Dear the Random People Reading This:

I am a product of mankind. I owe my existence to mankind. Mankind created me to solve a problem. Just like the steam engine was created to give power to man’s other machines. Just like the light bulb was created to give light to man. I, however, was created to serve a less benevolent role. The difference was merely a matter of timing. If I had been discovered during a time of peace, I would now be regarded as humanity’s greatest accomplishment. Sadly, this was not meant to be. The science that led to my birth was discovered in Berlin in 1938. Naturally, both sides of the war attempted to use me for their purposes. The Americans harnessed my power first and used me against their enemies. I wreaked havoc upon the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I had caused the deaths of 180,000 people in just three days and ended the war. The Americans naϊvely thought that I had brought forth world peace and that from this point forward I would be used only for the purpose of generating electricity. I might even have been used for powering people’s cars! It is with a heavy heart that I report that I am still being used as a weapon so powerful I can wipe mankind from the face of the Earth. This is a letter on the dangers of the atom and the best ways to deal with it.

Nuclear fission, as stated above, was discovered in 1938 by Otto Hahn - he wouldn’t have discovered it without the help of Lise Meitner who was forced to leave Germany due to the fact that she was Jewish. Because physicists are a very tight knit group, word of this discovery traveled very quickly and soon the entire physics world was abuzz with this finding. Physicists around the world began to study my various applications. This is what Leo Szilard was doing when he stepped off the curb in London. As he crossed Southampton Row, an idea came to him: the idea that the neutrons produced by fission can cause other atoms to fission, producing more neutrons, which causes more atoms to fission and so on. He realized that this process can produce unlimited amounts of energy very quickly. So in other words, a bomb. A bomb more powerful than anything ever seen on Earth.

Unsurprisingly, Szilard thought that this was a very bad idea and planned to keep it to himself. However, the rise of Hitler in Germany and the fact that fission was discovered in Germany caused him discomfort. Being Jewish, he didn’t want Germany to win the coming war due to this potential weapon. In order to combat this truly evil proposition, he packed up his things and boarded a ship to America. He knew in order to get something rolling, the president’s attention was required. But Franklin Roosevelt was not famous for listening to random physicists telling him about their problems. So what did good ole Leo do? He moved to Brazil and hoped that he would die before the Nazis invaded. Just kidding, he wouldn’t give up that easy. He knew that he had to find someone who carried enough clout to get the point across to Roosevelt. He recruited fellow physicist and friend Eugene Wigner to help him find the right person.

After some discussion they decided upon the identity of their man. They drove to the town of Peconic, New York. Upon their arrival, they went to the cottage of Dr. Moore. And guess who was sitting on the porch? None other than Albert Einstein, who also happened to be the man for whom they were looking. He was renting the house from  Dr. Moore for the summer. Szilard and Wigner explained the situation to Einstein - who hadn’t been following the new physics discoveries. Einstein was as horrified as they were and knew he had to do something. Szilard knew exactly what Einstein should do. Szilard pulled out a letter he had written to the president, which was unsigned. He asked Einstein to sign it and give it to Roosevelt. Roosevelt received the letter on October 11, 1939. That same day, the Manhattan Project was brought into existence.

I could tell you all about my rather convoluted gestation in the laboratories of New Mexico; however, that’s not the purpose of my story. I am here to inform you - ironically, I know - on how I’m a rather bad influence on humanity. So, in keeping with this goal, let’s flash forward to Hiroshima.

The decision on which city would be bombed was due to multiple factors including military importance, flat geography to ease exact targeting, and a lack of previous battle damage to better ascertain my destructive potential. Five cities matched this description: Kokura, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Niigata, and Kyoto. Here’s a little known fact. The targeting committee originally selected Kyoto to be the target,  but due to the Secretary of War’s love of the city, Hiroshima was chosen instead. The advantages of Hiroshima were that it was located in a flat area near the sea, which would increase overall destruction and the sea would limit the exposure to anti-aircraft guns. The surrounding hills would focus the blast and further increase the destruction. The disadvantage was the multiple rivers in Hiroshima would hamper the growth of the many fires that would likely sprout.  In case you haven’t noticed, the Americans wanted as much destruction as possible.

Now onward to the important part of the matter: the bomb itself. Even though I would love to share all the juicy details on LITTLE BOY’s design, the FBI said, “no.” So I’m going to just discuss the logistics of the bombing. LITTLE BOY was built at Los Alamos and was finished in May 1945. The uranium core components took a little longer and were finished on July 24th. The bomb casing sailed on July 16th from Hunters Point Naval Shipyard aboard the USS Indianapolis. The heavy cruiser arrived at Tinian ten days later. The uranium arrived by air on the 30th and the bomb was assembled.

