1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of

2
00:00:05,360 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

3
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,720
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick. And

4
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,480
Speaker 1: today we're going to be talking about nuclear weapons testing. Now,

5
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:23,160
Speaker 1: this is something that has come up on the show

6
00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:26,279
Speaker 1: a good bit before. Obviously we've had to talk many

7
00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:31,080
Speaker 1: times about the very real, uh you know, danger potential

8
00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,960
Speaker 1: civilization level threat and and the real human costs of

9
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,720
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons testing. But today I wanted

10
00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 1: to focus on a couple of interesting and lesser known

11
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:47,360
Speaker 1: environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing, specifically something that I

12
00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:51,400
Speaker 1: came across as it pertains to industrial metals, and then

13
00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:54,040
Speaker 1: we're going to get into some other scientific territory as

14
00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,920
Speaker 1: we go on. But quite apart from any straightforward chemical

15
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,280
Speaker 1: effects on the atmosphere, I think it is pretty fair

16
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:04,440
Speaker 1: to say that the the the human departure into the

17
00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:08,480
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons testing era in nineteen forty five was really

18
00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:14,160
Speaker 1: sort of a shift moment for for humankind as a species. Yeah,

19
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:18,840
Speaker 1: and I feel like there there are very few things

20
00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:20,440
Speaker 1: that have been said there are there are very few

21
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:23,959
Speaker 1: audio samples certainly that sum it up quite as well

22
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:26,559
Speaker 1: or or as or are as haunting as those given

23
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:30,319
Speaker 1: by J. Robert Oppenheimer in nineteen sixty five on the

24
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:34,319
Speaker 1: television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, broadcast as

25
00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:37,440
Speaker 1: an NBC white Paper. I imagine most of you have

26
00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,240
Speaker 1: heard this before. I've heard it's a sampled and used

27
00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:44,800
Speaker 1: in music. It uh, it shows up in comic books, literature,

28
00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:49,600
Speaker 1: um in it. The American theoretical physicist and father of

29
00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 1: the atomic bomb is he's sometimes referred, shares the following

30
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:56,280
Speaker 1: regarding the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb at

31
00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,560
Speaker 1: the Trinity Test in New Mexico on July six, nine,

32
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 1: four five. He said, quote, we knew the world would

33
00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:07,080
Speaker 1: not be the same. A few people laughed, a few

34
00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:10,960
Speaker 1: people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line

35
00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:14,440
Speaker 1: from the Hindu scripture the Bagavad Gita. Fish Knu is

36
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:16,959
Speaker 1: trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty,

37
00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 1: and to impress him, takes on his multi armed form

38
00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:24,040
Speaker 1: and says, now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

39
00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:27,400
Speaker 1: I suppose we all thought that one way or another.

40
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,040
Speaker 1: It's a difficult thing to imagine working on that kind

41
00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:33,160
Speaker 1: of research in a way feeling that it is your

42
00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:36,240
Speaker 1: duty or your necessity to aid the Allied cause in

43
00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:40,200
Speaker 1: World War Two, but at the same time knowing that

44
00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:43,200
Speaker 1: you were working on something that that would unleash an

45
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:47,000
Speaker 1: age of terror in human history. Yeah, I mean absolutely

46
00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:52,040
Speaker 1: a weapon that would as of this recording, UH, has

47
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:56,240
Speaker 1: only been used twice in war, which on one hand

48
00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,839
Speaker 1: you can you can say, thankfully, has only been used

49
00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 1: twice in war, but in the same hand you can say,

50
00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:05,359
Speaker 1: tragically has been used twice in war. Um. Yeah, Well,

51
00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,840
Speaker 1: we'll get into the just the destructive capabilities a bit

52
00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:11,640
Speaker 1: of of of the bomb as we proceed here, and

53
00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:14,120
Speaker 1: of course we've covered it on the show before to

54
00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:17,040
Speaker 1: varying degrees. But I want to come back to the

55
00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:22,840
Speaker 1: quote that that Oppenheimer is UM is deploying here. So

56
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,919
Speaker 1: if if you're not familiar with it, basically these are

57
00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:29,239
Speaker 1: these are who the figures are in this. You've got Vishnu,

58
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,880
Speaker 1: one of the principal deities of Hinduism. UH. The Bugabad

59
00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:36,160
Speaker 1: Gheita or the gutas it's sometimes just shortened to, is

60
00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 1: part of the Hindu epic, the Mahabarata. Technically it's books

61
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:43,160
Speaker 1: six in that and the prince in question is the

62
00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:47,960
Speaker 1: hero Argina part of the Pandava. Finally that wages war

63
00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:52,120
Speaker 1: against the Caravas. Uh. That that's the big struggle. That's uh,

64
00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:55,200
Speaker 1: that's key to the Mahabarata. Anyway, at the beginning of

65
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:59,360
Speaker 1: the Geta, which Oppenheimer is um is quoting, here Aregenna

66
00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:03,320
Speaker 1: rights his chariot onto the field of forthcoming battle between

67
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 1: these two families. But he suddenly overcome by doubt and

68
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:09,840
Speaker 1: depression as he notes they're there on the other side,

69
00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:14,040
Speaker 1: within the ranks of the enemy's he recognizes friends, relatives, teachers,

70
00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:17,800
Speaker 1: and uh. And therefore has this this just immense so

71
00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,960
Speaker 1: weight descend upon him. Um. This is a quote from it.

72
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,680
Speaker 1: This is as translated by Edwin Arnold in five and

73
00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:28,960
Speaker 1: as as is always the case with translated works of

74
00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: literature and poetry, Uh, you know, the English is going

75
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,680
Speaker 1: to be approximate, and certainly with Hinduism there are many

76
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:39,320
Speaker 1: cases where particular ideas and phrases don't really have a

77
00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:44,920
Speaker 1: parallel word in English. Um. Anyway, it goes as follows quote. Thus,

78
00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:48,120
Speaker 1: if we slay kinsfolk and friends for love of earthly power,

79
00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 1: av what an evil fault? It were better I deem it.

80
00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:55,560
Speaker 1: If my kinsmen strike to face them weaponless and bear

81
00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:59,159
Speaker 1: my breast to shaft and spear, then answer blow with blow.

82
00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,960
Speaker 1: So speaking in the face of those two hosts, Arginas

83
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,760
Speaker 1: sank upon his chariot seat and let fall bow and arrows.

84
00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:10,080
Speaker 1: Sick at heart. So the prospect of the forthcoming bloodshed

85
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:12,479
Speaker 1: is just too much for him. But what does he do?

86
00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:17,599
Speaker 1: He turns to his charioteer UH for counsel, and luckily

87
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:21,680
Speaker 1: his charioteer is the blueskinned Krishna, the avatar of the

88
00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:25,080
Speaker 1: mighty Vishnu, and he gives him his counsel. In fact,

89
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:29,080
Speaker 1: he gives him his counsel for eighteen chapters. That's that's

90
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,120
Speaker 1: what the Geta is is basically him providing all of

91
00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:36,120
Speaker 1: this uh philosophical and spiritual advice on what it is

92
00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:39,240
Speaker 1: to have to make these sorts of decisions and engage

93
00:05:39,279 --> 00:05:41,680
Speaker 1: in war and duty and so forth. It's kind of

94
00:05:41,720 --> 00:05:44,159
Speaker 1: like something like the Book of Job in the form

95
00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:46,000
Speaker 1: we have it now, which you have a sort of

96
00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:51,960
Speaker 1: small framing narrative that mainly contains a didactic discourse on

97
00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:55,760
Speaker 1: theological matters. Right and now, if you want to, like

98
00:05:55,800 --> 00:06:00,120
Speaker 1: a really good breakdown all of this episode, uh in

99
00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:03,760
Speaker 1: the Mahabarata of the Gita, and especially as it relates

100
00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:07,640
Speaker 1: to Oppenheimer in his life. There's a wonderful paper that

101
00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:09,520
Speaker 1: you can find out there in full on the on

102
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,920
Speaker 1: the internet from James A. Hegi, a professor of history,

103
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,279
Speaker 1: University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Uh. He this was a nice

104
00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:19,359
Speaker 1: write up he did for the American Philosophical Society in

105
00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:22,159
Speaker 1: two thousand and He goes into greater depth, but he

106
00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:26,640
Speaker 1: also summarizes Chrishna's counsel as follows He's He says, look,

107
00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,040
Speaker 1: you're a soldier, Aregna. You have to fight. Fighting is

108
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: your duty, so you need to do it. Um. He

109
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:37,880
Speaker 1: also says, look, Krishna, uh, you know this, this God,

110
00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:40,240
Speaker 1: who I also am, is going to be the one

111
00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:42,479
Speaker 1: to determine who lives and who dies. It's not your

112
00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:48,080
Speaker 1: place to mourn or rejoice over human loss in this case.

