#arthur compton

[breathetoseethetruth]

You watched Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" and now want to learn more about some of the scientists that were involved and the history of the Manhattan Project? Then I recommend "Pandora's Keepers" by Brian VanDeMark. The book takes a closer look at not just J. Robert Oppenheimer, but also Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller. The book is a history book more so than a science book, most of the scientific explanations mentioned around the making of the bomb, aren't too complex to understand for readers who aren't experts on the matter.

[denimbex1986]

'On the morning of 16 July 1945, a blinding light tore through the still-dark sky over the Jornada Del Muerto desert in New Mexico. It was the birth of the Atomic Era, but theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s response was a curt, “I guess it worked”— at least according to his brother Frank Oppenheimer.

Years later, in an NBC news documentary, Oppenheimer recited a line from the Bhagavad Gita when talking about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This powerful and chilling quote features twice in Christopher Nolan’s 2023 biopic of one of the most celebrated and vilified scientists in history. But the movie Oppenheimer is not just about Oppenheimer. It also illuminates the evolution of the Manhattan Project and the alliance of brilliant minds working to create the world’s first atomic bomb.

Overall, it’s the story of an era when World War-II ignited a race to harness the atom’s hidden power after the discovery of nuclear fission by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman in 1938. For all its destructive capabilities, or perhaps because of it, the atomic bomb became a symbol of power.

Just as artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics are central to the current scientific epoch, the exploration of atomic energy and nuclear fission powered the science of the 1940s.

But the film’s gaze, focused on Oppenheimer, offers only glimpses of his scientific contemporaries —some, recipients of the Nobel Prize— whose contributions were pivotal to shaping the course of modern physics.

Its lens also did not capture parallel developments on the other side of the globe in India, where Homi Bhabha was leading the country’s quest for atomic energy.

In 1948, for instance, Bhabha had urged Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that the development of atomic energy be “entrusted to a very small and high-powered body composed of say three people with executive power, and answerable directly to the Prime Minister without any intervening link.”

Here’s a look at some key figures from the atomic era, some portrayed in the film and others whose roles remained beyond its scope.

A rough start

Robert ‘Oppie’ Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) was born into a wealthy New York Jewish family in 1904. After getting his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Harvard, he went to Cambridge University to study physics.

He did not see instant stardom. As shown in the movie, he was so bad at experimental work that he was miserable. It was also in Cambridge that he met soon-to-be Nobel laureate Patrick Blackett (James D’Arcy), featured in the movie as the professor he tried to poison with an apple. While no one ate the apple, his mischief became known and his parents had to convince authorities to not press charges.

Notably, Homi Bhabha, later to be known as the father of the Indian atomic programme, studied in Cambridge in the late 1920s, and worked at the Cavendish lab, which Oppenheimer wanted to join.

But Oppenheimer left Cambridge battling severe depression and in 1926 moved to Germany where he completed his PhD in physics. He was 23 years old, and Europe was still uneasy in the aftermath of the First World War. Mussolini had seized power in Italy and Hitler was just rising in popularity in Germany.

Early encounters with friends & foes

During his stay in Germany, Oppenheimer cultivated relationships with several fellow colleagues, some of whom would become future collaborators.

Among them was Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari). While he joined the Manhattan Project relatively late, he played a role in selecting Japanese targets. In the 1930s, Bhabha also collaborated closely with Fermi while he was on the Isaac Newton scholarship in Rome.

Significantly, it was Fermi who alerted military leaders to nuclear energy’s potential and is renowned for creating the first nuclear reactor. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize for his work on radioactivity and discovery of transuranium elements— the synthetic element fermium is named after him.

Like Oppenheimer, Fermi opposed the development of hydrogen bombs. He defended Oppenheimer in the security hearing in 1954 when the latter was accused of being a Soviet spy during the McCarthy era.

Oppenheimer also became close to Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer), a German theoretical physicist whose legacy includes the uncertainty principle and the 1932 Nobel Prize for “creation of quantum mechanics”.

However, Heisenberg was also the principal scientist in the Nazi nuclear weapons programme during World War-II, and contributed to West German nuclear reactor development.