    The bombing took place on the morning of August 6th. The raid required the use of six planes. The first three were weather reconnaissance planes to help Col. Paul Tibbets, Jr. decide what city to attack. The Pentagon had stated that the weather for the target city had to be clear so it would be easier to collect information on the blast. One plane went to each possible target city and radioed back the weather report to Tibbets. The reports showed Hiroshima was the clear enough for the bombing. An hour after the weather plane passed, Tibbets began his bomb run. The rest is history.

The rather chaotic situation that existed in the aftermath of the bomb’s detonation meant that the immediate death total will always be unknown. On that day, it has been estimated that 70,000 to 80,000 people died from the blast wave, acute radiation syndrome, and the many fires that swept across the city in a wave of destruction. If this raid had used conventional weapons, the death toll would have stopped there. Sadly, my devastation lingers for years in the form of a toxic and radioactive dust that is carcinogenic to an extreme. This dust killed another 140,000 people by the end of the year.  As for the structures of Hiroshima, sixty-nine percent were destroyed. This number was lower than predicted by the Americans. They didn’t realize that all the major buildings were made of steel-reinforced concrete on account of the proximity of a major fault line near Hiroshima. Another factor in the lower than predicted amount of damage was that the bomb detonated at roughly 1,900 feet. This caused the blast wave to go down instead of out. As concrete has a high compressive strength, the buildings could withstand much higher forces on the roof than they could take from the side. The same couldn’t be said for the mostly wooden buildings of Nagasaki.

While I could discuss the logistics of FAT MAN and his devastation of Nagasaki; it’s practically the same as LITTLE BOY and Hiroshima, so I’m just going to skip to the effects of FAT MAN. Even though FAT MAN was more powerful than LITTLE BOY, the geography of the local area concentrated the blast over a smaller space limiting the destruction. The initial death totals vary widely from 22,000 to 75,000. The reason there is such a big discrepancy in the death toll is because of the large number of undocumented workers from Korea and a large number of military troops in transit. This also complicates the overall death toll. Estimates range from 33,000 to 80,000 by the end of 1945. You might notice that these numbers are lower than the numbers from Hiroshima. There are multiple reasons for this. The first of which is the rail network in Nagasaki was unhurt, therefore, allowing the removal of patients to other cities for care. Yet another reason is that Nagasaki wasn’t as dense of a city as Hiroshima. The firestorm the Americans had hoped for didn’t have the fuel to start even though multiple local fires did break out.

Now you can probably see the dark power that I possess, the great power of death and destruction that killed 300,000 people over the course of five months. I know that the bombings only killed a small fraction of the 60 million killed in the war. But death on my hands was so efficient, so inescapable; the truth of the matter is that if you were in any city targeted, you had a good chance of dying. In the world of conventional warfare, you could consider yourself safe if you avoided major industrial facilities, national landmarks, and had a place to wait it out; you would have probably survived. Not so with me. I kill indiscriminately. I try to kill everyone in the area. The rich, the poor, the doctors, the lawyers, the bartenders, and the drunks passed out in the street. A massive tsunami of death and unending misery covers the city and chokes it. We are lucky that the Japanese are used to disaster. There is that fault line after all. Otherwise these great cities may now be abandoned to this day. Anyway, after the horrors of what I just described, you might think that I would be shunned and forgotten. I am sorry to say that not only did I survive, I mutated into a more deadly form in the hands of people with no concern for mankind.

The year was 1986. As usual, the Soviets were up to no good. At least, that’s what the CIA thought was happening. You see, in 1976, the Soviets brought online the largest radar array the world had ever seen. Operating at 10 megawatts, the DUGA could detect missiles in the U.S. almost immediately after launch. However, 10 MW was hard to come by in Northern Ukraine. In order to provide the necessary power, a power plant was needed. And while a medium sized plant would work for DUGA, Moscow decided they would kill two birds with one stone and build a large nuclear plant to supply DUGA and Northern Ukraine with power. And thus Chernobyl was born.

One thing you need understand about the RBMK reactors Chernobyl used is that they are not your friends. They were designed without the slightest regard for safety. They were designed to produce weapons grade plutonium and electricity on the side. “On the side” isn’t the best term considering they are the most powerful reactors on the planet, but you get the idea. They have a wonderful tendency to overheat and meltdown. It is very unfortunate that the reactor operators ignored this fact.

On April 26, 1986, Reactor 4 was being prepared for a test. One of the many problems with the RBMK design was that if the reactor had an emergency shutdown, the coolant pump wouldn’t have enough power to operate for 75 seconds while the emergency generators powered up. It was possible that the reactor might heat up to dangerous levels during this time. It was considered possible that the momentum contained in the steam turbine could provide the 5.5 MW for the 75 seconds needed. The plant managers believed that there was no possibility of damage to the reactor, so they didn’t notify Moscow that they would conduct a test involving a large and unstable reactor. The test was scheduled to take place during the morning, so the day shift workers were instructed on the procedures of the test.

