Remembering atomic blast from past

Aug 27, 2023

DEAR EDITOR:

It has been 78 years since the world first witnessed the atomic bomb. Now we are about to understand the man who created it, the so-called father of the atomic bomb, through the recently released movie Oppenheimer — J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist that ultimately ran the Manhatten Project.

In earlier days, I dabbled in an experimenting. I was always intrigued with science. I might have been Mr. Wizard in my own sort of way. The term implosion: an abrupt, violent collapse of something. In my experiment, it was just the opposite. It was an explosion — a violent expansion in which energy is transmitted outward as a shock wave.

At around age 14, a friend and I went on a weekend camping trip to the woods behind my house. We found a nice spot and began building a tree house. We ran out of daylight and had worked up quite an appetite. We built a campfire to light our area.

Dinner, our one-course cuisine, would be pork and beans. I pulled out a large can from my knapsack and placed it dead center in the fire. My friend sat on one side and I was on the other. The first thing I noticed was the label going up in flames. There was a shiny tin can set before me. It wasn’t long that it seemed to grow in size, expanding. I needed to get a closer look at this surprising marvel of science.

I mentioned to my friend, “It seems to be expanding,” Then Pow! Being dazed in total darkness, the blast hitting my entire face, I felt my skin and could feel something oozing down my cheeks.

In a panic, I called out for a lighted match. On the striking of it, my friend exploded in laughter.

I was dripping in beans.

PAUL R. LAWSON

McDonald

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