The underwater atomic test at the Bikini Atoll in July 1946 was captured for research purposes by five hundred cameras stationed on unmanned planes, high-altitude aircraft, boats, and from more distant points on land around the Atoll, the island group forming an almost complete ellipse, a natural stage for this most terrible show of man's destructive power. The mushroom cloud is perhaps the single most iconic symbol of the 20th century: both synthetic and organic, horrifying and enthralling, a seething mass of ever-changing death.
We still have these bombs like this, of course, more than ever, in fact, but we now think about them in the same way we think about sharks, or fire, or falling off a cliff: a primal but somehow distant fear. Besides, being instantly vaporised is the least of our worries these days.
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