113
00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,880
Speaker 1: You should try to remain unattached from the outcome. And

114
00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 1: then also faith in Krishna is going to be what

115
00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:57,839
Speaker 1: saves your soul, Aregenna, and this is the most important

116
00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:00,880
Speaker 1: part of the whole scenario. But as Argina begins to

117
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:05,120
Speaker 1: metaphorically see the light or I suppose behold the true

118
00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:08,200
Speaker 1: nature of the reality he's faced with. He asks if

119
00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:12,840
Speaker 1: he can see Christiana's godlike form, and this site ultimately

120
00:07:12,920 --> 00:07:15,960
Speaker 1: seals Argina's commitment to do his duty. And this occurs

121
00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:19,840
Speaker 1: in chapter eleven, verse thirty two, where uh where the

122
00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:25,000
Speaker 1: now cosmically embodied Vishnu speaks to Argena. And what he

123
00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:30,000
Speaker 1: exactly says of two English speaking ears is going to

124
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 1: depend on the translation, but for instance, the writer translation

125
00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:37,800
Speaker 1: has him say death, am I and my present task destruction. Um.

126
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:40,800
Speaker 1: There's a translation by Arnold that says, VU seest me

127
00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:43,880
Speaker 1: as Time, who kills Time, who brings all to doom,

128
00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:47,280
Speaker 1: the slayer Time, ancient of days, come hither to consume.

129
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,200
Speaker 1: And there's another one I came across that I thought

130
00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:52,520
Speaker 1: was pretty good. I am mighty Time, the source of

131
00:07:52,560 --> 00:07:55,960
Speaker 1: destruction that comes forth to annihilate the world's And I've

132
00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:00,679
Speaker 1: always loved this one by J. A. B. Van Bitten quote,

133
00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:04,920
Speaker 1: I am time growing old to destroy the world embarked

134
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:08,520
Speaker 1: on the course of world annihilation. I am Time grown old.

135
00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:11,520
Speaker 1: Always find that kind of there's something kind of perplexing

136
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,440
Speaker 1: about that phrasing that seems to befitting of this all

137
00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:17,560
Speaker 1: powerful being that is, you know, that has taken on

138
00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:20,559
Speaker 1: his true form to you. Yeah, there's something that comes

139
00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:24,160
Speaker 1: in the fullness of time. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting the

140
00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:28,920
Speaker 1: way the personification as time further serves that purpose of

141
00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:33,240
Speaker 1: the kind of depersonalization of one's role in history. You

142
00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:36,960
Speaker 1: know that there is a kind of like a fate

143
00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:40,240
Speaker 1: or world path that is executed through the passing of time,

144
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:44,200
Speaker 1: and what you are is someone who plays a role

145
00:08:44,280 --> 00:08:48,680
Speaker 1: within it, not the shaper of it. Yeah. Absolutely, Um again,

146
00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 1: it is it is even in translation as it's it's

147
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:56,560
Speaker 1: this really perplexing and beautiful passage. Now, it should stress

148
00:08:56,559 --> 00:09:00,480
Speaker 1: that Oppenheimer was not religiously Hindu, but he was interested

149
00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:03,680
Speaker 1: in Hindu scripture, and clearly he found an association here

150
00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,520
Speaker 1: between his role in the creation of the bomb and

151
00:09:06,559 --> 00:09:10,880
Speaker 1: the idea of duty performed regardless of potential outcome. Now,

152
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:14,560
Speaker 1: he certainly is bending the text here a bit, because

153
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:18,080
Speaker 1: in in the Gita, Vishnu slash Krishna is saying, look,

154
00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:21,200
Speaker 1: I'm the prime mover here, I'm the one who destroys you.

155
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:25,119
Speaker 1: Just do your duty. Oppenheimer seems to be implying the opposite.

156
00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:28,720
Speaker 1: That there perhaps is no all powerful force that bears

157
00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:31,880
Speaker 1: the burden of our deeds, that the burden is instead

158
00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:34,720
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of those involved in the creation of

159
00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:37,440
Speaker 1: such a weapon. You know, when he's saying, you know,

160
00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:40,520
Speaker 1: now I am become death and that we all felt

161
00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,520
Speaker 1: that way one way way or another. I mean, I mean,

162
00:09:43,559 --> 00:09:48,400
Speaker 1: he is he is. He he's confronting the personal responsibility

163
00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:50,680
Speaker 1: that seems to be there in the creation of such

164
00:09:50,679 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 1: a weapon. But so it does seem that there's this

165
00:09:53,400 --> 00:09:57,199
Speaker 1: this double terror in Oppenheimer's mind, like what if we fail?

166
00:09:57,320 --> 00:10:00,800
Speaker 1: But also what if we succeed? Yeah? Yeah, that that

167
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:04,400
Speaker 1: that's something that Heggia gets into. You know, this this

168
00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:07,680
Speaker 1: idea that there's this an immense fhere of failure. You know,

169
00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:09,679
Speaker 1: what if we don't develop the bomb as we've been

170
00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:12,320
Speaker 1: tasked with, uh, and what will that mean for us?

171
00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,600
Speaker 1: But then yeah, well, how much mass human death will

172
00:10:15,640 --> 00:10:19,000
Speaker 1: be brought into the world, even on the short term, Uh,

173
00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:21,920
Speaker 1: if this is successful without even getting into the way

174
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,040
Speaker 1: that it will change the landscape of of not only

175
00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:29,600
Speaker 1: warfare and and potential warfare in global security, but just

176
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,800
Speaker 1: human civilization itself. Yeah, there's so many ways you can

177
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:36,280
Speaker 1: track the impact of the invention of nuclear weapons. Clearly

178
00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:39,800
Speaker 1: one of them is a sort of like world psychological impact.

179
00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:42,760
Speaker 1: You know, there's just there's bomb consciousness in the world

180
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:46,120
Speaker 1: now that the sort of will always be there unless

181
00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:49,600
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons are entirely eliminated, But even even then they

182
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:52,240
Speaker 1: would they'll probably still be the knowledge that they could

183
00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,160
Speaker 1: be built again. Yeah. This this reminds me of one

184
00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:59,480
Speaker 1: of Grant Morrison's creations for the Doom Patrol comic book,

185
00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:05,120
Speaker 1: the idea of Candlemaker, this embodiment of all of our apprehension, uh,

186
00:11:05,160 --> 00:11:09,520
Speaker 1: surrounding nuclear annihilation that takes on this kind of godlike

187
00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:14,720
Speaker 1: really almost kind of terrifying, Vishnu like appearance in the

188
00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:17,439
Speaker 1: human psyche. Is this the guy who's made of wax?

189
00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 1: It is, and we'll have we'll have more to say

190
00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:23,440
Speaker 1: about him in a forthcoming October episode of Stuff to

191
00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:26,280
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. Oh, that's right, it's almost October. It is.

192
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,120
Speaker 1: But to come back to the part of Oppenheimer's quote

193
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:33,440
Speaker 1: that is not part of on the of the Guida, Um,

194
00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,360
Speaker 1: we knew the world would not be the same, uh,

195
00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:40,040
Speaker 1: and that that is true. It wasn't it isn't, And

196
00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:42,760
Speaker 1: you're you're probably aware of most of the reasons why.

197
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:45,000
Speaker 1: But but yeah, today's episode, we're going to look at

198
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:49,480
Speaker 1: some of the particular ways that it was changed, Uh,

199
00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:54,440
Speaker 1: particularly regarding um, you know, a few environmental scenarios as

200
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 1: well as the nature of steel. Yes, So getting into

201
00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,240
Speaker 1: these lesser known environmental effects, I want to start with

202
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:05,000
Speaker 1: the fact that might seem extremely odd, which I was

203
00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 1: reading about in an article published in the journal Health

204
00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,760
Speaker 1: Physics in two thousand seven by a health physicist named

205
00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:16,319
Speaker 1: Timothy P. Lynch, and the articles called a historically significant

206
00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,680
Speaker 1: shield for in vivo measurements, And the fact goes like this.

