rivets) of "the device" scrolling back up several photographs titled "the device," "the device," "the device," ah there it is, little boy, the actual bomb and the welding at the fins are lumpy. I thought. Lump, lump lump lump lump lump lump lump all the way across like an amateur welder, a real beginner welder was sitting there melting a rod onto it like a caterpillar crawling across leaving a line of metal caterpillar poops.

The scene in a book opened up in my mind of the welder in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the author's bike breaks down and needs repair. There is a wait, they meet the repairman and observed the craftsman welder at work described as artist, true artist with his craft, the flashing back and forth, carefully pre-heating the metal and keeping it the right temperature, depositing just enough of the rod to fill and work it in so that no repair is apparent, the kind of craftsmanship that places high value on quality. That is the point of the book, to recognize quality. Artistic quality not apparent in this fin welding, and it makes you realize, wow, they just threw that together.


Should have had the hippy guy do the welding on the fins and the box behind them. 

14 comments:

rhhardin said...

Radio Japan goes all sad, as if really bad weather had struck to end WWII, every year.

It's American Technology Day over here.

bagoh20 said...

Maybe they were concerned that it would not detonate, so they didn't want it to look special if it was found, hoping that it would just be destroyed upon discovery. If so, then the artistry is there - the art of camouflage.

Hagar said...

It only had to be good enough - which it apparently was.

bagoh20 said...

What if they welded it so well that the explosion was contained inside, and couldn't get out. They had scientists and stuff, so I think this is probably the reason.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I thought fission was stale cocacola ;)

chickelit said...

Richard Rhodes' "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb" is the best account of all this that I've ever read.

edutcher said...

"Frankly, I'm shocked how gay everybody looks. Short pants, Really short pants."

That's why they were stateside.

Either that or they were all old boyfriends of... somebody's mother.

"You would call these men scrawny. Boy, people in the past sure were thin."

Everybody was on short rations from '29 - '45.

rhhardin said...

Radio Japan goes all sad, as if really bad weather had struck to end WWII, every year.

Cloudy with a high of 5000 degrees.

bagoh20 said...

Maybe they were concerned that it would not detonate

It was a very big concern.

Revenant said...

Boy, people in the past sure were thin.

Well, people in the *military* tend to look that way after a while, at least the ones in combat zones. Bad food in limited quantity + long hours = little fat.

ricpic said...

Surprised Oppenheimer wasn't there to supervise loading of his baby.

chickelit said...

Surprised Oppenheimer wasn't there to supervise loading of his baby.

Oppenheimer was there for the Trinity test, but he had an able lieutenant named Robert Serber to get his hands dirty. Oppie was a notorious disaster in the lab.

chickelit said...

Serber also named the bombs : Little Boy, Fat Man, Thin Man. The latter was never deployed. "Fat Man" and "Thin Man" were monikers for Churchill and Roosevelt.

Valentine Smith said...

All of the aesthetics went into the explosion, sublime.

The Dude said...

So Thin Man had wheels?

deborah said...

Great thread, Chip. Great eye on the bomb welding. And what a bunch of hotties! You have been jaded by modernity.