This film shows original footage about the activities in the New Mexico dessert to develop an atomic weapon. It has been meticulously restored, enhanced and colorized to give a better view of what really went on at Los Alamos in 1945.
In brief: this was a secret project under the name "the Manhattan project" and was lead by physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer under military supervision in the person of General Leslie Groves.
In order for hundreds of scientists to be as active and motivated as possible, an new small town was constructed in the dessert at Los Alamos, where they could live with their entire family.
Exerpt: The actual Trinity test took place at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, about 200 km South of Los Alamos. This facility is now part of the White Sands Missile Range.
It is remarkable to note that Japan was bombed only 20 and 23 days after the one and only (successful) Trinity test conducted on 16 July 1945. At the time of that test there was hardly anymore nuclear material available. Astonishingly The Gun-type "Little Boy" bomb, that was dropped on Hiroshima, was deployed untested! This was done out of pure necessity in view of having run out of uranium.
The "fat man" bomb, that was dropped on Nagasaki, was of the same type as the one used during the Trinity test, i.e. an implosion-type bomb.
In view of the level of development of electronics in 1945, the electronic control of the bomb was an astonishing achievement. To need the bomb to work, 32 high explosive detonator modules, that were mounted around a solid plutonium core, needed to fire inwards at exactly the same time in order to compress the core. The shock wave needed to hit the fissionable core with a precision of microseconds.
Till this day Truman's decision to deploy nuclear weapons is highly controversial. Historians claim that one of the more important reasons to do so was to impress the Russians, who were also rumored of being in the process of developing a nuclear bomb.
Truman himself believed that deploying these bombs saved half a million American plus Japanese lives compared to a continued war on the ground. The question whether he, and others who, to this day, make similar statements were and are right is purely a matter for speculation. No factual conclusions can or should be drawn because their are simply too many scenario's and unknowns, just like nobody currently knows how the Russia Ukraine conflict will end.
Fact remains that the bombings caused tremendous loss of life.
In view of the fact that Truman called Oppenheimer a "cry baby" after Oppie told him that he has blood on his hands, plus the way Truman announced the bombing of Hiroshima with a smile on his face, and that many historians state that the war with Japan was already close to being over before both atomic bombs were dropped, makes one wonder why Truman is still on the 5th place in the list of best USA presidents.
Remarkably, his responsibility for putting over 220.000 people into their graves seems still to be hidden in the shadows of his achievements as regards his continuation and re-inforcement of Roosevelts New Deal, foreign policies and economic reform.
While constructing the bombs, it appears that Oppenheimer was less concerned about its potential military use.
Oppenheimer never publicly expressed regret for being the "Father of the atomic bomb". However, in view of his conduct and critical statements towards how his bomb had been deployed it is clear that, especially in later years of life, he mentally struggled with remorse. He did openly question whether the use of the bombs on Japan were really necessary.
To end this film, I just want to share this thought. Considering that the comments under my video have shown that so many (young) viewers are out of touch with history and are gullible for strange conspiracy and other theories as well as propagate twisted facts, a legitimate question is to what extent films like Nolan's "Oppenheimer" contribute to even more misinterpreted and misunderstood historic facts.
Although extremely cleverly made and largely based on facts, Nolan has taken the liberty to dramatise and even alter and twist the representation of facts to suite Hollywood's agenda. For example the "cry baby" event did not happen as portrayed in the film but took place later in a different setting.
Also Oppenheimer would in reality never have approached Einstein to ask for an opinion about Teller's fear that the bomb might destroy the entire Earth because of an unhaltable continuation of the nuclear fission in the Earths atmosphere. In reality Oppenheimer discussed this with American physicist Karl Taylor Compton.
To what extent future generations will take Nolan's great film for fact is unpredictable, but nevertheless somewhat worrying. It keeps me wondering whether a film can be properly made both with historic correctness and highest entertainment value in mind.
Source: archive.org
Music: Trevor Kowalski
31 июл 2023