207
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:26,120
Speaker 1: In Richland, Washington, there is a research facility called the

208
00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:31,400
Speaker 1: in Vivo Radio Bioassay and Research Facility. And within this

209
00:12:31,480 --> 00:12:35,560
Speaker 1: facility there is a special room that is surrounded on

210
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:40,000
Speaker 1: all sides by thick plates of steel that was once

211
00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:43,400
Speaker 1: part of a World War Two era battleship called the

212
00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,960
Speaker 1: USS Indiana. This was a battleship that served in the war.

213
00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,320
Speaker 1: It was launched in nineteen It was in a number

214
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:53,720
Speaker 1: of battles It served extensively in the Pacific theater during

215
00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:57,720
Speaker 1: the war, and then after it was decommissioned, they took

216
00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:02,240
Speaker 1: steel out of the ship to build this room. Why

217
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:06,319
Speaker 1: would anybody do that? Yeah, if you don't know the answer,

218
00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 1: it sounds a bit mysterious, right it all. It sounds

219
00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:10,880
Speaker 1: like the kind of thing Grant Morrison would make up

220
00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:13,120
Speaker 1: where you're having to engage in some sort of magical

221
00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:18,480
Speaker 1: ritual involving steel from old ships. Oh yeah, yeah, it

222
00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:21,080
Speaker 1: totally sounds like something magical, either kind of magical or

223
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:24,120
Speaker 1: symbolic thinking of like, you know, I'm gonna melt down

224
00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:26,960
Speaker 1: the statue of the Golden Calf for the false title

225
00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:30,200
Speaker 1: or king or whatever and and turn it into something holy.

226
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:32,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a throne out of all the

227
00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:35,760
Speaker 1: swords of those who wants opposed my rule. Exactly. Yes,

228
00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:38,280
Speaker 1: it is the iron throne. So this is the the

229
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:42,839
Speaker 1: iron throne of rooms. Now the room is again an

230
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:47,439
Speaker 1: in vivo radio bioassay detector, and Lynch tells us in

231
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:50,600
Speaker 1: the paper that quote the detection system is used to

232
00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:56,080
Speaker 1: monitor workers for intakes of fission and activation products. So

233
00:13:56,120 --> 00:13:59,680
Speaker 1: this means that it's used to check workers people to

234
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:05,400
Speaker 1: see if they have ingested tiny radioactive particles known as radionuclides.

235
00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 1: Radionuclides consist of atoms that can decay into different isotopes

236
00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:13,520
Speaker 1: and emit radiation as they do so, and if you

237
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:16,240
Speaker 1: take them into your body, say by swallowing them or

238
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:19,280
Speaker 1: breathing them in, they can do this inside your body

239
00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:23,360
Speaker 1: and provide internal radiation sources which you do not want.

240
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:26,320
Speaker 1: They can pose a serious health risk if enough of

241
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,360
Speaker 1: them accumulate in the body, A large dose could cause

242
00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:33,840
Speaker 1: acute radiation syndrome. Prolonged exposure to even smaller doses over

243
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 1: time could be a risk for damaging DNA and causing cancer.

244
00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:41,200
Speaker 1: This is to use one example why you don't want

245
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:45,960
Speaker 1: to consume things that would come from a radioactively contaminated area,

246
00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:48,880
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere around a nuclear meltdown. Why would you

247
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:50,840
Speaker 1: not want to, say, you know, roll around in the

248
00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 1: dirt near Chernobyl or drink the water there. It's because

249
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,720
Speaker 1: the the environment is contaminated with radio nuclides, these little

250
00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:01,360
Speaker 1: particles that you don't want anywhere near your body. You

251
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,800
Speaker 1: do not want them going inside you. So people who

252
00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:08,040
Speaker 1: get tested regularly in this room would include Department of

253
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: Energy workers, but Lynch also mentions that the room has

254
00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:14,160
Speaker 1: been used to test a helicopter pilot and some other

255
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 1: workers from Chernobyl as well as children from Chernobyl I

256
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 1: guess who lived nearby. So this has been in use

257
00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,680
Speaker 1: for a long time and it's used to measure the

258
00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:29,320
Speaker 1: radiation coming from living people. So somebody walks into the

259
00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:32,120
Speaker 1: detector room, they get scanned for radio neew clides across

260
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 1: the length of the body by accounting system that Lynch

261
00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:41,120
Speaker 1: describes as comprised of five coaxial germanium detectors. And because

262
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:44,200
Speaker 1: the level of radiation emitted by these radio neew clides

263
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 1: is usually very faint outside the body, you need an

264
00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:52,280
Speaker 1: extremely sensitive detector. And here you hit another problem, which

265
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:57,040
Speaker 1: is interference from background levels of radiation coming from the

266
00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 1: rest of the world. So you've got cosmic sources, atmospheric sources,

267
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:05,840
Speaker 1: terrestrial sources. So in order to scan the body properly,

268
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:10,720
Speaker 1: you need a room with extremely tight radiation shielding and

269
00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 1: this is where the steel comes in. So the counting

270
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,680
Speaker 1: chamber here is surrounded by a thin layer of lead

271
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,120
Speaker 1: and then cadmium and then copper. This is what's known

272
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:24,680
Speaker 1: together as a graded Z shield. And then outside that

273
00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:29,640
Speaker 1: you have thirty solid centimeters of steel that's all pre

274
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:34,120
Speaker 1: war battleship steel and This keeps the background radiation within

275
00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:39,160
Speaker 1: the chamber within low minimum detectable activities. But the question remains, Okay,

276
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,960
Speaker 1: so you need thirty centimeters of steel, but why couldn't

277
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:45,040
Speaker 1: you just build your radiation shield out of any old steel, Like,

278
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,120
Speaker 1: if regular steel is good enough for your car and

279
00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: your appliances and your sky scrapers, why would you have

280
00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,320
Speaker 1: to harvest the flesh of a decommissioned battleship in order

281
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 1: to build this thick radiation shield. Yeah. Again, it's it's

282
00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:02,160
Speaker 1: easy to sort of leap to magical conclusions. It's kind

283
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,600
Speaker 1: of like, well, we live in a we live in

284
00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:09,159
Speaker 1: a sinful world. We have to build our sacred vessel

285
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,680
Speaker 1: out of wood from the garden of Eden. You know, um,

286
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:15,520
Speaker 1: you know, the the atomic age is so scarred our

287
00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:18,320
Speaker 1: world that we have to we have to find artifacts

288
00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:21,639
Speaker 1: from before that time. Yeah, it certainly does feel like that.

289
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:25,080
Speaker 1: But no, there is actually a very good physical, scientific

290
00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:27,280
Speaker 1: reason for this, and maybe we should take a break

291
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:29,359
Speaker 1: and then get back into it when we come back.

292
00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:35,919
Speaker 1: Than alright, we're back. So we've been talking about the

293
00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:42,040
Speaker 1: idea of radiation shielding around a very sensitive radiation detector room,

294
00:17:42,119 --> 00:17:44,679
Speaker 1: and the shielding was made out of steel that was

295
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:49,199
Speaker 1: harvested from a decommissioned World War Two battleship called the

296
00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 1: USS Indiana. So the question is, why would you need

297
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:54,320
Speaker 1: to get steel from a source like that, Why couldn't

298
00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,840
Speaker 1: you just use regular steel. Well, so let's look at

299
00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:00,800
Speaker 1: how you make steel. Steel is of course a mixture

300
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:04,359
Speaker 1: of iron and carbon and sometimes other additives to create

301
00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:08,679
Speaker 1: alloys with special properties, and crucially for our purposes, the

302
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:14,159
Speaker 1: process for making steel involves the incorporation of atmospheric gases.

303
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,280
Speaker 1: I was reading about this in an article for Chemistry

304
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:19,399
Speaker 1: World by Kit Chapman. I think it was also a

305
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:22,399
Speaker 1: podcast episode of Their's talking about how they're There are

306
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:26,080
Speaker 1: two major industrial processes for making steel in the modern world.

