Very interesting take on the beginning of the atomic age. It's a shame the 16mm print was in such bad shape, many missing feet which contained information has been lost. Perhaps a better print will be found. Thanks for posting this.
My stepfather, George W. Tressel, directed this film for Argonne for the 25th anniversary of CP-1. He had some amazing stories about the making of the film - one of which was how he obtained the only color film of the Hiroshima explosion. Months had passed since they put out a national call for any photos, drawings or other artifacts from the early atomic age. One day they get a call from the guard desk saying someone is claiming to have color film of the explosion. Well, the crew at first dismissed this claim because one, color film was still new at the time and exceedingly expensive - very few people could afford it. Two, they knew there was no film of the explosion because of a technical problem with the official camera. But then they asked the guard for the name of the person and got back, “something Agnew.” Indeed, it was the Harold Agnew and they fell all over themselves racing to get downstairs. Agnew flew on the support plane, the “Great Artiste.” But unbeknownst to anyone, he smuggled aboard his own personal movie camera. And of course, being one of the heads of the project he had access to color film. Gen. Groves was furious to learn Agnew had taken film without permission and confiscated the film. After much discussion Groves allowed Agnew to have a copy. Somewhere along the way the original was lost but Agnew still had his copy and provided it to George. Another important story about this film: around the 28th minute is the long, steady tilting shot of the mushroom cloud. But how did they take such a steady shot? They didn’t. Remember, this film was taken from a handheld camera on a propeller-driven airplane racing away from the scene. “Steadicam” wouldn’t be invented for decades yet; Agnew’s footage was shakier than the Blair Witch Project. All the way back to his days at experimental TV station WBKB (Chicago) George was inventing cutting-edge camera and production equipment. To create that modern Hollywood “Steadicam” shot George invented and built the equipment to manually adjust the position of the film frame-by-frame and re-photograph it into what you see now. Sadly, George passed away at his home in Silver Spring, MD, at the age of 93 on November 17, 2019. George had many, many other accomplishments that have touched untold millions of people’s lives such as creating the very first “news ticker/crawl” for television and being the driving force in bringing closed-captioning to TV and film for the hearing impaired. We miss him dearly already. EDITED TO ADD (Jan 2021): I should have included this in my original comment: @/uchicagoarts @UChicago posted this video. In a nice coincidence, George was a Hutchins Scholar at Chicago (enrolled in 1940 at age 14; earned two degrees (one in physics) by 1945) while Fermi and crew worked on CP-1. He loved to recall the story of how he and his friends used to play squash on the courts under the stadium a couple of times a week. One day he went to play but when he opened the door a soldier holding a rifle blocked his way and demanded to know where he was going. "I am going to play squash," he said. "No you are not," said the soldier. "Why not?" he asked. "There are no squash courts here." "Of course there are, I played here two days ago," replied George. "There are no squash courts here," repeated the soldier while bringing his rifle up to port arms. "Yes, there are," insisted George. "No, there are not," said the soldier as he began to point the business end of the rifle directly at George. George told us he got the message and walked away. Who could have guessed that 25 years later he would be directing and producing the film to commemorate the reason why he couldn't play squash there anymore?
It's very hard to understand how these scientists chose to do this experiment in nuclear fission in the middle of a large city. Were they insane? In fact no, they weren't - just extremely confident in their ability to shut down the reaction when they needed to. Still pretty amazing in hind sight.
The didn't care. Modern people doing the same work also do not care. If you study the distribution of industrial sites throughout history you will find they do not care. The secret is in plain sight. They do no care. Also you probably paid taxes that fund this stuff. They do not care.
They didn't know it then, but carbon pile reactors are inherently dangerous, due to the Wigner effect - as the British learn the hard way at Windscale - major disaster. Wigner effect prevents a shutdown.
