A series of declassified nuke test footages have been uploaded on YouTube recently. The upload of videos is part of the ongoing project of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, headed by physicist Greg Spriggs to preserve the raw footage digitally for posterity.
The videos uploaded on YouTube are declassified footages of nuclear tests made by the US during the heyday of the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. The footages show the mesmerizing power of fission and fusion predicted by formulas and by Einstein's legendary E=MC2. Einstein calculated through his special theory of relativity that the mass is equal to energy.
As reported by Discovery Magazine, the atomic age was ushered by the successful detonation of the first ever atomic bomb in the Trinity test site, in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The bombs were then used to force Japan to surrender during World War 2, after two bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki causing indescribable death and destruction. After the war, the Soviet Union got hold of the blueprints for the device and thus started the cold war.
According to a report made by ABC news, there are almost 10,000 declassified videos of nuclear tests, 750 of which are already declassified, digitized and ready for preservation. The footages were originally meant for research purposes for further development and testing of new nuclear devices. These were for years, highly confidently and top secret, however since the cold war has ended and worldwide nuclear test ended in 1996.
As more and more footages are slowly being declassified, people will have the chance to view the power of the atom and how destructive it is. Spriggs aim is to preserve these footages in hopes that it will be a reminder for future generations of the tremendous power of the nuclear bomb and how humanity came close to annihilating itself during the cold war.
