The nuclear test was code named Trinity, but the atomic device was nicknamed The Gadget. The date of the Trinity test is usually considered to be the beginning of the Atomic Age. “The gadget” was the code name given to the first bomb tested. It was so called because it was not a deployable weapon and because revealing words like bomb were not used during the project for fear of espionage. It was an implosion-type plutonium device, similar in design to the Fat Man bomb used three weeks later in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.
The Gadget was an implosion device, which means the plutonium core is surrounded by many small explosives, these compress the plutonium and bring it closer to the point of causing it to go super critical. All those wires are attached to different explosives which burn at different frequencies. The trick for an atom bomb is to pack as much plutonium together before the chain reaction starts. The Gadget and Fat Man use the implosion-technique. The trick of the 20 explosions is that they push the pieces of uranium (or plutonium) together to a ball with an over-critical mass, which explodes. They have to time this extremely accurately, however. Microseconds differences will make your ball lopsided and less effective. Part of the solution is to make each and every cable the same length which is why the Gadget looks like a ball of wire.
The gadget was tested at Trinity Site, New Mexico, near Alamogordo. For the test, the gadget was lifted to the top of a 100-foot (30 m) bomb tower. It was feared by some that the Trinity test might “ignite” the earth’s atmosphere, eliminating all life on the planet, although calculations had determined this was unlikely even for devices “which greatly exceed the bombs now under consideration”. Less wild estimates thought that New Mexico would be incinerated. Calculations showed that the yield of the device would be between 0 (if it did not work) and 20 kilotons of TNT. In the aftermath of the test, it appeared to have been a blast equivalent to 18 kilotons of TNT.
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At 05:29:21 (July 16, 1945) local time, the device exploded. It left a crater of radioactive glass in the desert 10 feet (3.0 m) deep and 1,100 feet (340 m) wide. At the time of detonation, the surrounding mountains were illuminated “brighter than daytime” for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported as “being as hot as an oven” at the base camp. The observed colors of the illumination ranged from purple to green and eventually to white. The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers. The shock wave was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12.1 km) in height. After the initial euphoria of witnessing the explosion had passed, test director Kenneth Bainbridge commented to Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Now we are all sons of bitches.” Oppenheimer later stated that, while watching the test, he was reminded of a line from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Interesting stuff:
Following the success of the Trinity test, two bombs were prepared for use against Japan during World War II. The first, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, was code-named “Little Boy”, and used the “gun” design and uranium-235 as its fission source. The second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, was code-named “Fat Man” and was an implosion-type plutonium bomb. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 148,000 people and many more over time. By 1950, the death toll was over 340,000.
Courtesy: Rare Historical Photos