307
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:30,000
Speaker 1: One is known as the Bessemer process, and this involves

308
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 1: melting the iron in a furnace and then removing impurities

309
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,760
Speaker 1: by blowing air through the molten metal. The other is

310
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:40,639
Speaker 1: known as the bos process, and this is similar, but

311
00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 1: it uses pure oxygen instead of air, but that oxygen

312
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:49,440
Speaker 1: is still extracted from the atmosphere, and so the problem

313
00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:53,479
Speaker 1: is that either way, the gas you're blowing through the

314
00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:57,120
Speaker 1: molten iron to make your steel comes from the atmosphere

315
00:18:57,359 --> 00:19:01,080
Speaker 1: from the air, and ever since nuclear your weapon tests

316
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:04,400
Speaker 1: began in nineteen forty five, that has not exactly been

317
00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:09,000
Speaker 1: regular air. It is bomb air. Yeah. The the ghastly

318
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:11,640
Speaker 1: truth of it is, Yeah, we we find ourselves saying, oh,

319
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:13,600
Speaker 1: we need to use air in this is like, oh

320
00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:15,600
Speaker 1: that the air, the air we breathe, that's where we

321
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 1: set off, um, a whole lot of nuclear weapons. Um,

322
00:19:20,040 --> 00:19:23,439
Speaker 1: and and therefore changed it. Um that air is not

323
00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:26,240
Speaker 1: good enough for our steel, for for the special steel,

324
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,639
Speaker 1: at least, just for our breathing and our our food

325
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:33,360
Speaker 1: and our our children and so forth. Now we'll get

326
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:35,399
Speaker 1: a bit more into the history of the nuclear testing

327
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:37,960
Speaker 1: era in a second here, But in short, there was

328
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:39,920
Speaker 1: a period of time in the middle of the twentieth

329
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:43,679
Speaker 1: century when lots of nuclear weapons tests were conducted around

330
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:50,040
Speaker 1: the world, and these tests seeded the atmosphere with radioactive contamination. Now,

331
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,360
Speaker 1: the levels today are much lower than they were, say

332
00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:56,159
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen sixties, when these tests have been

333
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:58,560
Speaker 1: going on for a decade and a half, but even

334
00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 1: today the air still contain in some radioactive isotopes such

335
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:05,560
Speaker 1: as cobalt sixty and others. Uh that is left over

336
00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: from the hundreds of nuclear detonations that characterized the post

337
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 1: war period. Now this had many effects, of course, the

338
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:15,400
Speaker 1: most important of which are probably like the health effects

339
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 1: on humans and the effects on wildlife. But another one

340
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,480
Speaker 1: of the effects is that for a long time you

341
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:26,439
Speaker 1: couldn't make steel via normal processes without it being potentially

342
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:31,280
Speaker 1: contaminated with radioactive particles. Not so many radioactive particles that

343
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 1: it would be unsafe for regular use, but enough that

344
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,200
Speaker 1: it would be unsuitable if you were trying to make

345
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 1: a sensitive instrument. So if you needed to make a

346
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:44,360
Speaker 1: Geiger counter or shielding for a sensitive radio bioassay chamber.

347
00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:48,240
Speaker 1: Uh so, what would you do. Well, it probably wasn't

348
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:53,200
Speaker 1: impossible to make steal without environmental contaminants from nuclear tests,

349
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:57,159
Speaker 1: but it would have been expensive and difficult. And another

350
00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:01,719
Speaker 1: option presented itself, which is harvesting steel made before the

351
00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 1: Trinity test in nineteen forty five, and this precious material

352
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: became known in the industry as low background steel. Low

353
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:14,840
Speaker 1: background because of its low background radiation and what would

354
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 1: be a great source of huge quantities of pre bomb

355
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 1: steel old naval vessels. So to come back to the

356
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 1: Timothy Lynch article about the radio bioassay facility in Richland. Uh,

357
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:30,679
Speaker 1: the USS Indiana was again the battleship that was sourced.

358
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:33,200
Speaker 1: It was the source here. It was decommissioned on September

359
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:37,119
Speaker 1: eleven nine and then sold for scrap after it was

360
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: taken off the navy list in on June one, nineteen

361
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,160
Speaker 1: sixty two. And as the ship was dismantled, some parts

362
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,760
Speaker 1: were kept for ceremonial purposes, like the mainmast and a

363
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: forty millimeter gun were put on display on the campus

364
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:54,000
Speaker 1: of India University, Bloomington. And I know some of its

365
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: anchors were put on display at various museums and memorials.

366
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: You know, it's compasses, wheels and all that went to

367
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 1: places where where you can honor the fallen ships. Well

368
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:07,680
Speaker 1: it this really drives home this metaphor of the ship

369
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 1: is a fallen beast, like the warship is a thing

370
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,159
Speaker 1: that once dead. Uh. You know that certain parts are

371
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: kept for like you said, ceremonial purposes or display purposes,

372
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,439
Speaker 1: magical purposes, and yet other things are harvested for for

373
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 1: the raw meter bone of the creature, right, and the

374
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 1: raw meter bone would be the steel here the smade

375
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:28,640
Speaker 1: up the bulk of the ship was put to low

376
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 1: background uses. So in Indiana, VA Hospital got sixty five

377
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 1: tons of low background steel from the Indiana and that

378
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: was used for their own uh their own background radiation

379
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 1: counting facilities. But then Lynch writes quote in addition to

380
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: the VA Hospital facility, several large sections of the hull,

381
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:51,719
Speaker 1: weighing a total of two tons, were also fabricated into

382
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: a room. These applications were probably never imagined by the

383
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 1: original designers of the Indiana. These sections of the hull

384
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 1: are still being used for the original purpose as a shield,

385
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: but instead of protecting against artillery shells and torpedoes, the

386
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,679
Speaker 1: new purpose is to shield radiation detectors from the background

387
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 1: radiations originating from cosmic, atmospheric, man made and terrestrial sources.

388
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: So what was once armor again unitions is now armor

389
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: against the entire universe and its radioactive contents. The room

390
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: was first constructed at the University of Utah Medical Center

391
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City, where it was used for many

392
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 1: years in radio biology research, and then it was finally

393
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 1: moved to the Richland Facility in nineteen and the Indiana

394
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 1: was not the only battleship that became a source of

395
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: low background steel. So after the Armistice in nineteen eighteen,

396
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,880
Speaker 1: at the conclusion of World War One, the German High

397
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: Seas Fleet was ordered to report to an Allied base

398
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: known as the Scapa Flow, where the naval vessels were

399
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 1: supposed to be handed over to the British Royal Navy.

400
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: But the German officers did not like that. They had

401
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: a different idea, and they decided, sort of as a

402
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: kind of last middle finger to the British, they scuttled

403
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,479
Speaker 1: their ships in the harbor. They sank their own ships

404
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: on purpose so that the British couldn't have them. So

405
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: now they're all those shipwrecks there. In fact, that the

406
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: Scapa Flow is well known for its World War One

407
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: era shipwrecks and has been exploited extensively as a source

408
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: of low background steel. And though it's not known for sure,

409
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: I've read rumors, unconfirmed rumors that some early spacecraft may

410
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 1: have used low background steel from the Scapa Flow or

411
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 1: other wrecks in radiation detectors. Interesting now, I mentioned this earlier,

412
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: but it's worth pointing out again that the atmosphere is

413
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: much less radioactive today than it was at the height

414
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: of nuclear testing in in the middle of the century.

415
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 1: For example, cobalt sixty has a half life of about

416
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: five point three years, and there has been a lot

417
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: less nuclear testing since the Partial Nuclear Test Band Treaty

418
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 1: in nineteen certainly a lot less atmospheric testing. So the

419
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: atmosphere should be reduced to um near pre war levels

420
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: of background contamination within a reasonable amount of time. But

421
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,239
Speaker 1: but it took decades. So Robert, when reading about this,

422
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: I came across a comic strip I thought you might like.

423
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: It's one of the X K C D comics. And

424
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: in it they build a time machine. But it turns

425
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: out the time machine requires lead from sunken Roman warships

426
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: and uh. This is of course hard to come by,

427
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: so they determine they have enough lead for one trip

428
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: into the past. And uh, and in this way through

429
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: time travel, Greek Fire is born. It's kind of like

430
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: the the You know, if you could you only had

431
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: one wish from a genie, what do you do? Well?

