potpourri - video and books

A place to keep track of reference material - any particularly useful books, articles, etc. should be listed here.
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Richard Hull
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potpourri - video and books

Post by Richard Hull »

Videos

Check out

Trinty and Beyond - The Atomic Bomb movie You'll be stunned to know that about 4300 nuclear devices have been touched off on this ole planet and US set off about half of them.

The Atomic Film Makers - A great epic about the guys who were nearest ground zero. Some of the best shots ever!

Atomic Journeys - Welcome to Ground Zero A must see as it deals with the fantastic hundreds of underground tests we set off in this country including three in Mississippi one of 'em was about a megaton! The infamous Canacan shot in Alaska of a 5 megaton trident warhead down 6000 feet that permenantly lifted the entire island in the Aleutians up 25 feet and dropped parts of the coastline into the sea. You have to see these to believe what was done on our soil.

The videos are on Amazon.com

Book

The Uranium People by Leona Marshall Libby. The only woman physicist at the Chicago Metallurigal group. She was intimately involved with the CP-1 and CP-2 Piles. She worked with all the greats Fermi, Szilard, Teller, Compton, etc. and at all the sites. (Chicago, Hanford, Los Alamos)

Lot's of great insights into a more cavalier approach to nuke stuff.

They would typically work each day until their rad badges filled to 0.10 roentgen and then do paper work until the next day when they would load their badges up again. She talks glibly about how she and an associate were dispatched to New York to obtain and assemble a 1 curie Radium-Berylium source from U.S. Radium Corp. They got the radium and personally mixed it with 5 volumes of beryllium in a brass cell and spent over two hours soldering it up. They had a few poor solderings, but finally had it all sealed perfectly and found out that in the one morning session, they both logged a bit over 200 Roengtens!!! Yes, she was droopy and tired easily for a few weeks as her blood count was down to half, but she was as right as rain in a month or so. What a trooper! She celebrated geting her blood chemistry back on track by getting pregnant! A very rare, interesting and intimate story of the effort through the eyes of a female physicist.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Brian McDermott
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Re: potpourri - video and books

Post by Brian McDermott »

In addition to the ones that Richard Hull mentioned, "The Atomic Cafe" is also a documentary movie that I highly recommend. This assembly of archived film strips focuses more on the domestic implications of nuclear weapons during Cold War. The old Civil Defense strips and anti-communist propaganda had me rolling on the floor laughing. Bert the Turtle's "Duck and Cover" sequence is a classic!
Jon Rosenstiel
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Re: potpourri - video and books

Post by Jon Rosenstiel »

I printed out your suggestions and gave them to my wife. (My birthday is in a couple of weeks).

Thanks guys,
Jon Rosenstiel
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Richard Hull
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Re: potpourri - video and books

Post by Richard Hull »

I forgot "Radio Bikini". It is older and maybe found in the used video sales area. It covers mostly the radiation effects of the nuclear age. More goodies for th' list. Put this one near the bottom of the list and get the others first, though I bet you could get a deal on this used.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Mike Veldman
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Re: potpourri - video and books

Post by Mike Veldman »

Radio Bikini may not be a bargin. I clicked over to Amazon after reading these threads to see about finding a used copy, I found three, starting at $89.95 and ending at $150. They call it "rare". Guess I didn't want to see it that bad.
mike
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Richard Hull
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Re: potpourri - video and books

Post by Richard Hull »

WOW! A rarity!! Oh boy, oh boy. I got mine two weeks ago at a yard sale for 50 cents in a trash barrel full of other tapes.....you know....the kind men like. It think The "Bikini" caught my eye. (They always did) Oddly, that is where the bathing suit of the early fifties got its name. The atomic tests were big news then.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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