I cannot imagine that civilized humanity would ever deliberately obliterate each other in this manner again. And yet, we will not disarm. We will not back down. We will not "un-know" what we do. It is impossible. And when we look at the news headlines that speak of a nuclear-armed and ready North Korea or Iran (or any other number of nations), well, we're forced on some level to see those leaders with blood in their eyes as less than human because they, now knowing, seek to do the world great harm.
While doing research for the textbook I am currently working on with my colleague Ken Haley, I came across this passage, which I included in the text's section on Narrative Non-fiction, from E=mc2, by David Bodanis:
"The unearthly object burns at full power for about one-half of a second, then begins to fade away, taking two or three seconds to empty itself out. This “emptying” is accomplished, in large part, by spraying heat energy outward. Fires begin, seemingly instantaneously; skin explodes off, hanging in great sheets from the bodies of everyone below. The first of tens of thousands of deaths in Hiroshima begin.
At least a third of the energy from the chain reactions [of nuclear materials] comes out in this flash. The rest now follows soon behind. The strange object’s heat pushes on ordinary air, accelerating it to speeds that have never occurred here before, unless at some time in the distant past a large meteor or comet arrived. It travels several times faster than any hurricane could achieve--so fast, in fact, that it’s silent--for it outruns any sound its immense force might make. After it there’s a second air pulse, a little slower; after that the atmosphere sloshes backward, to fill up the gap pushed out. This briefly lowers the air density to virtually zero. Far enough from the blast, life-forms that have survived will begin to explode outward, having been exposed--briefly--to the vacuum of outer space. (167-169)[i]
What I was attempting to show my students here is that Bodanis, by way of non-fiction writing, narrates for us a chain of events that no human could have been there inside the bomb to witness. Bodanis doesn't even comment here (or elsewhere) about the bomb's horrific effects. He simply and methodically discusses in this book's chapter first Einstein's equation as it relates to the bomb's working out of its colossal power and then, in this passage, the natural results of that unstoppable and unknowable chain reaction in a reportorial-style voice. It is as if we were inside the bomb and then hovering above Hiroshima.
And for those who were below, those mercurial moments are forever unspeakable, though Time's newly-published photos attempt again to do just that through these voices and images. Just knowing what we do of the survivors' awful outcomes is about enough for crush our collective psyches.
And very soon, every single person who lived through the dark dawning of the atomic age will die, and so will the gut-wrenching reflections of which we continually need to be reminded.
And very soon, every single person who lived through the dark dawning of the atomic age will die, and so will the gut-wrenching reflections of which we continually need to be reminded.
In this sometimes-heartless world, the Internet is a useful and powerful tool in the right hands, a place worth visiting. May this planet remain such a place.
[i] Bodanis, David. E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation. New York: Walker and Co. 167-69. Print.