21:02 could you imagine this entire project being held up by an investigation demanded by the public because of the graphite dust making everyone appear black when they’re not. In fact could you imagine if this project didn’t get funding because it was just white Americans and Europeans? Or loosing their funding because they didn’t let the woman work on the pile. That would be wild…
There is actually a country that tested atomic bombs in two cities just before victory. There are also two types of nuclear bombs. The reason is stated to be an early end, but the country has never been attacked by the mainland. It sounds like a lie, but if Russia were to use an atomic bomb now, there would be no place for us to evacuate. There are countries that are doing even worse than that.
My father and a cousin were in training in the Philippines when the bombs were dropped. Both were thankful they did not have to go ashore in Japan. A few years ago I visited the Truman Library and read the comments in the visitor book for their WW2 display. Most were against the dropping of the bombs. I doubt many Americans have ever read the history of the terrible in fighting amongst the Japanese military over the question of surrender. They were prepared to fight to their last citizens and kill as many of the US troops as they could without ever surrendering. We who have never been invaded have no concept but we all have an opinion, informed or not.
Ever wonder where the term SCRAM came from? It's the title of the man sitting up on that rail ready with the axe in case of emergency. Single Control Rod Axe Man. 🙂
At Nuclear Power School the definition was a little different. To SCRAM a reactor is to perform an emergency shutdown by inserting all control rods. Ron Hillberry, his axe and his purpose are forever remembered as Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Using the bomb against Japan was less of a military action against an all but defeated enemy than a show of superiority to the rest of the world. After the end of the European war, the Soviet Union resumed building up it's military. They were at near maximum strength in troops, ships, planes, tanks, missles, etc. Truman knew they intended to invade Japan from the north in a day or two, and at the very least, steal the victory from the US. He wanted to make it crystal clear to the USSR that not only did the US have nuclear bombs, they would use them without hesitation.
Japan was not "all but defeated." The military command was not about to quit and had thoroughly prepared the populace to die fighting if the expected invasion took place.
The pilot of the bomber gave numerous interviews during his lifetime and on each occasion stated that his command was to be a split command, i.e., he was to prepare to deliver the bomb in both Germany and Japan. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Germany surrendered before the first test in New Mexico. Additionally, it was US policy to get Russia to declare war against Japan but they drugged their feet and did so after the first bomb was dropped, I think.
@@clyde9803 Japan had no navy or air force left to speak of. The US conducted air raids with impunity. No fighters engaged them and anti-aircraft defences were scarce. If an invasion wasn't feasible a blockade would have been effective. If the civilian populace was prepared to fight it out, the atomic bombs wouldn't have made a difference. That's only if the situation was merely the US vs. Japan. The focus was totally shifted to the USSR by then. Forget the Allied alliances of the US, Great Britain and Russia. That was long gone. The Soviet Union was clearly the enemy and number one threat.
@@action55jackson I admit that my position on whether using the A-bomb on Japan is speculative, but I think it is accurate. Stalin had already turned against the US. It was clear there would be two super powers at the end. The Soviets were amassing power and seizing nearby countries as fast as they could. Stalin wasn't going to make any move that would benefit the US. His only motivation for invading Japan was to steal glory from it's inevitable defeat. Truman was intent to prevent that at any cost.
Japan was not “all but defeated”, it wasn’t a show of superiority, the Soviets could never have invaded the main Japanese islands, and the bomb was necessary to avoid hundreds of thousands of dead GIs if the US, the only power capable of it, had to invade.
Fascinating documentary. thanks for the upload
Very interesting take on the beginning of the atomic age. It's a shame the 16mm print was in such bad shape, many missing feet which contained information has been lost. Perhaps a better print will be found. Thanks for posting this.
Argonne labs has a better version of this.
Extremely difficult to follow. Had to stop. Hopefully a better print will surface.
CIA Directors cut?
My stepfather, George W. Tressel, directed this film for Argonne for the 25th anniversary of CP-1. He had some amazing stories about the making of the film - one of which was how he obtained the only color film of the Hiroshima explosion.
