My obsession with the atomic bomb.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m a little too ambitious when it comes to my endeavours in life.

I always take things too far, without the will to actually pull through.

My reading patterns are no different.

I’ll literally bank up weeks of reading material because I’m just too lazy to read them at the time. Then when I’m in the mood, I’ll just read non-stop for hours.

Recently I’ve been absoultely encapsulated by the atomic bomb and the idea of radioactivity etc. Out of nowhere, my obsession and passion for the subject has surpassed anything of that in recent memory.

It’s just so brilliant. (Here’s an amazing article which explains the subject very well: http://www.ccnr.org/salzburg.html)

It’s almost made me want to become a scientist.

Nuclear fission via the atomic bomb is arguably one of the most amazing inventions of human history. Nuclear fission isn’t a process which happens in nature, and to harness that amount of energy from so little a mass is quite the feat.

Not to mention the sheer size of the explosion. I spent most of today watching nuclear explosions on YouTube, it’s just such an amazing spectacle when you think about it.  It will likely be the greatest thing you ever see visually. I really wish I could visually experience a nuclear explosion in my lifetime.

Even those soldiers in the previous post, being subject to a nuclear explosion. Sure, they will probably die a horrible cancerous death, however to bear witness to the greatest thing mankind has ever produced… perhaps it’s worth it.

Now stars on the other hand are one billion times more brilliant via fusion, however they’re not man made, thus lame. But for humans to engineer such a huge explosion via an awe inspiring mushroom cloud of dust and debris; is simply spectacular.

Most likely this is only a passing fad, as is life. But damn! I’m going to embrace it untill it’s very last sparks – splinter and die – a passion once hopeful, now long forgot.

Radiation is a very dangerous thing. It’s basically an unstable element that “explodes” into different elements. As in the atoms actually explode. That’s why radiation is so bad within the body. The atoms “explode”, emitting high energy (merely a consequence), damaging cells within the body. These damaged cells then may turn cancerous. As described in the article, it’s like throwing a grenade into your body, a metaphor for an exploding atom. As radioactive particles consistently decay, hundreds of by-products are constantly being exploded and broken apart until lead is eventually formed, also a highly toxic element.

Imagine that happening inside your body, and the amount of havoc it may cause. That’s why it only takes as little as a couple of radioactive particles, to absolutely destroy your life and your body – very much physically.

Radium is one of the by-products of uranium, and what happened is that they found that it would glow in the dark. So they used it in paint for things like clock dials, so you could see them in the dark.

They employed roughly 70 women in a one of these factories to paint dials. They were unaware of the consequences, and they even licked the tip of their brushes with radium on them to sharpen the tip of the brush.

All sorts of horrible things happened to them. Some lost all their teeth, others developed “radium jaw”, not to mention the instantaneous fracturing of skeletal bones. Many died of rare cancers such as bone cancers, and all sorts of horrible cancers in odd places.

terrible.

A short history/science lesson, perhaps you learnt something interesting, maybe not.

Keep happy and let life work it’s mysterious ways.

Julius Reade