“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

Robert Oppenheimer

Mushroom cloud seconds after detonation of the Gadget.

July 16 2020 — On July 16 1945, the US detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon, a plutonium-based device, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Trinity, as the test was known, was successful. Three weeks later, a second successful detonation took place — over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST: Remembering Hiroshima (August 6 1945)

RELATED POST: On This Day — Stanislav Petrov Saves the World from Nuclear War (Sept. 26 1983)

RELATED POST: Significant Uncertainties in the Yield Estimate of North Korea H Bomb

RELATED POST: The VELA Incident: Declassified Files Shed Light on the Nuclear Test Controversy

RELATED POST: One Year Ago — Top US Nuclear Commander: “I wouldn’t carry out illegal nuclear strike order from Trump”

RELATED POST: The Los Alamos Primer — The Bethe – Feynman Equation [Nukes & Secrecy]

RELATED POST: On This Day — Atomic Spies Rosenbergs Executed (June 19 1953)

Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project.

The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range.

The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed “The Gadget”, of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.

The Gadget’s detonation released the explosive energy of about 22 kilotons of TNT (92 TJ).

The Trinity Test

Elsie McMillan remembers asking her husband Edwin what would happen at the Trinity Test.

REFERENCES

Trinity (nuclear test) — Wikipedia

=

On This Day — US Detonates First Nuclear Weapon (July 16 1945)

75 Years Ago — US Detonates First Nuclear Weapon (July 16 1945)