Oppenheimer & The Science of Atomic Bombs | Sci Guys Podcast

[@SciGuys]

What did you think?

[@captainroberts6318]

Great! Can you do Barbenheimer next?

[@redactedbananas]

This was your most lamblike episode yet!

[@imgeniusish]

i have my priorities straight and saw Barbie this weekend instead of Oppenheimer but im gonna watch it next week!

[@JackLWalsh]

Oppenheimer is an absolute cinematic masterpiece that gives us a much needed reminder of the story of nuclear weapons and the sheer raw power of mass destruction that they are capable off. It’s daunting and ominous to know these weapons will likely play a role in extinction our species at some point in the distant future (hopefully). I feel a lot of people simply don’t truly understand the dangers of these weapons and how easily these weapons can result in mass death of all types of life in literal seconds. People of this generation don’t understand that it was only decades ago that people still thought that a nuclear holocaust was imminent. The movie Oppenheimer is such a brilliant film in its exploration of the philosophy and ethics of these weapons, as well as the excellent demonstration of physics (I’m a mathematical physicist, so I really appreciated this), and the intricacies and complexities of someone like Oppenheimer himself. Oppenheimer was a complex genius that made such incredible contributions to quantum mechanics and stellar nucleosynthesis. One correction thing, Oppenheimer preferred to think for himself regarding politics and clearly hated dogmatism on both sides, whether it’s the left or the right. This will be my third time watching the film this week. We all know this is one of Nolan’s masterpieces and will undoubtedly win Oscar’s. Nolan himself should win best director.

[@unwillingly_will]

If anyone is interested in the ethics of detonating those bombs over Japan, I strongly recommend the video 'Dropping the Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki' by the amazing channel named Shaun. He goes into extreme historical detail and addresses pretty much every argument for and against these bombs that has ever been made before coming to his conclusion.

[@SciGuys]

We love Shaun

[@sakaimae]

I gotta check this out! Thanks

[@Nelchihaak]

Was going to comment this. It's a good one and definitely worth the watch

[@rapchee]

just to spoil it a bit, no, it wasn't necessary, and it is fairly well documented why they did it anyway

[@planetaryg0]

i'm japanese and have been taught it was very much unnecessary haha

[@teeth.0f.g0d]

Not the science of Barbie? :((

[@captainroberts6318]

Why not Barbenheimer

[@kittyinacloud8101]

​@@captainroberts6318she can do anything

[@rapchee]

did you know the first barbie clothes were made in japan?

[@thosefroggyfolks2004]

As a gen z American, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are one of the few conversations where I just have to shut my mouth and nod politely. Boomers and gen x are so firm in their stance that the bombings were necessary that even the smallest confrontation will spiral into an argument. It strangely gets very personal. I believe what really made me think more critically about the bombings was a book I read in middle school called “Sachiko”. It’s about a Japanese woman who was 6 years old when the bombs dropped. It mostly focused on her life afterwards and how it affected her, her family, and her community. Its one story out of many but it’s hard not to think about her when I hear other people so openly defend the bombings. TL;DR: School libraries are important!

[@jpotter2086]

Gen X here. 1) Good for you! 2) Libraries rock! 3) The bombings weren't *necessary*. IMO, they were *inevitable*, unless the completion of the devices had outlasted the war ... which very nearly happened. ANyone telling you they were "necessary" or giving some simplistic single-point argument is regurgitating "'Murica can do no wrong" spin.

[@planetaryg0]

as a japanese person i just can't see how killing 200,000 people was necessary lmao

[@jaws392]

@thosefroggyfolks2004: I understand seeing images of the destruction left upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki from those bombs can be extremely upsetting, but I believe the cruel reality is that those bombs ironically saved more lives by putting an end to WW 2. What do I mean? The Japanese population promised full support to the emperor (Hirohito) and his imperial government. Because of this, many people were brainwashed into sacrificing their lives for their homeland, when the Japanese were already losing vast amounts of conquered islands in the Pacific to the U.S. If the bombs were never dropped, more American and Japanese lives would have been lost, until the U.S overtook Tokyo. Like I said you don't have to agree with me, but it's just another perspective.

[@carpevinum8645]

In Australia. At my primary school, in the 1990s, I remember doing units on the children's story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes to learn about the bombing of Japan and the aftermath. As a school we tried to fold 1000 paper cranes for the display at the library.

[@SirSoup44]

Did that in the mid early 2000's too!

[@Emily-fh8en]

My comment looks like it's not here anymore I forgot that KZbin doesn't like external links. One thing I wanted to note about the Trinity Site (as someone who is from New Mexico), first of all your pronunciations were fine, Alamogordo is alamo-gore-doe. Also there are still people in New Mexico dealing with the effects of the testing. The explosion spread radioactive ash up to 100 miles away into the neighboring towns. In an NPR article called "What 'Oppenheimer' left out: the atomic bomb's fallout in New Mexico" it is noted that (As late as the 1980s, government studies showed that people living in the fallout zone were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation. Hundreds in the area have since been diagnosed with radiogenic cancers) there is currently an effort right now to get the trinity site fallout included in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act which "provides a $50,000 payment to radiogenic cancer patients who lived downwind of nuclear tests... right now, it only covers a few counties in the southwest that were exposed to fallout from other tests in Nevada in the 1950s and '60s".