The movie shows Oppenheimer’s team in a race with Heisenberg’s to develop the bomb, but in reality, Heisenberg never came close to success on this front. In fact, it is believed that conscientious German scientists secretly sabotaged the research.

Heisenberg, notably, spent time in India in the 1920s as a guest of Tagore, indulging in deep discussions about philosophy, life, and science.

In Germany, Oppenheimer also became friendly with Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), whose calculations were often referred to in the movie. The relationship between the men, however, eventually soured.

Teller and Oppenheimer disagreed about the type of weapon to prioritise in the Manhattan Project. Teller was a proponent of developing hydrogen bombs, and, in fact, came to be known as the father of the hydrogen bomb. In the closed-door hearing, he testified against Oppenheimer.

Onscreen, Teller can be easily identified by his sweaty eyebrows. He is the person with whom Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty refuses to shake hands.

Another member of Oppenheimer’s circle in Europe was Polish-American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz). In the film, Rabi is featured in a scene where Oppenheimer is about to give a lecture in Amsterdam. Rabi offers to help a Dutch scientist translate Oppenheimer’s lecture into English. However, Oppenheimer surprises everyone by speaking in Dutch himself, a language he learned in just a few weeks.

Rabi was a lifelong friend of Oppenheimer, and in the movie, he is the only one who talks about Oppenheimer’s religion, addressing it in the train scene. He won the 1944 Physics Nobel for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in MRIs today. His work also led to the development of the microwave oven.

Return to America

When Oppenheimer returned to the USA in the late 1920s, he received job offers for professorships at both UC Berkeley and Caltech. He opted for the position at Berkeley while also taking on a visiting teaching role at Caltech.

At this time, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent time at a New Mexico ranch to recover. He fell in love with the region, where he had also been sent as a teenager to recover from dysentery. It was here that he would later set up his secret Los Alamos laboratories.

In Berkeley, in the 1930s, he worked with another Nobel Prize experimental physicist, Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett). Oppenheimer was introduced to the Manhattan Project through Lawrence, who later became an H-bomb proponent.

In the early days of their relationship, Oppenheimer and Lawrence were very close, with the latter even naming his son Robert. The two fell out later due to political disagreements, but Lawrence refused to testify against Oppenheimer in 1954.

Meanwhile, what is now called the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen had become another big hub for theoretical and nuclear physics research in the late 1930s. Here, Homi Bhabha worked with the likes of Wolfgang Pauli, Hans Kramer, Enrico Fermi, and, of course, Neils Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) himself.

Bohr, who discovered the internal structure of an atom and showed that electrons orbit the nucleus, was involved with the Manhattan Project only for a short time, but is known for his work on quantum theory, for which he won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was involved in the establishment of CERN. After the war, he became a proponent of international cooperation on nuclear energy.

Bohr had visited India on a couple of occasions, upon the invitation of physicist Alladi Ramakrishnan, who had him deliver lectures in Chennai. Bohr was particularly taken with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and was very supportive of the Indian nuclear research programme.

In the movie, he can be seen handling the poisoned apple, which was not intended for him, and asking Oppie to listen to music instead of reading sheet music.

Communism, a car named Garuda, marriage

Many of Oppenheimer’s political and spiritual beliefs coalesced in the years leading up to World War-II.

In the early 1930s, his interests expanded to encompass languages, myths, and religion. Mesmerised by the Bhagavad Gita, he learned to read Sanskrit and even named his car ‘Garuda’ after the divine vehicle of Lord Vishnu.

Through this decade, Oppenheimer studied cosmic rays, nuclear physics, quantum electrodynamics, as well as relativity and astrophysics. However, the onset of World War II in 1939 forced many scientists, including Homi Bhabha, to return to their home countries.

By this time, Oppenheimer had adopted many ideas for social reform that came to be categorised as communist. While he never was an open member of the Communist Party of USA, he donated money through communist channels for social causes.

In the film, Oppenheimer’s wife, Katherine “Kitty” Puening (Emily Blunt) is depicted as testifying to this effect during her hearing.

