When I was in the mental hospital I became obsessed with science. Not all science actually, and not really science at all. Scientists. And then only nuclear scientists. The ones who invented the bomb. Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, Fermi, and Teller. Pioneers. Geniuses, all. I read every book I could. I wanted to understand. Why couldn’t they stop? These fathers of our destruction. And why wouldn’t anyone stop them? And if I had the chance, would I?
On July 16, 1945, in the mountains outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the world's first atomic bomb exploded. The white light pierced the sky with such intensity that a blind girl claimed to see the flash from a hundred miles away. After witnessing the explosion, J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted a fragment of the Bhagavad Gita, declaring, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." His colleague, Ken Bainbridge, put it another way when he leaned close to Oppenheimer and whispered, "Now we're all sons of bitches."
Now we are all sons of bitches.
 Amara Tempest_Noir · Tue Dec 29, 2009 @ 02:30am · 0 Comments |