[@devin-rq2hu]

in shadow and bone, mal’s character gets a tattoo that says “i am become a blade”- i wonder if that’s a reference to the “i am now become death”- it would be interesting to think of the firebird like an atomic bomb

[@thosefroggyfolks2004]

It would also be hilarious considering how fans love trashing on that tattoo

[@ecoonrad4753]

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who's experience with Hinduism was a 2 week section in a religions course To my understanding the idea of gods in Hinduism is that all of them are different aspects of Brahman (basically the universe), so it is similar to Christianity but instead of being 3 in 1 it's 300 million in 1

[@LemonTeri]

Memento mori🖤🤍

[@AnimilesYT]

I think the word "fission" should be changed to something else because it's way too easily confused with "fusion". It really just creates too much confission

[@AnimilesYT]

I was like; we should start using "confission" as the opposite of "confusion". Then I noticed that when you're "confissed" you're basically "convinced", which sounds very similar. So maybe there is a connection between the words there?

[@AnimilesYT]

Yesterday I saw a video from "The Present Past" called "Why the US didn't Nuke Tokyo" which I would highly recommend. It completely changed how I think about the use of nukes

[@thiel_spencer]

I've not seen Oppenheimer. I did see Barbie, though 👀

[@Rose-ou2xj]

I’ve not seen it yet. I’m waiting for it to come out to rent at home because my god I don’t fancy having a breakdown in the cinema

[@jacklewis5017]

Veritasium made a really good video on this subject as well. Some great visuals on how little boy and fat man bombs worked. Really helped me get to grips with the physics/science behind them. Great episode as per usual fellas! Got a long drive down to Cornwall soon. Can't wait to put my wife to sleep while I binge missed episodes in the car!

[@avriiile]

Do you guys have an episode about the Fermi Paradox?

[@planetaryg0]

i reallyy enjoy ur podcasts :)) as a 20 year old about to go to uni to do computer science, ur difficulty and explanations are perfect!

[@silkedavid8876]

I was supposed to see Oppenheimer yesterday, Sunday 23rd, but the cinema had a power outage. I usually listen on Spotify, but this week the sound was all off, the speech was elongated.

[@Dariusissocool]

It really makes you think that how the Earth provides everything for life to exist but also to take it away…instantly

[@bradthemusicduck4895]

Going to see it tomorrow!!!

[@bellahoyle6565]

How early do y’all record episodes before posting? Just curious. Also, love the podcast!!

[@sharkarts378]

Omg! I asked if you were going to do this episode! Awesome I love sci guys and the venom episode was so good! I love learning so many fun or not so fun facts and it’s good to listen to while drawing or doing work and it’s entertaining but I also learn from it 10/10 podcast

[@the_bandcamp_one]

the fact i learned about nagasaki from a fictional book (kensukes kingdom) in year 3 or 4 is actually insane

[@ViolentOrchid]

I'll wade into the moral questions of dropping the bombs: It was completely unnecessary and amoral. Japan planned to surrender, they were negotiating with the allies on what they would have to give up in their surrender. The US dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima for the express purpose of intimidating the USSR and all of the remaining military powers.

[@ViolentOrchid]

They also specifically chose civilian locations to increase the number of witnesses to provide accounts of the horror the bombs created.

[@planetaryg0]

thank u ur the only comment to say this😭

[@DuckarooDuck]

They weren’t planning on surrender, they were actively denying talking and in the 5 days between the nukes they literally told state officials that they wouldn’t surrender. They still shouldn’t have nuked a country for the deaths of 12 civilians at a military base. I vehemently disagree with their actions and people arguing that there was any reason that it should have happened. Equally we don’t need to make stuff up, because it was immoral regardless of any argument.

[@cocomuffin4666]

yes i saw oppenheimer yesterday

[@greigism]

Think I'll listen to Linkin Park after this.

[@captainroberts6318]

The Catalyst by Linkin Park

[@Elientjepientje.]

What would happen to people that don't have their thyroid anymore after a nuclear blast?

[@Lee-fi4il]

Ahhh. Ich mag Deutsch auch! Es ist mein lieblings sprache!

[@catStone92]

WWI was technically a world war cause like the US joined so it stopped being just a european war (not really, but almost). Where as WWII was very much the entire world is at war (again, not really, but almost)

[@lavspice16]

I went to Barbie instead! Probably won't see Oppenheimer.

[@pokemonfanthings4444]

Gotta get the replay. See ya later!

[@RexxyRobin]

"German is a lagnuage that just makes sense" Uhm are we talkign about the same german here? I am a native speaker and I feel as if basically every other language besides german makes more sense. I go out of my way to get all my books in english because I struggle to grasp the meaning of sentences in my mother tongue.

[@garethjones2596]

quaecumque ab Arisitotele dicta comititia essent

[@DuckarooDuck]

I disagree with what happened but you can’t go “we don’t know enough to make moral judgements” and then spend the entire video making uninformed moral judgements.