Physical Effects of The Bomb
After being selected in April 1945, Hiroshima was spared conventional bombing to serve as a pristine target, where the effects of a nuclear bomb on an undamaged city could be observed. While damage could be studied later, the energy yield of the untested Little Boy design could be determined only at the moment of detonation, using instruments dropped by parachute from a plane flying in formation with the one that dropped the bomb. Radio-transmitted data from these instruments indicated a yield of about 15 kilotons.
Comparing this yield to the observed damage produced a rule of thumb called the 5 psi lethal area rule. The number of immediate fatalities will approximately equal the number of people inside the lethal area.
The damage came from three main effects: blast, fire, and radiation.
Read more about this topic: Little Boy
Famous quotes containing the words physical, effects and/or bomb:
“When we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoymentas some think who do not understand our teachings, disagree with them, or give them an evil interpretationbut by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and the mind from anxiety.”
—Epicurus (c. 341271 B.C.)
“Like the effects of industrial pollution ... the AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“[A] Dada exhibition. Another one! Whats the matter with everyone wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb ... can you imagine anyone, around half a century after a bomb explodes, wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?”
—Max Ernst (18911976)