432
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: You wish for more wishes? Yeah, more wishes? Yeah. I

433
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: love this little comic strip. I had not seen it

434
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: before you I shared it with me. But it it's

435
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: especially nice because I just started watching some nineties episodes

436
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,479
Speaker 1: of The Outer Limits, and this is the kind of

437
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 1: sort of Outer limitsy sort of plot, maybe skewed a

438
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: little bit for comedic purposes, you know, it's the it's

439
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: the kind of twist you you expect in time travel fiction.

440
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: I like it. Yeah, uh so if I wasn't totally

441
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 1: clear and you didn't get they travel back in time

442
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,439
Speaker 1: and use their future weapons on Roman warships, and of

443
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: course that becomes the legend of Greek fire. Yeah. They

444
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: take out like a helicopter with a flamethrower back in

445
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: time and uh and and set to light the Roman ships. Now,

446
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: I guess we've made several references to this nuclear testing

447
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 1: age in the middle of the twentieth century. Of course,

448
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: this began in the nineteen forties. The first one was

449
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: again the Trinity Test by the United States in July ninety.

450
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: The Soviet Union first performed nuclear weapons tests in nineteen

451
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: forty nine. Tests took place all, you know, all over

452
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 1: the place. They were in the upper atmosphere, underground, in

453
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: the ocean, and once several other The majority of the

454
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: tests were by the United States and the Soviet Union,

455
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: but several other countries eventually got involved, and there were

456
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: a lot of bomb tests in the end. Yes, so

457
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: you probably wonder, well, just how many? So I looked

458
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: it looked around for a good, UH, good good total

459
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: on this. I find that the estimates vary a little bit,

460
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 1: I mean not a lot. But according to Darryl Kimball,

461
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: executive director of the Arms Control Association, which is a

462
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 1: great source for for the sort of UH information, this

463
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 1: is what they had to say in a July report quote.

464
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: Since the first nuclear test explosion on July six, ninety five,

465
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: at least eight nations have detonated two thousand and fifty

466
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: six nuclear test explosions at dozens of test sites, including

467
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: Lopnore in China, the atolls of the Pacific, Nevada, Algeria,

468
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: where France conducted its first nuclear device, Western Australia, where

469
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: the UK exploded nuclear weapons, the South Atlantic Semipalatans in Kazakhstan,

470
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 1: across Russia, and elsewhere. So that's over two thousand nuclear

471
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: test explosions in total. And if you're looking specifically at

472
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: atmospheric tests alone, which are often considered like the worst

473
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: kind in terms of proliferating UH contaminants into the atmosphere.

474
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: Of course those would be there. There were definitely more

475
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: than five hundred atmospheric tests. Yeah, when you when you

476
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,239
Speaker 1: start breaking down the numbers, the US conducted most of

477
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: these with let's see some two hundred fifteen atmospheric tests

478
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: and eight hundred and fifteen underground tests. The USSR slash

479
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: Russia ranks second with two hundred and nineteen atmospheric tests

480
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: and four hundred nine underground test and the remaining ranking

481
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: goes like this. You've got France, then the UK and China.

482
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: They're tied UK and China with a total of forty

483
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: five tests each. Then you have North Korea, India and Pakistan.

484
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: The United States is of course responsible for the only

485
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: wartime detonation of nuclear weapons as in utilized as weapons

486
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: against another people. Two bombs deployed against the Japanese cities

487
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between one hundred twenty nine

488
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: thousand and two hundred twenty six thousand people, mostly civilians.

489
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,239
Speaker 1: Needles to say, those were both atmospheric detonations. Yeah, and

490
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: of course with each of these tests there is going

491
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: to be more radioactive contamination entering the atmosphere. Now in

492
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, the Partial Nuclear Test Band Treaty managed

493
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: to ban tests in the atmosphere and underwater, so basically

494
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: it banned all except underground tests. It did not really

495
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: stop nuclear proliferation, but it did massively decrease the dispersal

496
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: of radio nuclides into the atmosphere. Now there's been another

497
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: um perhaps unexpected, interesting environmental side effect of the nuclear

498
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: testing age, which is how it has affected atmospheric levels

499
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: of carbon fourteen and the way that this has turned

500
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: into an unexpected number of scientific tools that can be

501
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: used to study the natural world. So, in nature, carbon

502
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: fourteen is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is generated

503
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: in Earth's atmosphere every minute of every day. The Earth

504
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: is of course bombarded by cosmic rays, and cosmic rays

505
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: are charged particles, usually protons and atomic nuclei, which are

506
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: emitted from high energy sources, including the Sun, but also

507
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: places far away, usually traveling near the speed of light.

508
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: And when one of these high energy particles enters the atmosphere,

509
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: it sometimes strikes atoms to generate free neutrons, and a

510
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: free neutron then combines with a regular atom of nitrogen

511
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: fourteen to produce an atom of carbon fourteen, and this

512
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen then pairs up with oxygen to create carbon

513
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: fourteen c O two, So there's a lot of carbon

514
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: fourteen in the atmosphere is just produced at a steady

515
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: rate naturally as the cosmic rays are coming in, and

516
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: this carbon fourteen c O two gets into everything that

517
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 1: ingests atmospheric carbon. So plants suck in c O two

518
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: with a predictable amount of carbon fourteen and they use

519
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: that carbon to make their bodies, and then the tree

520
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: is in the grass and the corn are all made

521
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: out of carbon content that is retrieved from the air

522
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: and has a certain amount of carbon fourteen in it.

523
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: So if you do a molecular analysis of a plant,

524
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: you will have a certain proportion of carbon fourteen in there,

525
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: because the atmosphere does about one out of every trillion

526
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: carbon atoms is a carbon fourteen atom. But of course

527
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: it doesn't stop at plants, because we also exist in

528
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: a carbon fourteen generating atmosphere. You know, all the chemistry

529
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: on Earth is sort of interconnected. So we eat those plants,

530
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: and we eat animals that eat those plants, so our

531
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: bodies also have a predictable amount of carbon fourteen content.

532
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: And as I said earlier, carbon fourteen is radioactive, which

533
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: is another way of saying it's unstable. It has a

534
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: known half life, so we know that it decays into

535
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: other isotopes at a regular, predictable rate. So if you

536
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: die and you stop breathing and stop eating, the amount

537
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: of carbon fourteen in your body will steadily decrease over

538
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: the years. And what scientists figured out in the twentieth

539
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: century was that you could use the amount of carbon

540
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: fourteen in a formerly living object or an object formerly

541
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: incorporating a known percentage of atmospheric carbon, to see approximately

542
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: how long it had been since that organism stopped ingesting

543
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: carbon from the environment, in other words, when it died.

544
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: And this has been amazingly useful to the historical sciences.

545
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: This this has created the era of carbon fourteen dating.

546
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: It's been enormously useful to archaeologists and all kinds of

547
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: other scientists to analyze and date organisms and substances from

548
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:44,719
Speaker 1: the past. But nuclear testing, beginning in the nineteen forties

549
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: and especially since the nineteen fifties, has introduced new wrinkles

550
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: into this. It has introduced new layers of radio carbon science.

551
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: Both some complications to the existing radio carbon science and

552
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: new tools that scientists couldn't have predicted at first the

553
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: they would have. Uh. And so next, I just wanted

554
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: to talk a bit about a really, really excellent article

555
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic by by Carl Zimmer. Can we say

556
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: a friend of the show, Carl Zimmer. He's a former

557
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: guest of the show, Carl Zimmer. Um, let's see what

558
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: we had. We laid out specific rules for this in

559
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: the past. Right, if you're on the show once, you're

560
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: a former guest or a previous guest of the show. Okay,

561
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: I think you have to be on two times to

562
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: be a friend of the show, or is it three times?

563
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: I can't remember how that status we break. We've been

564
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: the rules all the time. Uh. Karl is one of

565
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: my favorite science writers. He wrote an excellent book called

566
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: She Has Her Mother's Laugh that we talked about on

567
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: the show, and and this article is just fantastic. But

568
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: it's called nuclear Tests Marked Life on Earth with a

569
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: radioactive Spike. And this article, of course is worth reading

570
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: on its own. But I wanted to talk about a

571
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: few things that Carl gets into here about some of

572
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: the environmental effects of of nuclear testing, specifically relating to

573
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen. So Carl Carl Zimmer, in addition to how

574
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: having been a wonderful and just cheerful guest of the show,

575
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: is just all a wonderful writer as always, I want

576
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: to read just a little bit from this article here

577
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: to to set the stage. Quote. Carbon fourteen, produced by

578
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: hydrogen bombs spread over the entire world. It worked itself

579
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere, the oceans, and practically every living thing.

