As I recall from studying this is a college class, we had only the two atomic bombs available. Getting material for another was possible, but I think I recall that at the time we could only collect enough for one bomb every several months.

So, a HUGE aspect of this is that we had a pretty good hand of cards in the poker game, but felt that we had to bluff to suggest that it was even more overwhelming.

To me, the interesting part of the debate isn't blockade vs conventional bombing vs invasion vs A-bombs. I think it gets most interesting to consider alternatives that involve dropping one or more of the 2 A-bombs some place where their power would be demonstrated, but where casualties would be as low as possible.

Either option you mentioned would have been GREAT, if they worked (and forced surrender). But both had potential pitfalls also. Drop one on an unpopulated area, and they might have believed we were trying to take credit for some sort of natural event (German V2s blowing up in London were often attributed to sewage gas explosions early on). Staging a demonstration for scientists and leaders to witness might have hardened their resolve and/or made them question ours.

If I had been in Truman's shoes, I feel like I would have preferred to use ONE of the two bombs on something like one of your suggestions; either unpopulated drop or demonstration. Then, use the second on a target of military significance if/when they didn't surrender.

However, in hindsight that would have been a risky move -- they didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, only after both. Would a demonstration and one "we mean business" bomb have been enough to elicit the same response? Who knows. At that point, consider how screwed we could have been if it HADN'T, and it would have taken months to build another bomb (plus keep in mind that we weren't 100% confident in the bombs working reliably, even after trinity and the first two drops). I guess that we could have maintained a blockade and said "we'll give you 3 months to come to your senses" while we made another bomb, but I think that would have legitimately resulted in Japan questioning our resolve quite a lot; we'd be showing our cards too early.

I guess that at the end of the day, I don't envy Truman for having to make that kind of decision. Given the givens, I think that he probably played it as safe as possible and went with the option that was the MOST likely to force surrender. Perhaps some other option would have worked as well but avoided some of the casualties, but Truman took the information available to him and made the decision that he felt was the best -- I think that is pretty much the best we can ask of our leaders.

Why America Dropped the Atomic Bombs has been added as a related post - related requested by Norsuelefantti on that post.

This guy reminds me of someone I knew back in what I assume must be Sweden's equivalent to High School.

I'd always thought he seemed like a nice, intelligent and well-adjusted guy, and... then I sat down and spoke to him.

To put it mildly, he shattered my expectations of him.

See, apparently, this guy had figured out (through various prophetic texts as well as the Bible) that there was a huge comet hurtling towards Earth, and that it would surely eradicate all life on the planet if we failed to stop it. Luckily, my (absolutely fucking bat-shit crazy) buddy had it all figured out.

He had three plans; either we simply send up four rockets with a great big rubber net suspended between them, or we pile everybody into Russia and cause the Earth to roll out of orbit, or we take a bunch of atoms, squish them all together, and create a kick-ass and completely impenetrable force field. Obviously, I asked him how the atoms were going to be kept together - after all, atoms are notoriously unwilling to cuddle - and for a moment, this gave him pause. He simply sat there with a frown, looking down at the table between us. Then, his face suddenly lit up with self-congratulatory smugness and, with one arched eyebrow and supreme confidence, he proudly uttered two words:

"Computer chips!"

We didn't really talk much after that.

Daleks would vaporize you. If you're atoms refused to stick together, you'd also vaporize. And that wasn't really death by stare, as much as death by not looking before crossing the street because you're staring.

I'm confused about the airship that defends the earth and is buried a mile under the Sphynx (see about 30:45 in), a structure built over 5 million years ago, obviously. Apparently it is only 5 atoms thick at its thickest part - and is also 24ft thick.

How does that work? It has like 4 or 5 orders of magnitude less atoms in its thickness than a piece of paper but its 24ft thick?

Right at the beginning he talks about how archaeology is being rocks because ancient cities such as Babylon were always thought to be myths. There's a photograph on wikipedia of Babylon from 1932... I mean, surely the lies should be less obvious?

4 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

This video has been declared a duplicate by the original submitter; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by fuzzyundies.

Did that wrong, and I might not be allowed...

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/The-Atomic-Cannon-1953-Test-Footage

?

Yes, you're both right. 15kt equivalent detonation energy. Also,

*dupeof http://videosift.com/video/The-Atomic-Cannon-1953-Test-Footage

I was just about to question the listed weight of the projectile as well.

The main armament of the Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers had the same calibre and fired shells weighing in at around 250kg, so I figured Atomic Annie to be in the same ball park. Even the eggs Dora lobbed around were only about 7t apiece.

Although it takes the fun out of the process, WP lists the weight at 364kg.

Edit: http://videosift.com/video/The-Atomic-Cannon-1953-Test-Footage

Your video, post atomic hour-photographing fukushima, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The idea of modifying organisms to produce foods that have stronger, more desirable qualities is not in of itself bad. Just as understanding the human genome is all about learning how things work. Issues come up over the use of that knowledge. Once you know how to utilize atomic energy, do you build a network of high-speed electric trains or destroy a city? The knowledge generated by this scientific research has been mismanaged. And yes, much of that boils down to lawyers, patents, greed, corruptions, and other corporate practices.

As far as your pet desires, perhaps a duck-horse, or shark-gull?

I defy anyone here to get that 2.8 second sprint out of an Atom. A cheetah can repeat that acceleration consistently. Booyah

Heisenberg was indeed working on developing an atomic weapon for the Nazis, but he was still a couple of years behind the efforts at Los Alamos. The American project had better resources and the aid of Neils Bohr, Heisenberg's former mentor and colleague.

Seeing as how I get an Atom, I should also get a sawed-off shotgun.

SUCK IT RABBIT!