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In the Gadget section it says:
'It was feared by some that the Trinity test might "ignite" the earth's atmosphere, eliminating all life on the planet, although a classified report produced several years earlier had demonstrated that this was not possible.[17]'
The report in reference 17 seems to have been written in 1946 ( http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf), a year after the test, so I think this should be re-worded to remove the reference.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggaughan ( talk • contribs) 07:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Interesting - another pioneering computer scientist working on Manhattan. It's good they did the calculations before the test. It does seem that reference 17 isn't that report from 'several years earlier' though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggaughan ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I've heard a few mentions of a story that some sort of radio interference made a radio station playing Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings cut into the military channels during the Trinity test. Does anyone have references on whether or not this is simply urban legend, and if so, is it noteworthy enough for inclusion? It seems quite widespread, even if people usually recount it with the qualifier that it is probably just a good story. -- 87.55.111.25 ( talk) 15:00, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations to everyone in bringing this back to GA status. As a new(?) GA, is it eligible for WP:DYK?
Some suggested hooks (more formatting needed)
Would be nice... -- Demiurge1000 ( talk) 19:15, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
At the very least we should relay the story of Fermi using bits of confetti paper to estimate the yield of the gadget, the story can be found on Enrico Fermi and in nuclear fireball, furthermore I'd like to see explained why the initial estimates of the yield stated by Oppenheimer were so wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.175.116 ( talk) 03:37, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
AIUI, 'Gadget' had two meanings, depending on date and context.
Early on, 'Gadget' was the term for the design of a physics package, broadly the weaponising of a scientific principle. This was a specific and relatively narrow piece of work, because most of Manhattan's efforts were actually going into research in physics or metallurgy, or the problem of producing fissile materials. 'Gadget' work began with the concept of core compression (by linear assembly or implosion) and turning physics into a weapon.
Later on, 'The Gadget' became a term for the specific physics package to be used for Trinity. This was not a bomb: it had no casing, no fuzing and didn't necessarily have the mechanical robustness to be air-dropped. An even more obvious demonstration of the differences would be for the cryogenic thermonuclear devices, such as the Ivy Mike 'Sausage' / Mk 16 bomb. In Trinity's case, it ended up being mechanically very similar to Fat Man, although the X unit wasn't robust enough (you can make electronics to be easily modifiable during development, or packed solid to be robust, but it's hard to do both simultaneously) and AFAIK there had been proposals to test implosion with more crudely built mechanical prototypes at one time, overtaken by good progress on the mechanical design intended for Fat Man. Trinity was a test of physics and effects, not of engineering: there was already confidence that the engineering was good. The "thing built for Trinity" though was not a bomb, never a bomb and still needed something to call it - hence, 'The Gadget'. Andy Dingley ( talk) 12:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
While the article should certainly explain what the term "gadget" means, how and why it was used, etc., I can't see any justification for using it in running text instead of some other term such as "bomb". Mr. Hawkeye7, what say you, sir? E Eng 07:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Pg 4 of the reference lists the energy fractionation from the fission of uranium. A sterile listing of numbers that you would need to be familiar with the physics to understand the relevance of, a sterile listing isn't very helpful or connective to the table we're editing in this encyclopedic Trinity article. A table that the Manhattan Project scientists would actually have had to know a rough estimate on how it would look, even before the test. For that reason I put some basic scientific explanation onto these numbers, as a note to those who can at least follow percentages.
Blast | 50% |
Thermal energy | 35% |
Initial ionizing radiation | 5% |
Residual fallout radiation | 10% |
So in basic terms of percentages then(how it pretains to the FAS table at right). ~83% of the energy is emitted as blast, light and heat. ~5% of the energy is emitted by the two initial/prompt nuclear radiations and with a little time-overlap wrt the delayed neutrons. ~7-13% is residual radiation. As can be seen, this fundamental physics, manifests in the observed weapons effects and specifically the FAS table we have in the article.