580
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 1: As it spread, it exposed secrets. It can reveal when

581
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: we were born. It tracks hidden changes to our hearts

582
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: and brains. It lights up the cryptic channels that joined

583
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,240
Speaker 1: the entire biosphere into a single network of chemical flux.

584
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: This man made burst of carbon fourteen has been such

585
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: a revelation that scientists referred to it as quote the

586
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 1: bomb spike. Only now is the bomb spike close to disappearing,

587
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: But as it vanishes, scientists have found a new use

588
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: for it to track global warming, the next self inflicted

589
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 1: threat to our survival. The part of this that sticks

590
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: with me the most is where he talks about how

591
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: looking at carbon fourteen in the way it penetrates the

592
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: whole by sphere. Really, it's one of those you know,

593
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,439
Speaker 1: like the brain lights up with the sudden realization that, uh,

594
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: to use a sort of stoner cliche, everything's connected, but

595
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,959
Speaker 1: it really is it like literally in a scientific way,

596
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: is there is a single sort of chemical flux that

597
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: that takes place all throughout this planet. Yeah. I keep

598
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: coming back to this, this basic like this this uh,

599
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: this sort of you know, arguably hippie notion this everything

600
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 1: is connected, we're all one world on people, et cetera,

601
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: which I know is something that everyone has heard so

602
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: many times that even if you believe in it wholeheartedly,

603
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 1: it can it can sound a little uh uh limp,

604
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,919
Speaker 1: you know, in in your ears. And yet like that's

605
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the reality that drives through and

606
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,240
Speaker 1: all of this science, and it stands in such harsh

607
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: contrast to the way uh, certain individuals, uh in uh

608
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: like the political and the military sphere view nuclear weapons.

609
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: The idea that like, you know, certainly we can say

610
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: a head of state using a nuclear weapon against the

611
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: city within their own nation, that would be that would

612
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: be ridiculous, that would be monstrous. But it's but but

613
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: then the you know, people will say, oh, but do

614
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: you use it against another nation? And other people that's

615
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: less monstrous. But no, no, it's all interconnected in in

616
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: a in in a in a scientifically verifiable way. I mean,

617
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: it's it's one atmosphere at the very base level, without

618
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: getting into um some of the other um issues we're

619
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: going to explore, and just the basic ethical framework of

620
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 1: the choice. Yeah, I mean it makes me think of

621
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: that commonly sided thing about astronauts very often, you know,

622
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 1: seeing the Earth from space and then suddenly feeling more

623
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,240
Speaker 1: of a kinship with all of humankind and not feeling

624
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: nearly as much the uh, not feeling the reality of

625
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:54,800
Speaker 1: national borders and things like that, uh, nearly as much anymore. Uh.

626
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: It's funny how easily those illusions can be dissolved just

627
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: by a sort of a single vision, dual impression, or

628
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: a single realization about saying how chemistry works, that you're

629
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: suddenly like, oh, wait a minute, you know, there's just

630
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: sort of earth life, and we we really need to

631
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: make this work and not create problems that aren't necessary

632
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,280
Speaker 1: to begin with. Yeah, those are those lines and those naps.

633
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 1: They really do nothing against radioactive particles and certainly concepts

634
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: such as nuclear fallout or um or a climate change.

635
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: So going into Karl Zimmer's article. As I said, it's

636
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: worth reading the article in full. It's really fantastic. He

637
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 1: begins by telling the story of the Castle Bravo test

638
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four, which is uh, both all inspiring

639
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: and horrifying and heartbreaking. Um. But later on, when he's

640
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: getting into the scientific history of of carbon fourteen, he

641
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 1: talks about the Chicago physicist Willard Libby, who was a

642
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,399
Speaker 1: Nobel prize winning or did I say physicist, I think

643
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,800
Speaker 1: he would be called a physical chemist. Uh. He was

644
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: somebody who studied radioactive elements and and one of those

645
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: was one of the major developers of carbon fourteen dating.

646
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: And one of the really interesting things that Libby does

647
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: is that Libby ends up comparing measurements of methane from

648
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: say living current sources, say methane coming off of a

649
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: sewage plant, So this is going to be sewage from

650
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: things that are currently alive, versus methane coming off of

651
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: fossil fuels like oil that has been there for millions

652
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: of years. And what he showed was that, say, the

653
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: methane coming off of the excreta produced by living humans

654
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:38,720
Speaker 1: is something close to about the atmospheric level. Meanwhile, what's

655
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: coming the methane coming off of fossil fuels, coming off

656
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: of say, oil that's been there for millions of years,

657
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: has essentially no carbon fourteen in it, right, because it's

658
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: been there for so long that all of the radioactive

659
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: isotopes of carbon have decayed, so it's just got regular

660
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: carbon in it. And there was some other really interesting

661
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: experiments too, but one of the things I wanted to

662
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: focus on was uh Karl's profiling of the New Zealand

663
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: physicist Ethel Rafter. So Rafter was picking up on Libby's research,

664
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: and he was interested in radiocarbon dating. In its early days,

665
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: he used it to test the bones of extinct birds

666
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,439
Speaker 1: and ancient volcanic eruptions. But he also tried to help

667
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: refine the technique itself by performing measurements of the radio

668
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: carbon in the atmosphere. And he would do this by

669
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: setting out a tray of LIE on top of it

670
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: on a hilltop, and the LIE would capture c O

671
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: two from the air, and then he would measure the

672
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: atmospheric levels of carbon fourteen or the ratio of course,

673
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: and whenever we're talking about levels of carbon fourteen, we're

674
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: talking about the ratio of carbon fourteen to regular carbon,

675
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: and so Rafter would have been doing his research in

676
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, and what he expected was that levels

677
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: of radio carbon in the atmosphere would sort of bounce

678
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: up and down, there just be sort of a natural

679
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: fluctuation around a baseline. But instead he found an extremely

680
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: steady trend. The level of carbon fourteen was just tenually

681
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: going up. And what was the reason. While it was

682
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, so to quote from the article, the

683
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: Castle Bravo test and the ones that followed had to

684
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 1: be the source. They were turning the atmosphere upside down.

685
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: Instead of cosmic rays falling from space, they were sending

686
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 1: neutrons up to the sky, creating a huge new supply

687
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 1: of radio carbon. In nineteen fifty seven, Rafter published as

688
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: results in the journal Science. The implications were immediately clear

689
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: and astonishing. Man made carbon fourteen was spreading across the

690
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: planet from test sites in the Pacific and the Arctic.

691
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: It was even passing from the air into the oceans

692
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 1: and trees. And when they checked, they found increasing levels

693
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 1: of radiocarbon in everything, in tree rings in Texas, in snails,

694
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: in Holland, in the lungs of recently deceased people from

695
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: New York, even in the blood of living people. Uh,

696
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,359
Speaker 1: there's just extra carb and fourteen and everything. And as

697
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: bomb radiocarbon, So the bomb radio carbon would be would

698
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: be up in the upper atmosphere, and as it settles

699
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: back down to Earth, it becomes a sort of tracer

700
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: molecule that can be used as a scientific tool. So

701
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: Carl quotes from somebody named Steve Beauprey who's an oceanographer

702
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: at Stony Brook University, and he's quoted in the article

703
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: saying that carbon fourteen is inextricably linked to our understanding

704
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: of how water moves. And so I thought this was

705
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: so interesting. So in the nineteen seventies, oceanographers found that

706
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 1: there was bomb radio carbon that was distributed throughout the

707
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: top one thousand meters of the ocean's water column. So

708
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: if you go down a thousand meters, you're going to find,

709
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: you know, atmospheric radiocarbon the elevated levels that you'd get

710
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: from a bomb. But then if you go down below

711
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: that suddenly not so much anymore. And this became a

712
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: really important piece of evidence in estimating the or in

713
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 1: establishing that the ocean, like the atmosphere, had layers, and

714
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:09,280
Speaker 1: that water was primarily circulated within rather than between these layers.

715
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: Carl Wright's quote, the warm, relatively fresh water on the

716
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: surface of the ocean glides over the cold, salty depths.

