Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lorn Bogel bomb here. It was theoretical physicist J. Robert
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer who chose the code named Trinity for his trial
Speaker 1: run of atomic weapons, though he could never remember why.
Speaker 1: As a participant in the Manhattan Project, he oversaw the
Speaker 1: construction of four atomic bombs. By the spring of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five, the U. S Military had started looking for
Speaker 1: a place to test one of them. Out Sites in California, Colorado,
Speaker 1: and Texas were considered before the Pentagon chose a patch
Speaker 1: of terrain at the White Sands Missile Range in New
Speaker 1: Mexico is the site of the Trinity Project. On July sixteenth,
Speaker 1: ninety five, at five twenty nine a m Mountain time,
Speaker 1: a plutonium bomb known simply as the Gadget was detonated
Speaker 1: at the site. This marked the first deployment of an
Speaker 1: atomic weapon in recorded history. Within a month, the United
Speaker 1: States used two atomic bombs to level both Hiroshima and
Speaker 1: Nagasaki in Japan, helping bring World War two to an
Speaker 1: end and sending a very clear and violent message to
Speaker 1: other world powers. So began the atomic Age. Back in
Speaker 1: New Mexico, scientists discovered that the explosion that had started
Speaker 1: at all left something behind. Nuclear physicist Herbert L. Anderson
Speaker 1: and his driver inspected the Trinity blast site shortly after
Speaker 1: the bomb detonated. Over the radio, he announced that the
Speaker 1: area had turned all green. A layer of small, glassy
Speaker 1: beads covered the crater. Most were all of green in color,
Speaker 1: though some samples were black or reddish in hue. The
Speaker 1: substance is now known as trinotite. Plenty of trinotite was
Speaker 1: still there in September nineteen forty five, when a Time
Speaker 1: magazine report described the crater as a lake of green
Speaker 1: jade shaped like a splashy star. Physicists realized that this
Speaker 1: trinotite was desert sand that had melted down during the
Speaker 1: blast and then resolidified. Our understanding of trinotite has changed recently.
Speaker 1: At first, scientists assumed that the grains of sand that
Speaker 1: turned into this material had melted at ground level, but
Speaker 1: a twenty ten study found that the sand was actually
Speaker 1: pulled up into the heart of the explosion, where high
Speaker 1: temperatures liquefied it. The stuff later rained down, cooled, and
Speaker 1: turned solid. There are no laws against buying or selling
Speaker 1: trinotite samples that have already been collected, but it's now
Speaker 1: illegal to remove this substance from the blast field. You
Speaker 1: will find much of it on site anyway. America's Atomic
Speaker 1: Energy Commission bulldozed over the nuclear test site in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three. In the process, a bounty of trinotite was
Speaker 1: buried underground, and buyers beware, there's a lot of phony
Speaker 1: trinotite on the market. Trinotite is indeed radioactive, however, it's
Speaker 1: been deemed basically safe by a health physics survey, so
Speaker 1: the glassy beads were snatched up in huge quantities by
Speaker 1: souvenir hungry visitors to the site. Jewelry created with trinotite
Speaker 1: was even made for the purpose of propaganda. These kinds
Speaker 1: of glassy residues are left behind whenever nuclear weapons go
Speaker 1: off at the ground level. They've been recovered in the
Speaker 1: wake of atomic tests over such places as the Algerian Desert,
Speaker 1: but the name trinotite is typically reserved for specimens found
Speaker 1: at the original Trinity site at the White Sands Missile Range.
Speaker 1: Some scientists prefer to call material found in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world atom site Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other basically safe topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.