Thursday, 6 August 2015

70 years since Hiroshima

Today, the 6th of August 2015, marks 70 years since the first atomic bomb was used in anger.  I'm not much of an historian of nuclear physics, though I can surely see that the use of atomic weapons was as much an irreversibly terrible act by humanity as any other.  

If you want to follow more about the history of nuclear weapons, then my go-to person on the internet for all things nuclear-weapon related is Alex Wellerstein.  Follow him on twitter: @wellerstein or follow his blog.

Even before I was a nuclear physicist, I'd noted that my birthday (on 8th August) falls between the two days when the bombs fell on Hiroshima (6th Aug) and Nagasaki (9th Aug).  Always around my birthday during my life have there been news stories about the bombs.  The biggest event, though, on the actual day of my birth, in 1974, was Richard Nixon's resignation.