717
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:21,839
Speaker 1: These surface currents becomes saltier as they evaporate, and eventually,

718
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 1: at a few crucial spots on the planet, these streams

719
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,360
Speaker 1: get so dense that they fall to the bottom of

720
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: the ocean. The bomb radio carbon from Castle Bravo didn't

721
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: start plunging down into the depths of the North Atlantic

722
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: until the nineteen eighties, when John Clark this character from

723
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: the Castle Bravo test was two decades into retirement. It's

724
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: still down there where it will be carried along the

725
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,839
Speaker 1: seafloor by bottom hugging ocean currents for hundreds of years

726
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: before it rises to the light of day. Uh. And

727
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: he points out also that lots of ocean life bears

728
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: the seal of the bomb spike. Again, this is from

729
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: atmospheric tests, and so this is not even underwater test.

730
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: This is atmospheric tests coming down into the ocean. Bomb

731
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: radiocarbon falls into the ocean it infiltrates everything from algae

732
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: to the rings of calcium carbonate within coral growth, and

733
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: then it forms this kind of slime, so uh quote.

734
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,280
Speaker 1: The living things in the upper reaches of the ocean

735
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: release organic carbon that falls gently to the seafloor, a

736
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: jumble of protoplasmic goo, dolphin droppings, starfish eggs, an all

737
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: manner of detritus that scientists call marine snow. In recent decades,

738
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: that marine snow has become more radioactive. In the article,

739
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: he also profiles a researcher named Mary gay Lord who

740
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: works at the National Ocean Science is Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility,

741
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: which is known as No Sam's for short, and that's

742
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: at the Woods Hole, which is where Hooper comes from

743
00:43:55,600 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: in Jaws, and she measures radiocarbon and everything from bat

744
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: guano to fish eyes. There's a lot about fish eyes

745
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: in this article, which is more interesting than you think

746
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: because surprisingly the study of radio carbon and fish eye

747
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: lenses can tell us a lot, like the cores of

748
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 1: fish eye lenses have the same levels of carbon fourteen

749
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: as the fish did when they were still egg so

750
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: it's a really good age indicator. And this knowledge was

751
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: used by Danish researchers in to create an aging metric

752
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: for these cold bottom dwelling animals, the greenland sharks, which

753
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: you might have read about them because they grow so old.

754
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: This helped confirm the discovery that these animals could live

755
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: to be almost four hundred years old, So a lot

756
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: of these are pre bomb sharks. And actually this also

757
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 1: applies to humans. People born in the early nineteen sixties

758
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: have more radio carbon in the lenses in their eyes

759
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: than people born before the nuclear testing age, and people

760
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: born in the years since then have less and less

761
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: as time passes since the since the partial test band

762
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: treat bomb. Radio carbon can also be used to date

763
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,240
Speaker 1: human teeth. But there's a very sobering fact that's discussed

764
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: at the end of Zimmer's article, which is that the

765
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: proportion of carbon fourteen currently in the atmosphere is actually

766
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: a bit lower than would be predicted by the known

767
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: nuclear tests and the known rate of decay and absorption

768
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: by the Earth and seas. So what makes the difference,

769
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: Like why is there less carbon fourteen than we think

770
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,720
Speaker 1: there should be? And it turns out there's an answer

771
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: to that. The answer is fossil fuels. Remember how I

772
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that the methane coming off of oil had

773
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: basically no carbon fourteen in it, because the oil is

774
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: so old, all of the carbon fourteen has already decayed.

775
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: It's gone. Uh. So, as we release carbon from these

776
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 1: ancient carbon sources into the atmosphere, we're putting a much

777
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: higher percentage than normal of regular carbon up there, which

778
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:58,439
Speaker 1: actually dilutes what carbon fourteen there is. Uh Carl Carl

779
00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: Zimmer points out that a nineteen f d four, which

780
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: was the year of the Castle Bravo test, humans emitted

781
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: six billion tons of carbon dioxide that year uh. Quote

782
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: in humans emitted about thirty seven billion tons, which is

783
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 1: more than six times more as Willard Libby first discovered.

784
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,399
Speaker 1: This fossil fuel has no radiocarbon left. By burning it,

785
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: we are lowering the level of radiocarbon in the atmosphere

786
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:29,959
Speaker 1: like a bartender watering down the top shelf liquor. Which

787
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:34,240
Speaker 1: is so strange. So the remaining signature of humanity's first

788
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: great sort of civilization level threat technology is being deluded

789
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: by the ever increasing mark of our other one, by

790
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: the second one. All right, I guess we need to

791
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more.

792
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: Thank So, I have another example of a specific resulting

793
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,359
Speaker 1: scientific discovery from a nuclear test that that I ran

794
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: across UM and it it concerns UH, the of a

795
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: test known as Starfish Prime. So this was a one

796
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:09,720
Speaker 1: point for megaton thermonuclear device launched two hundred and fifty

797
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 1: miles or four hundred kilometers into the sky near Johnston

798
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,320
Speaker 1: A Tall. So it is the largest outer space nuclear

799
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: detonation ever committed. It occurred around eleven pm local time. UH.

800
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,240
Speaker 1: This would be um you know, in the in that region,

801
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: and the thermonuclear sphere burned like a new sun in

802
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: the night sky. And if you look up Starfish Prime

803
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: online you can you can see photos that were taken

804
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: from Honolulu, Hawaii at the time, and it does look

805
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: like like a sun in the sky. Wow. Afterwards, an

806
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,919
Speaker 1: aura could be seen as well for thousands of kilometers

807
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: it It also resulted, and this kind of comes down

808
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 1: to one of the key findings. It resulted in an

809
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: electromagnetic pulse or an e MP, something that had been

810
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: suspected by scientists, but this was really the proof in

811
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: the pudding. It in up disrupting the flow of electricity

812
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 1: for hundreds of kilometers around it, with its most of

813
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: its disruptions felt in Hawaii itself. It also damaged six

814
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: satellites which ultimately failed, and other failures might be linked

815
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 1: to starfish prime as well. So this was this was

816
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: ended up being an effect that was far stronger than anticipated. Now,

817
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: now that that's all interesting, but obviously a test like

818
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: this expand is going to expand on our understanding of

819
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: the weapon technology being tested. But the side effect here

820
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 1: is that the CD one O nine tracers released by

821
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: the detonation allowed scientists to work out some of the

822
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: seasonal mixing rate of polar and tropical air masses. So

823
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: again comes down to the fluid dynamics of of in

824
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: our earlier example of the ocean, and here with atmospheric movement.

825
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: This also touches on something that comes up with the

826
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: Castle Bravo test and a number of other tests, you know,

827
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: the Castle Bravo being the hydrogen bomb that turned out

828
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: to be a much bigger explosive yield than was predicted.

829
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: And this is not just a scientific curiosity, and this

830
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: is something that that had tragic consequences for real people

831
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,839
Speaker 1: like the people of the wrong gelop Atoll. Who were

832
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: pretty nearby where the Castle Bravo test was conducted were

833
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 1: affected horribly with by like fallout from the test just

834
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: because it was so much bigger than the scientists thought

835
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 1: it was gonna be. Yeah, you see this this trend

836
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: with a number of the earlier tests, um, where they

837
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: they don't get quite what they were expecting or you know,

838
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 1: it's larger, or it doesn't go off exactly the way

839
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: it was planned. And and and and indeed, uh, in many

840
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: cases it means people were were sick and people's health

841
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 1: suffered because of these tests. Environments were um, we're tainted

842
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: by the radiation, are still tainted. In some case cases

843
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 1: people have been dislocated and have not yet been able

844
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 1: to return. Um. You know, we believe we're calling this

845
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 1: episode the atomic scar. But a scar to we tend

846
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: to think of as something that is visible but is

847
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: fully healed. And the thing about a lot of these

848
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: these tests is that it's it's not so much a scar,

849
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: but it is like um, a thick scab, and if

850
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: we are to to pick at it again, uh, we

851
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: may bleed. In fact, we may we may bleed um

852
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: for the duration of our lives. Sort of situations. So

853
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: um uh so yeah, the these uh kind of comes

854
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: back to what we said earlier about, you know, about

855
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: the world in which we conduct these tests. You know,

856
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: we we might think, oh, we're not setting this off

857
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: in the house, We're setting it off in the backyard,

858
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: you know. But but ultimately you know, the wilds of

859
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: Nevada or some islands you know off the coast of Australia,

860
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: these are these are part of the world we live in,

861
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:43,399
Speaker 1: as part of the atmosphere that we all breathe, part

862
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,919
Speaker 1: of the ocean that we all depend on. And even

863
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 1: underground tests are not without some environmental consequences. I mean

864
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: not nearly as much as a atmospheric or underwater tests,

865
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,879
Speaker 1: but underground tests too can can produce leakages. Yeah. Now,

866
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 1: on the subject of underwater tests, I was reading a

867
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: little bit more about the EASE and these were banned

868
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: by the Partial Nuclear Test Band Treaty in nineteen sixty three,

869
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:08,719
Speaker 1: but the U, S, the UK and the uss ARE

870
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 1: managed to conduct a total of nine before that that

871
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: that band came into place, and these included um, shallow

872
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 1: detonations to see how the the the weapon would impact

873
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: ships as well as deep detonations to see how they

874
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: might be used against submarines or how they would impact submarines.