Months had passed since they put out a national call for any photos, drawings or other artifacts from the early atomic age. One day they get a call from the guard desk saying someone is claiming to have color film of the explosion. Well, the crew at first dismissed this claim because one, color film was still new at the time and exceedingly expensive - very few people could afford it. Two, they knew there was no film of the explosion because of a technical problem with the official camera. But then they asked the guard for the name of the person and got back, “something Agnew.” Indeed, it was the Harold Agnew and they fell all over themselves racing to get downstairs.
Agnew flew on the support plane, the “Great Artiste.” But unbeknownst to anyone, he smuggled aboard his own personal movie camera. And of course, being one of the heads of the project he had access to color film. Gen. Groves was furious to learn Agnew had taken film without permission and confiscated the film. After much discussion Groves allowed Agnew to have a copy. Somewhere along the way the original was lost but Agnew still had his copy and provided it to George.
Another important story about this film: around the 28th minute is the long, steady tilting shot of the mushroom cloud. But how did they take such a steady shot? They didn’t. Remember, this film was taken from a handheld camera on a propeller-driven airplane racing away from the scene. “Steadicam” wouldn’t be invented for decades yet; Agnew’s footage was shakier than the Blair Witch Project.
All the way back to his days at experimental TV station WBKB (Chicago) George was inventing cutting-edge camera and production equipment. To create that modern Hollywood “Steadicam” shot George invented and built the equipment to manually adjust the position of the film frame-by-frame and re-photograph it into what you see now.
Sadly, George passed away at his home in Silver Spring, MD, at the age of 93 on November 17, 2019.
George had many, many other accomplishments that have touched untold millions of people’s lives such as creating the very first “news ticker/crawl” for television and being the driving force in bringing closed-captioning to TV and film for the hearing impaired.
We miss him dearly already.
EDITED TO ADD (Jan 2021):
I should have included this in my original comment:
@/uchicagoarts @UChicago posted this video. In a nice coincidence, George was a Hutchins Scholar at Chicago (enrolled in 1940 at age 14; earned two degrees (one in physics) by 1945) while Fermi and crew worked on CP-1.
He loved to recall the story of how he and his friends used to play squash on the courts under the stadium a couple of times a week. One day he went to play but when he opened the door a soldier holding a rifle blocked his way and demanded to know where he was going. "I am going to play squash," he said. "No you are not," said the soldier. "Why not?" he asked. "There are no squash courts here." "Of course there are, I played here two days ago," replied George. "There are no squash courts here," repeated the soldier while bringing his rifle up to port arms. "Yes, there are," insisted George. "No, there are not," said the soldier as he began to point the business end of the rifle directly at George. George told us he got the message and walked away.
Who could have guessed that 25 years later he would be directing and producing the film to commemorate the reason why he couldn't play squash there anymore?
Well told.
It's very hard to understand how these scientists chose to do this experiment in nuclear fission in the middle of a large city. Were they insane? In fact no, they weren't - just extremely confident in their ability to shut down the reaction when they needed to.
Still pretty amazing in hind sight.
The didn't care. Modern people doing the same work also do not care. If you study the distribution of industrial sites throughout history you will find they do not care. The secret is in plain sight. They do no care. Also you probably paid taxes that fund this stuff. They do not care.
They didn't know it then, but carbon pile reactors are inherently dangerous, due to the Wigner effect - as the British learn the hard way at Windscale - major disaster. Wigner effect prevents a shutdown.
@@keithammleter3824 Lucky that didn't happen in Chicago.
People fighting and dying in Europe and Pacific. Easy choice in secrecy.
Wonderful.
21:02 could you imagine this entire project being held up by an investigation demanded by the public because of the graphite dust making everyone appear black when they’re not.
In fact could you imagine if this project didn’t get funding because it was just white Americans and Europeans? Or loosing their funding because they didn’t let the woman work on the pile. That would be wild…
@ 00:21 look at the size of that Cockcroft-Walton multiplier.
