Post archives
Filtering for posts tagged with ‘Hiroshima’
2022
May 2022
2
Redactions
Did the Japanese offer to surrender before Hiroshima? Short answer: no. Long answer: also no, but it's a bit complicated.
2020
August 2020
4
Redactions
My new article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists outlines the history of casualty estimation attempts, and why they have been inherently fraught.
June 2020
9
Meditations
As we approach the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings, we're going to see a lot of journalistic takes on them — many of them totally wrong.
2018
January 2018
19
Redactions
A remarkable set of speech drafts from August 6-9th, 1945, shows an evolution in Truman's thinking about the bomb — from an unambiguous good, to a horror that needed to justified.
2017
August 2017
7
Meditations
Dispatches on a Roundtable and a Workshop with historians and political scientists in Hiroshima, Japan, on the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing.
May 2017
2
Redactions
Was the first history of the atomic bomb biased towards physics to avoid public associations with chemical weapons? My take on a recent article.
2016
27
Meditations
Some thoughts about the first sitting President to have visited Hiroshima.
2015
October 2015
30
Redactions
One of the most unusual, curious, and controversial members of the Manhattan Project was their in-house newspaperman from the New York Times.
9
Redactions
Niigata was one of the possible targets for atomic attack in 1945. Why was it spared? And why don't we ever talk about it?
September 2015
4
Redactions
Did "Big Science" pioneer Ernest Lawrence believe that Japan should have been warned before Hiroshima?
August 2015
21
Meditations
Seven decades later, how do we talk about the atomic bombs?
7
News and Notes
3
Meditations
Considering a few of the options that were on the table in 1945.
May 2015
29
Meditations
Historians sometimes need a reminder that places and people, not just documents, make up the past.
March 2015
6
Redactions
In 1945, some scientists thought we should "demonstrate" the bomb to Japan before dropping it on a city. Others disagreed. Who was right?
2014
December 2014
15
Visions
Is there a big red button that can launch nuclear war? No — but thinking about why there isn't is a nice way into the complexities of command and control issues.
September 2014
22
Meditations
How many people would have died if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Tokyo in early 1945, instead of firebombs? And why does it matter?
August 2014
22
Meditations
The original target for the second atomic bomb was Kokura, not Nagasaki. Why was Kokura spared? Three theories are considered.
8
Redactions
Did Truman fundamentally misunderstand the atomic bomb because of a debate over its use?
March 2014
12
Visions
A remarkable Army map from 1945 superimposes the effects of the ruinous firebombing campaign against Japan on the continental United States.
February 2014
14
Redactions
In a short story published in 1949, Leo Szilard contemplated how well he and President Truman would fare at a war crimes tribunal. His conclusion: not well.
2013
December 2013
6
Meditations
What airburst physics tells us about nuclear targeting decisions, and why it took so long for the NUKEMAP to support arbitrary burst heights.
September 2013
13
Redactions
Are there any indications that the Germans penetrated into the secrecy surrounding the American atomic bomb project during World War II? Not many.
August 2013
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
2
Redactions
A brief update to the last post: translations of leaflets dropped on the Japanese after Hiroshima.
April 2013
26
Redactions
Did the United States warn Japan about the atomic bombs prior to their use? A mystery is unravelled.
5
Visions
A vision of future war, only a few months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