Kitty, whom Oppenheimer met in 1939, was a huge influence in is life and remained by his side until his death. A German-born American botanist, she was a former member of the communist party.

Before Oppenheimer had even joined the Manhattan Project, an FBI file was opened on him in 1941.

Manhattan Project kicks off

Oppenheimer’s work in quantum mechanics and nuclear physics had caught the eye of many scientists, and his ability to be an informed liaison between scientists and defence forces led to General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) handpicking him as a “genius” to lead the Manhattan Project. The two are often credited together for producing the world’s first atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer started off by holding a summer school for bomb theory in Berkeley, involving many of his colleagues and students, including Robert Serber (who was romantically involved with Kitty after Oppenheimer’s death) Teller, and German-American theoretical physicist Hans Bethe (Gustaf Skarsgård).

Bethe was personally asked by Oppenheimer to join the Manhattan Project and oversee its theoretical division. He is best known for his work at the confluence of astrophysics and nuclear physics, winning the 1967 Physics Nobel for his work on stellar nucleosynthesis, the process by which heavier elements are created in stars.

In 1942, the plans for a secret lab in Los Alamos were in place. The US military notified the local Indian tribes living in the area that they had 24 hours to vacate, and usurped the land.

Set up at the Los Alamos Ranch School, the Manhattan Project grew from 1943 to 1945 to include thousands of people. Oppenheimer ran the project efficiently, and was noted for his administrative ability among scientists and military personnel.

At the same time as the establishment of Los Alamos in US, a premier institute of research was being established in India. At the time, Bhabha was a professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), and was working with JRD Tata and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar to establish TIFR in Mumbai.

‘The world will never be the same again’

In 1945, the Trinity test marked the world’s first atomic bomb trial, and the first occurrence of a mushroom cloud.

Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid) claimed to be the sole person to witness the test without protective glasses. The famous (or infamous) physicist was a graduate student when he joined the Manhattan Project, Feynman contributed to safety protocols for uranium storage. His work in quantum electrodynamics earned him the 1965 Physics Nobel.

After the test, Oppenheimer famously remarked that the world would never be the same again.

Indeed, the Trinity test released nuclear fallout into the atmosphere, which continues to persist today and has contaminated modern steel. This led to the use of “low-background steel” or pre-Trinity steel in modern physics experiments and radiation-sensitive devices like Geiger counters. Sunk WWII submarines have long been illegally scavenged for their pre-war steel.

Moral doubts & Szilárd petition

After the test, as shown in the movie, some scientists at the project began to express their moral qualms about dropping the bomb on civilians.

In 1945, Hungarian-German-American physicist Leo Szilárd (Máté Haumann) initiated the Szilárd petition, co-signed by 70 Manhattan Project scientists. The petition advocating for the US to forewarn Japan and to deploy the bomb in unpopulated islands.

Szilárd, the first to conceive nuclear chain reactions, drafted the letter for Einstein’s approval of the Manhattan Project. But despite his involvement, he became a vocal anti-nuclear warfare proponent.

Notably, he briefly resided in India during the 1930s while his wife worked with children. He interacted with many Indian scientists, including Obaid Siddiqui, founder-director of TIFR’s National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS).

One of the signatories of Szilárd’s petition was Lilli Hornig (Olivia Thirlby), who had originally joined as a typist at Los Alamos. Her scientific skills, however, proved prodigious. While she wanted to work with plutonium, there were concerns among the men that the radioactive element could be dangerous for the female reproductive system, as depicted in the movie. Hornig, therefore, worked with high-explosive lenses instead.

She later became a chemistry professor at Brown University and played a key role in establishing the Korea Institute for Science and Technology.

American nuclear physicist David Hill (Rami Malek) also signed the Szilard petition.

In the movie, he is shown giving a searing testimony in 1959 against U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and his treatment of Oppenheimer— but more on that later.

Manhattan Project scientist Luis Walter Alvarez (Alex Wolff) also makes an appearance in the film. He is depicted as the scientist running out of a shop to tell Oppenheimer the news of German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann achieving nuclear fission.