Another reference Hawkeye7 that corroborates this presentation, this manifestation of the fundamental physics into the effects of fission weapons in the atmosphere is : NUCLEAR EVENTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES by the Borden institute..."approximately 82% of the fission energy is released as kinetic energy of the two large fission fragments. These fragments, being massive and highly charged particles, interact readily with matter. They transfer their energy quickly to the surrounding weapon materials, which rapidly become heated" Boundarylayer ( talk) 03:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
References
My edits linking the Anthropocene-epoch proposal have been challenged, as needing references. There are plenty in that article, but duplication here seems like clutter. (Well, it does to me.) Yet the point seems an important one to bring to the reader’s attention. My idea is to leave it to the interested reader, who wants references, to seek them in the linked article. What do people think?
Probably the best single reference there is this [1] *together with the references it provides*.
- SquisherDa ( talk) 13:15, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
References
What is "MWT"? The link doesn't explain. Grassynoel ( talk) 21:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
I see that in 2012, this page had a nuclear fallout map removed- Also given the recent renewed interest in the site due to Oppenheimer (film) with up to 100K hits per day, I think this absolutely needs to be on the page. Even if the last NCI map is controversial, as mentioned in https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/lawmakers-move-urgently-to-recognize-survivors-of-the-first-atomic-bomb-test. Any suggestions? Wuerzele ( talk) 18:01, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
@ EEng: What is so had to envisage about a ring with a triangular cross-section? ] Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:43, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
later cores were plated with nickel instead.[64] The Trinity core consisted of just these two hemispheres. Later cores also included a ring with a triangular cross-section to prevent jets forming in the gap between them.[65]
@ Alexonion@ Hawkeye7 I support addition of the link to the J. Robert Oppenheimer article in the list of the Trinity test observers. There are so many links to the J. Robert Oppenheimer in the entire Trinity article, that one more will not make a difference. Szelma W ( talk) 12:04, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Some of the pictures seem to be overlapping to the point where you have to click on them in order to view them well. Bucky winter soldier ( talk) 12:29, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Trinity (nuclear test) article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
Trinity (nuclear test) is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trinity (nuclear test) is part of the History of the Manhattan Project series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 16, 2015. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In the Gadget section it says:
'It was feared by some that the Trinity test might "ignite" the earth's atmosphere, eliminating all life on the planet, although a classified report produced several years earlier had demonstrated that this was not possible.[17]'
The report in reference 17 seems to have been written in 1946 ( http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf), a year after the test, so I think this should be re-worded to remove the reference.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggaughan ( talk • contribs) 07:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Interesting - another pioneering computer scientist working on Manhattan. It's good they did the calculations before the test. It does seem that reference 17 isn't that report from 'several years earlier' though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggaughan ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I've heard a few mentions of a story that some sort of radio interference made a radio station playing Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings cut into the military channels during the Trinity test. Does anyone have references on whether or not this is simply urban legend, and if so, is it noteworthy enough for inclusion? It seems quite widespread, even if people usually recount it with the qualifier that it is probably just a good story. -- 87.55.111.25 ( talk) 15:00, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations to everyone in bringing this back to GA status. As a new(?) GA, is it eligible for WP:DYK?
Some suggested hooks (more formatting needed)
Would be nice... -- Demiurge1000 ( talk) 19:15, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
At the very least we should relay the story of Fermi using bits of confetti paper to estimate the yield of the gadget, the story can be found on Enrico Fermi and in nuclear fireball, furthermore I'd like to see explained why the initial estimates of the yield stated by Oppenheimer were so wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.175.116 ( talk) 03:37, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
AIUI, 'Gadget' had two meanings, depending on date and context.
Early on, 'Gadget' was the term for the design of a physics package, broadly the weaponising of a scientific principle. This was a specific and relatively narrow piece of work, because most of Manhattan's efforts were actually going into research in physics or metallurgy, or the problem of producing fissile materials. 'Gadget' work began with the concept of core compression (by linear assembly or implosion) and turning physics into a weapon.
