Bock's Car Bomb

Three days after Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, Fat Man, the plutonium Bomb as dropped on Nagasaki by a B-29 called Bock's Car. Plutonium was a little more stable than U-235 and partly because of that and the brilliant idea that criticality could be brought about by compression, it was decided the best way to explode it was to place explosives all around it. Ignited simultaneously, the explosive charges would compress the plutonium core enough to bring the atoms within such close proximity that one of them would shed a neutron and start the fission reaction. As it turned out the plutonium was from Hanford. It was also a differently shaped bomb. Because of the need to surround the core, which was the size of a grapefruit, with explosives, it was roundish. Little Boy was a long and narrow cylinder, about 10 feet long nd 29 inches in diameter. Fat Man was 10 feetlong and about 5 feet in diameter (see below). Both were about 10,000 lbs. The explosion was actually more powerful than the Little Boy bomb, but because of the way the geography of the city differed from Hiroshima and the position of ground zero in relation to it, the casualties and damage was not much different. It has been 63 years. I believe it is important to remember both the vanquished and the victors. It was a hard war, but, at least we knew who to hate and why. The Cold War was not so black and white.

Here are some pictures of a "practice shape" of the MkIII Fat Man bomb and a B-29, similar to the ones that dropped the bombs.

On a lighter note, the first day of the Olympics saw competitions in rowing, soccer, VOLLEY BALL, and swimming. I enjoy watching volley ball, or had you noticed? Appart from the clothing, specifically WOMEN'S BEACH VOLLEY BALL, I enjoy watching the intensity of the competition. I might also note that I am NOT a big sports fan, so for me to enjoy sports for any reason..well, it must be good.

I did take a little while out to go hide a geocache for my dad to find. I left a trail of 4. The last one required him to use his metal detector. I also made sure he needed a little special knowledge to find it. Specifically, my instruction told him to go North the length of a Big Boy steam engine. He is a train nut, so that little bit of knowledge should have come natural to him. I also hid one of the clues in a cemetary and his mail box. He called me later to tell me my mom beat him to the car. Sounds like they enjoyed it! They are already working on another geocache for me.