Alvarez won the Nobel Prize in 1968 for his work in designing a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber which could take photographs of subatomic particles. However, his most enduring legacy is arguably the Alvarez Hypothesis, which he co-developed with his geologist son Walter Alvarez. The hypothesis states that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact.

Post-war tumult

After the Manhattan Project and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Oppenheimer grew disillusioned with atomic and hydrogen bombs.

He subsequently took over as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and later chaired the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission, while other nations pursued their own nuclear programmes, including India, where the Atomic Energy Commission of India was set up in 1948 under Bhabha’s leadership.

But Oppenheimer’s left-leaning communist ideals caused the US government to become suspicious of him as fear of USSR’s technological and military advances grew.

Adding to these suspicions was his on-and-off affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a communist party member. The two intermittently shared a relationship both before and during his marriage with Kitty. Oppenheimer even named the 1945 Trinity test as a tribute to her, as she had introduced him to John Donne’s sonnet that said “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”.

The two last met in 1943 when Oppenheimer was already under FBI surveillance. And while Tatlock was found dead by suicide in 1944, at the age of 29, the affair had ripple effects even a decade later.

The pall of doubt over Oppenheimer’s ideological leanings led to a hearing by the AEC in 1954 that resulted in the revoking of his security clearance and effectively his role in the US atomic energy establishment. This initiative was backed by politician and then AEC chairman Lewis Strauss, depicted as Oppenheimer’s prime antagonist in the movie.

Upon hearing the news of Oppenheimer’s treatment, many in the scientific community were outraged and offered shelter to him in other countries.

Homi Bhabha was upset too. He was friends with both Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer and often dined with them when he was in New York. Bhabha went as far as to urge Prime Minister Nehru to invite Oppenheimer to immigrate to India after the 1954 hearing.

Oppenheimer, however, refused to leave the US, claiming it would not be inappropriate until he was cleared of all charges.

Significantly, the controversial hearing led to a backlash against Strauss too. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Strauss as Secretary of Commerce. But in the hearing to consider his nomination, depicted in black and white in the movie, many senators questioned his qualifications, specifically in the view of the Oppenheimer controversy. Strauss’s nomination was ultimately rejected by the Senate.

Epilogue

Oppenheimer’s time at Los Alamos and outside of it was full of legends of physics. The most well-known of these was, of course, Albert Einstein (Tom Conti).

A key scene in the film shows Oppenheimer seeking advice from Einstein about calculations suggesting that a nuclear explosion could destroy the earth.

However, as director Nolan has acknowledged in interviews, this interaction did not happen. Oppenheimer did seek similar advice, but he went to Arthur Compton, a Nobel Prize winner and director of Manhattan Project’s centre at the University of Chicago.

In real life, Einstein and Oppenheimer did become friends, but were closest when they worked together at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. It was here where Oppenheimer served the last years of his career, retiring in 1966. A year later, he died of throat cancer.

In December 2022, shortly after the release of the trailer of the biopic, the 1954 ruling to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance was nullified, citing a flawed process.'

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Moreover, according to quantum mechanics this particle-wave fusion holds for all of nature's constituents, not just electrons: protons are both particlelike and wavelike; neutrons are both particlelike and wavelike, and experiments in the early 1900s even established that light – which demonstrably behaves like a wave, as in Figure 4.1 – can also be described in terms of particulate ingredients, the little "bundles of light" called photons mentioned earlier.⁷

7. The experiments I am referring to here are those on the photoelectric effect, in which light shining on various metals causes electrons to be ejected from the metal's surface. Experimenters found that the greater the intensity of the light, the greater the number of electrons emitted. Moreover, the experiments revealed that the energy of each ejected electron was determined by the color – the frequency – of the light. This, as Einstein argued, is easy to understand if the light beam is composed of particles, since greater light intensity translates into more light particles (more photons) in the beam – and the more photons there are, the more electrons they will hit and hence eject from the metallic surface. Furthermore, the frequency of the light would determine the energy of each photon, and hence the energy of each electron ejected, precisely in keeping with the data. The particlelike properties of photons were finally confirmed by Arthur Compton in 1923 through experiments involving the elastic scattering of electrons and photons.