There is actually a country that tested atomic bombs in two cities just before victory. There are also two types of nuclear bombs.
The reason is stated to be an early end, but the country has never been attacked by the mainland.
It sounds like a lie, but if Russia were to use an atomic bomb now, there would be no place for us to evacuate.
There are countries that are doing even worse than that.
My father and a cousin were in training in the Philippines when the bombs were dropped. Both were thankful they did not have to go ashore in Japan. A few years ago I visited the Truman Library and read the comments in the visitor book for their WW2 display. Most were against the dropping of the bombs. I doubt many Americans have ever read the history of the terrible in fighting amongst the Japanese military over the question of surrender. They were prepared to fight to their last citizens and kill as many of the US troops as they could without ever surrendering. We who have never been invaded have no concept but we all have an opinion, informed or not.
Ever wonder where the term SCRAM came from? It's the title of the man sitting up on that rail ready with the axe in case of emergency. Single Control Rod Axe Man. 🙂
At Nuclear Power School the definition was a little different.
To SCRAM a reactor is to perform an emergency shutdown by inserting all control rods. Ron Hillberry, his axe and his purpose are forever remembered as Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Is this censored?
To understand how dangerous that type of pile was, ask the British, who had a meltdown with something similar.
don't run with scissors, don't play with matches.....
"Most of our electricity from...." lol. Didn't quite turn out that way.
France achieved that. It's technically and economically possible.
It will.
24:41 hahahahahaha 😂 ahhahh ahhhhh😩 wah wah 😭
Edward Teller
Using the bomb against Japan was less of a military action against an all but defeated enemy than a show of superiority to the rest of the world. After the end of the European war, the Soviet Union resumed building up it's military. They were at near maximum strength in troops, ships, planes, tanks, missles, etc. Truman knew they intended to invade Japan from the north in a day or two, and at the very least, steal the victory from the US. He wanted to make it crystal clear to the USSR that not only did the US have nuclear bombs, they would use them without hesitation.
Japan was not "all but defeated." The military command was not about to quit and had thoroughly prepared the populace to die fighting if the expected invasion took place.
The pilot of the bomber gave numerous interviews during his lifetime and on each occasion stated that his command was to be a split command, i.e., he was to prepare to deliver the bomb in both Germany and Japan. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Germany surrendered before the first test in New Mexico. Additionally, it was US policy to get Russia to declare war against Japan but they drugged their feet and did so after the first bomb was dropped, I think.
@@clyde9803 Japan had no navy or air force left to speak of. The US conducted air raids with impunity. No fighters engaged them and anti-aircraft defences were scarce. If an invasion wasn't feasible a blockade would have been effective. If the civilian populace was prepared to fight it out, the atomic bombs wouldn't have made a difference.
That's only if the situation was merely the US vs. Japan. The focus was totally shifted to the USSR by then. Forget the Allied alliances of the US, Great Britain and Russia. That was long gone. The Soviet Union was clearly the enemy and number one threat.
@@action55jackson I admit that my position on whether using the A-bomb on Japan is speculative, but I think it is accurate.
Stalin had already turned against the US. It was clear there would be two super powers at the end. The Soviets were amassing power and seizing nearby countries as fast as they could. Stalin wasn't going to make any move that would benefit the US. His only motivation for invading Japan was to steal glory from it's inevitable defeat. Truman was intent to prevent that at any cost.
Japan was not “all but defeated”, it wasn’t a show of superiority, the Soviets could never have invaded the main Japanese islands, and the bomb was necessary to avoid hundreds of thousands of dead GIs if the US, the only power capable of it, had to invade.
Who else watched this and immediately thought of the word gu......e
Its funny all this stuff is just different types of dirt reacting to other dirt 😅
Remember when propaganda promoted our achievements?
Fermi remembers.
Thanks for cesium 138 in the higher levels of atmosphere...