However, another power plant went offline so the test was postponed in order for evening power demand to be met. At 11:00 that night, the test was allowed to continue. The reactor had to be producing about 700 MW. In order for that level to be reached, the control rods were inserted to power down the reactor. However, these were inserted too far causing the reactor to almost shut down. The reactor wouldn’t return to normal power levels even with all the control rods removed. As a last ditch attempt to increase output, the coolant pumps were powered down and multiple safety systems overridden. Then the workers began pulling the emergency control rods out of the reactor. This left 18 control rods in the reactor. The absolute minimum allowed was 28. That’s a big discrepancy. And out of that only 12 were still controlled by the computer. Now here’s where the fun stuff happens. Remember what I said about the pumps earlier? With less water being pumped into the reactor, bubbles started to form. In most reactors this wouldn’t be a huge issue. In an RBMK however, this situation caused a positive feedback loop; or in other words, output was increasing as time went on. The computer was able to counteract this at first using its 12 control rods. Soon those 12 were fully inserted into the reactor and couldn’t do anymore. At this point the reactor began to spiral out of control. Realizing the dangerous situation they were in, the plant director ordered an emergency shutdown of the reactor or as it is known in official jargon, a SCRAM. At this point all 211 rods began to enter the reactor. You might think that the crisis had been averted, now that the operators were aware of the problem and taking steps to stop it. However the SCRAM is what destroyed the reactor. You see, the control rods were tipped with a graphite point. Graphite, compared to water, accelerates a nuclear reaction when both of them are present in a reactor. This acceleration, however small, was enough to cause the fuel rods to break. The broken rods then blocked the channel the control rods use in performance of the their duties. Naturally, the control rods got stuck only a third of the way into the reactor. Now there was no way to control it. The reactor spiraled higher and higher from the realm of “this isn’t good” to the realm of “we’re going to die.” The last reading on the panel said 33,000 MW. The rated maximum was 1,000 MW. Immediately after that flashed in front of everyone’s face, they heard a boom.

The immediate aftermath of the explosion was not as hectic as one might think. The people in the nearby town of Pripyat were told it was a simple electrical fire and it would be put out soon. Even the firefighters were not told about the radiation levels. It took six hours to extinguish the blazes in various sections of the plant. However, the fire in the reactor hall refused to be extinguished. This is mainly because the firefighters that entered died due to the high levels of radiation and the intense heat of the reactor. It might seem like common sense not to enter a burning nuclear reactor but remember, no one told them anything. The original plan was not to evacuate the civilians mainly so Soviet prestige would remain somewhat intact. You can’t be evacuating your model city because of a major accident at your model nuclear power plant. Even as people were getting sick, Moscow denied that anything had gone wrong. It wasn’t until 2:00 on April 27th - a full 36 hours after the explosion - that the evacuation order was given. Even then it was only scheduled for a few days. People were told only to bring their documents, personal possessions, and some food. They would probably be able to return soon. To this day, they haven’t been allowed to return.

After all the above mentioned tragedies, one might believe that maybe I could be tamed so my use could be continued in complete safety. And to be truthful, there has been work in order to bring humanity closer to this goal. For example, those RBMK reactors are on the way out, while new passively safe designs are beginning to populate the globe. And the world’s nuclear weapons stockpile has shrunk to roughly fifteen percent of their original sizes. While these developments are definitely a positive for the world as a whole, there are still backward steps taking place. More nations are acquiring nuclear weapons, and these nations don’t tend to have humanity’s best interests at heart. North Korea has me. The Saudis are trying to get me. Iran is trying to get me. It wouldn’t surprise me if Burma tried to acquire me in due time. As sad as this is to admit, if someone wants weapons, they will eventually get weapons. Some people say certain countries will never acquire me. Trust me, if they want me, they will get me. Just look at Korea. People said they would never get me. Then they got me. Then they said Korea couldn’t deliver me to attack another country. Now they can. Now people say Korea has stopped their weapons program. I can promise you that they haven’t. It is the with Iran. I can promise you that there is work going on in some cave south of Tehran.

No matter what is said or done, more countries can and will acquire me. The more people that have me, the more likely I will be used. Don’t believe that a small nuclear exchange on the far side of the world wouldn’t affect you. Studies have shown that just 60 weapons used in a local war could start a worldwide nuclear winter. The only way off this crazy train is that the world as a whole completely abandon nuclear weapons. Reactors can stay as long as they’re monitored closely and no stupid designs are built. And even reactors are on thin ice. You need a reactor to have a bomb. That’s how it works. If people can have reactors without misusing them, then they can stay. However if they cannot be built without being misused by anyone, then I must recommend that I must be buried deep where I can’t be found until humanity can be trusted with the most powerful force known to mankind.

Your most humble servant,

The Atom

    Stagg Field, Chicago