Unacceptable.
Irradiated by Stingray
Most of our readers here at Atomic Nerds, I think, are familiar with Google’s history of anti-gun politics and other even more exceptionally left-wing positions. Today, presumably born of these same political positions, Google has opted to, at best, be crassly ignorant of human history, or at worst to offer nothing less than a slap in the face to our capacity for scientific advancement.
As posted below, July 16th is the anniversary of the Trinity Test, the first detonation of an atomic explosive in human history. Google, unsurprisingly, does not acknowledge this with a fancy customized front page. I suppose the birth of the atomic age just doesn’t stack up to the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick, or some of the artist birthdays which google has acknowledged.
I hadn’t intended to get this worked up over this, in fact I fully expected that Google wouldn’t acknowledge the date. Many people don’t even know what the Trinity Test was in the first place. But to give celebration to a fucking plastic toy, most noteworthy for being easy to swallow and removing some of the dumber kids from the gene pool, and turning a blind eye to one of the single largest leaps in human scientific history is nothing short of an insult to the thousands of men and women who picked up their lives, often without so much as a word of warning to their families and loved ones, and disappeared into the New Mexico desert. At the time, this area amounted to barbarian lands in the eyes of large parts of the world and nation. These men and women performed exceedingly dangerous experiments, worked at a breakneck pace, frenzied, and in really rather poor living conditions even for the time, to produce the engineering equivalent of a miracle. The Gadget was not a simple click-and-stack contraption, assembled casually and in haste for the amusement of a child.
Even by today’s standards, the accomplishment of these brave people is impressive. They managed to take explosions, events not normally known for being controllable or predictable, and with the use of MORE high explosives, focused the blast so precisely as to crush a sphere. This may not sound like much, but try taking a handfull of firecrackers and aligning them to carve a detailed picture of Einstein into the anthill you’re trying to blow up. The difficulty is of similar scale.
Realistically, I expect nothing to come of this other than a venting of my spleen. If any of our readers are similarly upset by this, however, I suggest the following: Enter any search into Google concerning the importance of today. Look for the Trinity Site tour dates. Try to find the yield of The Gadget. Whatever floats your boat or piques your curiosity. Then, look at the bottom of the search results. There will be a small link, titled “Dissatisfied? Help us improve” containing your search string. Use this link, and explain, politely, that you are not happy about the lack of celebration. The use of nuclear weapons in war is a topic of staggering body, and I do not wish to get into that particular discussion at the moment, as it is not the focus. Today in history, we as a species advanced, and did so without harming a soul intentionally (yet). Yes, I know that even if every reader we get today tells Google of their folly absolutely nothing will happen. People still need to be reminded though.
Oh well, I suppose the dawning of a new age in the history of mankind just doesn’t stack up to the toy that gave us the “Lego Star Wars” video game.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I have no love for Google and a great love of science, but this action does not offend me at all. I know why they did not and will not celebrate this day. Google is a business, and it exists to please its customers. For every person like us that would celebrate the science involved in building atomic weapons, there are over a hundred that would call the day a black mark in human history. If Google did celebrate the blast, then I guarantee that they would be deluged with complaints.
Even if nuclear weapons had not killed about 2e5 people and threatened to erase human civilization, there would still be a reason for ignoring this day. In any list, you have to make the cutoff somewhere. The Manhattan Project was a monumental achievement, but there are dozens of events in the history of science that are more important. And, looking over the list of special Google logos, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have in fact celebrated such things as the creation of the first laser and the first hot air balloon flight.
Sure, the Trinity test is more important to the world than an artist’s birthday. But Google is a tool of culture, both high and low, in addition to being a tool of science. They probably have a quota of artistic dates, cultural dates, and scientific dates, and they probably try to arrange things so that each group gets an equal number of dates. That’s what I’d do if I was running the business.
And, why the hate for Lego bricks? Given that we can no longer buy fun things like radiation labs in a cardboard box, Legos are about the only toy left on the market that has any hope of turning kids into engineers. If you put it to a vote, the number of people who would celebrate Legos is greater than the number of people who would celebrate Trinity, by at least two orders of magnitude.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I think it is a hopeless case, but agree.
Slightly irrelevant tale: I was at the site (October opening I think) and some hippies had set up an altar with a Shiva figurine on it (“I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds”.)
A ranchy- type woman was walking by with her kid, pointed at it, and said “That’s what radiation’ll do to ya– give you extra arms and legs”.
New Mexico as we all know is a Land Of Many Cultures.
I should blog that…
July 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Richard: Fair points all, save a quibble on the last one. I remain, however biased, irritated as all hell though. Blame living in Bombtown USA for *coughcough* years.
For the lego vs. Trinity voting though, I’d argue that your landslide margin would be more due to widespread ignorance of the Trinity test and nigh universal knowledge of legos. I’d be willing to bet that in a simple street poll, “Do you know what legos are” vs. “Do you know what the Trinity Test was” would see a similar, if not even larger disparity.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Steve- ROTFL!
July 16th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
There are no Jewish holidays that Google acknowledges either. One could conclude that either:
A) Google’s bigotry is multifarious indeed
or
B) Google only acknowledges a small and mostly random assortment of events, not every notable day on the calendar.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
You are correct about the ignorance, but I do not believe that full knowledge would do anything to increase support for a celebration of the blast test. Personally, I believe that Legos have done more good for the world than atomic weapons.
I know that The Bomb did end WW2 earlier and save more lives than it killed. Nuclear weapons are very effective and I am glad we got them first, but their very existence has caused a lot of bad things to happen, and they will threaten mankind for a long time.
Now, if you want to petition to celebrate the opening of the first commercially viable nuclear power plant, you would have my support.
P.S.
http://wearscience.com/design/cheers/
July 16th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
My step grandfather was a member of the First Special Service Force aka The Devil’s Brigade and attended the little get together known as D-Day. I Thank God for Hiroshima and Nagasaki as he was scheduled to board a ship for Japan for a front row center seat at the planned beach assault. I don’t think he would have survived.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I think using the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was precisely the correct thing to do, but for reasons that are seldom ever noted during such discussions.
Uncle Joe promised Truman and Churchill, at Potsdam, to declare war on Japan three months after V-E day. He kept his promise to the day, two days after Hiroshima and one day before Nagasaki. Within hours, Russian troops were rolling over Japanese troops in China. Five days after Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, and did so to keep the Soviet Union out of Japan as much as it did to stop the bombs.
And the bomb did keep the Soviet Union out of Japan, out of China, out of western Europe, and out of the Middle East. Compare the fight for Okinawa to the projected invasion of Japan, and the net savings of lives is huge. Consider the effects of the Soviet Union having a place in the post-war occupation of Japan, of western Europe, and the Middle East, compare what happened there to what happened in eastern Europe, and the net savings is incalculable. Overall, in that context, it was a hell of a tradeoff, if you’ll pardon the pun.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I think a Day that you could get a better an less controversial celebration for is December 2, the anniversary of the first Nuclear reaction under the bleachers in Chicago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1