875
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: The deepest was the nineteen fifty five Wigwam test at

876
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: a depth of two thousand feet six and tens now

877
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: an author by the name of Sarah Lascau wrote a

878
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: really good article about about the US tests for Atlas Obscura,

879
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 1: pointing out that the water is what really made the

880
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: tests more problematic because instead of spreading radioactive particles through

881
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: a wider atmospheric region, it instead released an immediate radioactive

882
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 1: water cloud. So the ships used in these tests were

883
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: highly radiated and possible to clean, so they were just

884
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: towed out to the deep and scuttled. Now Alascow rights

885
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: that quote. The Atomic Energy Commission would not sign off

886
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 1: on it until it was clear that no one in

887
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: the United States or Mexico was at risk and that

888
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: the test area was relatively free of marine life. Um.

889
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: But but the test certainly killed fish and other organisms. UM.

890
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,320
Speaker 1: I read an account by a UK veterrian, who was

891
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: of course working with some of those UK UH tests,

892
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:28,760
Speaker 1: claims that men were sent out in boats to collect

893
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: dead irradiated fish after after the test was conducted. And

894
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: this particular test would have been uh the nineteen two

895
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 1: hurricane test in the Montebello Islands, as this was the

896
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: only UK underwater nuclear test that was conducted, and of

897
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: course in a lot of these like tests in the

898
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: Pacific Islands and stuff, even when the explosion was carried

899
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: out in the atmosphere, it was still extremely damaging to

900
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 1: marine life. Like, Yeah, there's a part in uh Karl

901
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: Simmer's article that we were talking about earlier where he

902
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: talks about with the Castle Bravost four quote, within seconds

903
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 1: the fireball had lofted ten million tons of pulverized coral

904
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 1: reef coated in radioactive material. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, these

905
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: these atmospheric tests were also devastating to these areas. One

906
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 1: area that frequently comes up is is Bikini at all.

907
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 1: This is where the first underwater test was was was

908
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: conducted Baker, but also you had many other atmospheric tests

909
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: that took place there as well. And what's interesting here

910
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: is that there's been there's some studies in in over

911
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: the past decade or so that have really looked at

912
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: how the local environment has has bounced back, and indeed

913
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: it does show that nature can be very resistant to

914
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: even this kind of you know, intense damage. That they

915
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: say that corals have recolonized bomb craters. Other life forms

916
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: are doing well, even if there are some curious mutations

917
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: like sharks missing their second dorsal fin, that sort of thing.

918
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: The general belief is that um at least with with Bikini,

919
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 1: that the worst affected fish died off decades ago, and

920
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 1: today's fish populations are only exposed to low radiation levels

921
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 1: as they frequently swim in and out. Plus, these are

922
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: also areas that have been left alone by humans, they've

923
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: more so than other marine areas. Now one should also

924
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 1: note that the occupants of the area around Bikini Atoll

925
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: and the Marshall Islands were displaced by the test, some

926
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: one seven people, I believe, and they've never been able

927
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: to return their Their dislocation was supposed to be temporary. UM.

928
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: But but then on top of that, children in the

929
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:38,800
Speaker 1: Marshall Islands, Uh, we're observed to experience thyroid problems long

930
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:43,680
Speaker 1: after nuclear tests ended. Now, we've thus far been talking

931
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: about nuclear testing, and and of course beyond that, we

932
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 1: we can I think we can. We can hardly talk

933
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: about nuclear testing without at least briefly discussing the prospect

934
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 1: of nuclear war itself, because that is ultimately what the

935
00:54:57,800 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: testing is all about. Now you can make the argument

936
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,440
Speaker 1: it that ultimately it's about preventing uh that's sort of

937
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: warfare from taking place by making sure you have uh

938
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: you know, a terrifying number of of of nuclear weapons

939
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: in your armament, or you know, the reverse is true,

940
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,479
Speaker 1: that you are developing these weapons which may potentially be used.

941
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: Any nuclear weapon is a potential holocaust, uh you know,

942
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: contained within the warhead, right, I mean, I think, I

943
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: guess the advocates of the pro nuclear armament theory would say, well,

944
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: what we did is that we did these tests so

945
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't have to have actual wars, and the

946
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:39,320
Speaker 1: tests discouraged, say the United States and the Soviet Union

947
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:42,919
Speaker 1: from actually ever initiating a real, you know, shooting war

948
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: with each other. Of course, there are plenty of proxy

949
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 1: conflicts and all that. I mean in a way you

950
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 1: can only you know, you can never know how sure

951
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: to be about counterfactuals like that. People are saying, well,

952
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 1: things would have been worse if we hadn't had the

953
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 1: nuclear threat looming over us to discourage us from going

954
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 1: to war. I guess it's hard to know whether that's

955
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:05,879
Speaker 1: true or not, but I guess it's also though it's

956
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: just hard to calculate costs and benefits when you're thinking

957
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:12,359
Speaker 1: about when you know the potential cost is like a

958
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: civilization ending worldwide calamity. Yeah, and and that indeed, you know,

959
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: to come back to the the idea of the world

960
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 1: changing forever. I mean that is one of the frequently

961
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: touched upon aspects of the whole scenario, is that it

962
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: is humanity's ability to to truly destroy itself and and

963
00:56:30,239 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: ultimately within a very short period of time. Now, I

964
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: know that this kind of brings us to a kind

965
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: of a dark corner for the end of the podcast.

966
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of you don't like considering

967
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: such possibilities. I don't like considering such possibilities either. If

968
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: you are troubled by such possibilities, I would urge you

969
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,800
Speaker 1: to consider following UH a group like the Arms Control

970
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,239
Speaker 1: Association at arms Control dot org or any number of

971
00:56:56,239 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 1: other anti nuclear weapon or nuclear weapon control or disarmament groups.

972
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: And if you're in a position to use your vote

973
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: to favor candidates political candidates who take nuclear testing and

974
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: nuclear war seriously and are committed to certainly not testing them,

975
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: but even you know, not even raising the question of

976
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 1: their deployment or questioning why they shouldn't be used and

977
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Then you said you should do so, Yeah,

978
00:57:20,320 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 1: I mean, the Cold War may be over, but there

979
00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:25,959
Speaker 1: are still lots and lots of nuclear weapons out there,

980
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:30,479
Speaker 1: and uh, and fantasizing about nuclear escalation is not a joke.

981
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 1: It's not It's not something to play around with, absolutely,

982
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:35,920
Speaker 1: especially since I think we've touched on some of this

983
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: on the show before. Like the the the barriers between

984
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: our our current world and one of nuclear warfare, those

985
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 1: those barriers are not as thick as as sometimes we

986
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: might think they are, Like the safeguards in place are

987
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: are not that robust. We we need to do everything

988
00:57:55,680 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: we can to to to to lessen the possible ability, uh,

989
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: that such a thing could come to pass, either in

990
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: a in a large scale, certainly, but even at a

991
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 1: quote unquote small scale. Alright, on that note, we're gonna

992
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: go and close it out. In the meantime, we would

993
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 1: of course love to hear from you, oh your thoughts

994
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: about nuclear testing, nuclear weaponry, etcetera. Or just so do

995
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: the overall impact on all of this on on our

996
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: our world, and our culture in the many ways that

997
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: the world would not be the same. In the meantime,

998
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of our show,

999
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 1: you can do so by finding us wherever you get

1000
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 1: your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. We just

1001
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: asked that you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as

1002
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1003
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:42,440
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1004
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1005
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, you can

1006
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: email us at contact that Stuff to Blow your Mind

1007
00:58:50,400 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's products of

1008
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

1009
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,840
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1010
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.