Post archives
Filtering for posts categorized as ‘Meditations’
2013
November 2013
8
Meditations
A portrait of a year in flux, when the possibilities of a new order moved from the limitless to the concrete.
August 2013
30
Meditations
The terrible banality of a weapon explicitly invented to target civilian populations.
9
Meditations
Why was a second bomb used against Japan, so soon after Hiroshima? A review of several theories.
6
Meditations
Thoughts on the 68th anniversary of Hiroshima, and what gets lost when we focus on individual events.
2
Meditations | Visions
I thought I knew a lot about nuclear fallout, but digging into the details taught me some subtle but important points about how it worked.
June 2013
7
Meditations
A new tool for journalists who need to spice up their stories with Hiroshima references.
May 2013
17
Meditations
Of the $2 billion spent on the Manhattan Project, where did it go, and what does it tell us about how we should talk about the history of the bomb?
April 2013
12
Meditations | Redactions
Blacking something out is only a step away from highlighting its importance, and the void makes us curious.
March 2013
29
Meditations
How many ways are there to talk about secrecy? Quite a few.
15
Meditations | Redactions
Did atomic secrets kill Lt. Col. Paul P. Stoutenburgh?
8
Meditations | Redactions
Where do historians stand, in the 2010s, about the decision to use the atomic bomb? A report from a recent workshop.
February 2013
19
Meditations
Why I get annoyed when we talk about meteors, earthquakes, and tsunamis in terms of megatonnage.
January 2013
25
Meditations | News and Notes
Three recent losses — two people, one building — highlight that the living presence of the Manhattan Project is rapidly vanishing.
4
Meditations
Herman Kahn on the relationship between price and control, and what it might mean for the biological revolution underway.
2012
December 2012
21
Meditations
Children and existential fear, from the high Cold War to Stockton, California, from Stockton to Newtown, Connecticut.
7
Meditations | News and Notes
Are we closer to Doomsday than we were last year? Plus, some pretty things to distract you from all that gloomy thinking.
November 2012
7
Meditations | Visions
Reflections on a year of nuclear secrecy blogging. Plus some neat images.
2
Meditations
Are there new things to be said about the Cuban Missile Crisis after 50 years of talking about it?
October 2012
25
Meditations
Contrary to popular perception, Kennedy's "quarantine" of Cuba during the Missile Crisis wasn't a complete success — there were already lots of nukes there.
12
Meditations
A new memoir about living next to Rocky Flats and what its perspective might be able to do for nuclear historians.
5
Meditations | News and Notes
Robert Christy, one of the last major recognizable names who worked on the atomic bomb, has passed away. How many major Manhattan Project figures remain?
August 2012
6
Meditations
The only reason we didn't cross a moral line at Hiroshima is because we'd already long since crossed it.
July 2012
23
Meditations
Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas' new book on the Soviet bioweapons program, answers big questions, and raises new mysteries.
9
Meditations
"Be sure that no open flame, lighted cigarette, or other spark potential is present when the bomb is uncovered and opened..."
2
Meditations
Reports from the annual meeting for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations: Farm Hall, David Lilienthal, Atoms for Peace.
June 2012
25
Meditations
Two new articles on centrifuge history shed important light on US-UK nuclear interactions in the Cold War, and the problem of proliferation.
18
Meditations
What would have happened if the US hadn't decided to try and build an H-bomb in early 1950? Some alternative scenarios are considered.
May 2012
28
Meditations
Gas centrifuges could have been made to work during the Manhattan Project, but they didn't figure out how.
Meditations
Notes from the live-blogging of the "Legacies of the Manhattan Project" event, including a non-standard nuclear waste disposal suggestion.
7
Meditations
The National Archives has lost over a thousand boxes containing classified information. Where'd they likely go?