Later on, 'The Gadget' became a term for the specific physics package to be used for Trinity. This was not a bomb: it had no casing, no fuzing and didn't necessarily have the mechanical robustness to be air-dropped. An even more obvious demonstration of the differences would be for the cryogenic thermonuclear devices, such as the Ivy Mike 'Sausage' / Mk 16 bomb. In Trinity's case, it ended up being mechanically very similar to Fat Man, although the X unit wasn't robust enough (you can make electronics to be easily modifiable during development, or packed solid to be robust, but it's hard to do both simultaneously) and AFAIK there had been proposals to test implosion with more crudely built mechanical prototypes at one time, overtaken by good progress on the mechanical design intended for Fat Man. Trinity was a test of physics and effects, not of engineering: there was already confidence that the engineering was good. The "thing built for Trinity" though was not a bomb, never a bomb and still needed something to call it - hence, 'The Gadget'. Andy Dingley ( talk) 12:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
While the article should certainly explain what the term "gadget" means, how and why it was used, etc., I can't see any justification for using it in running text instead of some other term such as "bomb". Mr. Hawkeye7, what say you, sir? E Eng 07:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Pg 4 of the reference lists the energy fractionation from the fission of uranium. A sterile listing of numbers that you would need to be familiar with the physics to understand the relevance of, a sterile listing isn't very helpful or connective to the table we're editing in this encyclopedic Trinity article. A table that the Manhattan Project scientists would actually have had to know a rough estimate on how it would look, even before the test. For that reason I put some basic scientific explanation onto these numbers, as a note to those who can at least follow percentages.
Blast | 50% |
Thermal energy | 35% |
Initial ionizing radiation | 5% |
Residual fallout radiation | 10% |
So in basic terms of percentages then(how it pretains to the FAS table at right). ~83% of the energy is emitted as blast, light and heat. ~5% of the energy is emitted by the two initial/prompt nuclear radiations and with a little time-overlap wrt the delayed neutrons. ~7-13% is residual radiation. As can be seen, this fundamental physics, manifests in the observed weapons effects and specifically the FAS table we have in the article.
Another reference Hawkeye7 that corroborates this presentation, this manifestation of the fundamental physics into the effects of fission weapons in the atmosphere is : NUCLEAR EVENTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES by the Borden institute..."approximately 82% of the fission energy is released as kinetic energy of the two large fission fragments. These fragments, being massive and highly charged particles, interact readily with matter. They transfer their energy quickly to the surrounding weapon materials, which rapidly become heated" Boundarylayer ( talk) 03:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
References
My edits linking the Anthropocene-epoch proposal have been challenged, as needing references. There are plenty in that article, but duplication here seems like clutter. (Well, it does to me.) Yet the point seems an important one to bring to the reader’s attention. My idea is to leave it to the interested reader, who wants references, to seek them in the linked article. What do people think?
Probably the best single reference there is this [1] *together with the references it provides*.
- SquisherDa ( talk) 13:15, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
References
What is "MWT"? The link doesn't explain. Grassynoel ( talk) 21:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
I see that in 2012, this page had a nuclear fallout map removed- Also given the recent renewed interest in the site due to Oppenheimer (film) with up to 100K hits per day, I think this absolutely needs to be on the page. Even if the last NCI map is controversial, as mentioned in https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/lawmakers-move-urgently-to-recognize-survivors-of-the-first-atomic-bomb-test. Any suggestions? Wuerzele ( talk) 18:01, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
@ EEng: What is so had to envisage about a ring with a triangular cross-section? ] Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:43, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
later cores were plated with nickel instead.[64] The Trinity core consisted of just these two hemispheres. Later cores also included a ring with a triangular cross-section to prevent jets forming in the gap between them.[65]
@ Alexonion@ Hawkeye7 I support addition of the link to the J. Robert Oppenheimer article in the list of the Trinity test observers. There are so many links to the J. Robert Oppenheimer in the entire Trinity article, that one more will not make a difference. Szelma W ( talk) 12:04, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Some of the pictures seem to be overlapping to the point where you have to click on them in order to view them well. Bucky winter soldier ( talk) 12:29, 6 October 2023 (UTC)