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In nuclear war all men are cremated equal. Dexter Gordon
It was as if the sun came up tremendous. Barbara Kent, cited Lesley Blume, Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, reaction of girls’ dance instructor near Trinity test site; only one of the girls lived till 30
The nuclear project began with this man – Ernest Rutherford. Science Britannica I: Frankenstein’s Monsters, BBC 2013
We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. J Robert Oppenheimer, cited The Decision to Drop the Bomb, 1965
The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose. J Robert Oppenheimer, MIT lecture 25th November 1947
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. J Robert Oppenheimer, Security Hearings 1954
The decision to seek or not to seek international control of atomic energy, the decision to try to make or not to make the hydrogen bomb, these are rooted in complex technical issues. But they touch the very basis of our morality. It is grave danger for us that these decisions are taken on the basis of facts held secret. Robert Oppenheimer
Some recent work by E Fermi and L Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. Albert Einstein, letter to Franklin Roosevelt 1939
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. Albert Einstein, cited New York Times 25th May 1946
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. Albert Einstein
A bishop wrote gravely to The Times inviting all nations to destroy ‘the formula’ of the atomic bomb. There is no simple remedy for ignorance so abysmal. Peter Medawar, The Hope of Progress, 1972
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. Professor Fred Hoyle
Looking back to the instant of creation is a relatively new idea. The Big Bang theory is widely accepted. But the concept is less than a century old. But all this changed in 1929. At California’s Mount Wilson Observatory Edwin Hubble studied the light from galaxies. He observed that the farther away the galaxy, the longer the wave-lengths of light it emits ... If a galaxy is moving away from us, its light-waves stretch, becoming longer and redder. It’s called red-shifting ... Nearly all galaxies are receding from us at a million miles an hour ... The universe is expanding outward from a single point ... Out of the fireball, the four fundamental forces of nature formed. These forces underpin everything around us. Gravity is the reason stars and planets formed ... Electromagnetism lights our cities, runs our phones and connects our computers. And the two nuclear forces, strong and weak, bind the particles that make up our bodies and power the furnace of our sun ... Without them the universe would be a featureless fog of radiation ... How was mass developed in the first second of the Big Bang? Big Bang
When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shining because of distant nuclear fusion. Carl Sagan
Not everyone would be killed by the blast and the firestorm and the immediate radiation. There would be other agonies: the loss of loved ones, legions of the burned and blinded and mutilated, the absence of medical care, disease, plague, long-lived radiation, poison in the soil and the water, the threat of tumours and still-births, the malformed children, and the hopeless sense of civilisation destroyed for nothing. The knowledge that we could have prevented it and did not. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Cosmos: Who Speaks for Earth? PBS 1980
Gravity is compressing the outer layers of the star. We have this constant tension between gravity which wants to crush a star to smithereens, and also the energy released by the fusion process which wants to blow the star apart. And that tension, that balancing act, creates the star. Professor Michio Kaku
The same nuclear reactions that take place in a hydrogen bomb – converting hydrogen into helium – produces the energy that causes stars to shine. Universe: Stars
A colossal nuclear reactor comprised of three-quarters hydrogen – the rest mostly helium with traces of heavier elements ... This process called fusion gives off radiant energy. The Universe s5e8: Dark Future of Our Sun, History 2010
Inside a real star fusion continues for billions of years. The reason is simple: size. Fusion at the core of the stars generates the force of a billion nuclear bombs every second. Gravity and fusion are in an epic battle. How the Universe Works s1e4: Stars, Discovery 2010
As the nebulae create stars, they make the building blocks of living things on Earth. Seven Ages of Starlight, BBC 2012
A helium atom weighs a little bit less than four hydrogen atoms. And if you use Einstein’s good old formula E = MC² that means you get a whole lot of energy for just that little bit of mass. Professor Harold Zirin
The Sun shines by nuclear fusion: the fusion of four hydrogens into one helium. First one hydrogen fuses to another, then another, then a fourth. Helium weighs less than the four hydrogens that went into making it. What you get out is less than what you put in. That mass difference is energy that powers the Sun. Ken Lang, author
Gravity compresses the sun making it heat up inside: the particles move faster and the nuclear fusion proceeds at a more rapid rate. That produces an outward pressure that makes the sun expand and cool back down again. Ken Lang
At the nuclear heart it’s seventeen million degrees ... Massive filaments, loops of gas arching up over the surface ... Prominences: they curve up big enough to girdle the Earth ... Yet there’s a force that stops itself blowing itself to pieces: Gravity. It’s strong enough to keep the nuclear monster in check. Our Secret Sun, 2001
Star Fish Prime: We suspect that with Operation Star Fish Prime – the explosion of a mega-ton nuclear bomb 248 miles above Earth – NASA was trying to force a corridor through this natural danger zone. But ended up making matters worse. David S Percy
They [apocalyptic Christians] long for nuclear war. Because nuclear war will presage the second coming of Christ. Richard Dawkins, Freethought Radio September 2006
Cobalt – you have to alert the Kremlin that one of their strategists has a nuclear launch device. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol 2011 starring Tom Cruise & Simon Pegg & Jeremy Renner & Paula Patton & Michael Nyqvist & Vladimir Mashkov & Samuli Edelmann & Anil Kapoor & Josh Holloway et al, director Brad Bird, Cruise in van