CSCT 3D03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Nikita Khrushchev, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Mushroom Cloud
3 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
For the first time it became clear that human beings could destroy their entire species and much life on earth unintentionally. That it would be possible to destroy life on earth, as we knew it intentionally. Darwin-> we are animals, we are like other animals. The atomic bomb marked a boundary between modern and postmodern, a new kind of shattering of human certainties, and fine cracks in humanism. Construction of the two atom bombs was the largest nation project, on a scale so large it would be unimaginable today. Later gives his thoughts on the bomb test. 10% of the electrical energy produced by the us was used during the construction. A town of 75,000 people built to work on the project, which ultimately employed over a hundred and fifty thousand. Some scientist at the test site feared the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy it (the cloud went up to forty thousand feet)