"The Fabric of the Cosmos" - Brian Greene

[tenth-sentence]

As he was not only the spiritual father of the proposed new super laboratory but had also proved himself to be so outstanding as head of a team, Compton suggested that he should take charge of the experimental establishment in view, though it was not yet in being.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[funkylittlebaldcharapoll]

FUNKY LITTLE BALD CHARACTER POLL ROUND 7: FINALE 2

(bald union art by @melody-hxh-spamblog!)

[daisyblinder]

Peaky Blinders

🦋 Arthur Shelby:

Pretty

Legs up

Shelby's Wife, Shelby's lover

A brother or a soldier

Egged (niece! Reader)

Longing Part 1 Part 2

Your voice (sister! reader)

Everything you don't

Escape to me

Headcanon:

Shy!SO

Touch starved!SO

Autistic!SO

SO who has night terrors

🦚 Thomas Shelby:

Falling apart Part 1 Part 2 (Finished)

Bread

Shoes (daughter! Reader)

Enigmatic

Headcanon:

Shy! SO

Touch starved!SO

Autistic! SO

SO who has night terrors

💋John Shelby

Headcanon:

Shy! SO

Touch starved! SO

Autistic! SO

SO who has night terrors

🌾Alfie Solomons

Nurse

Band of Brothers

🍁 Richard Winters

Whoopsie Daisy

🐩 Lewis Nixon

🌹 Ronald Speirs

💐 Babe Heffron

🌼 Bull Randleman

Buttercup

Blurbs:

In his arms

🍀 Buck Compton

🌚 Joe Toye

[spilladabalia]

The Selecter ''Train To Skaville'' 12''

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966) Juleen Compton

January 21st 2024

[krakerjaksstuff]

@disastrouscanasta

buck compton: line delivery legend (ft. luztoye)

[runnning-outof-time]

The Special Touch | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Request: yes by anonymous

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x fem!Reader

Summary: A small, small detail brings back memories of a person in Tommy Shelby’s life that was able to do something not many can.

Warnings: language, drinking

Word Count: 3102

A/N: the structure of this one’s a little wonky, but I think it reads cohesively…I hope it comes off that way for you. Enjoy! :)

A/N 2: the italicized dialogue in the story is taken directly from season 1 of the show.

I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! YOUR COMMENTS & REBLOGS HELP ME WRITE!

comment/message me if you want to be tagged!

(Y/N)'s food was the only thing Tommy Shelby actually ate.

Sure, he still didn't willingly sit himself at the table when it came time for a meal, but (Y/N)'s cooking coaxed him in more often than it didn't.

What started as a woman trying to impress the family of a man she dearly liked - that form of impressing coming through a lovely, homemade apple pie - quickly blossomed into (Y/N) being the Shelby family cook. Polly was probably the happiest about this - she no longer had to tackle the family meals alone.

Tommy was also happy about this - being that he quickly made sure that she was his - because it meant that he was able to spend much more time with her. Hell, he'd even happily endure the enhanced teasing from his family...Tommy hadn't spent this much time at home since he was a child. But (Y/N), and her cooking, had him coming home more often than anything else.

And he enjoyed it.

On this particular evening, she had decided to make some plum bread to bring to the Shelby family. It was one of her favorite recipes, one that she only brought out every once in a while.

Tonight would be a special night for it, she thought. She and Tommy had been officially together for eight months, but it was on this night one year ago that they shared their feelings with each other and decided that they’d commit themselves to one another.

She worked all day to make the bread not only for this occasion, but also because she wanted to see if his family liked it as much as hers did.

It was late afternoon when she made her way over to the house on Watery Lane. She hoped that everyone was home because with each step her eagerness was building - she wanted as many people as possible to try the bread she’d baked.

She could hear the inhabitants of the house before she saw them as she entered through the front door.

She heard Tommy speak in a low voice, “you’re alright,” as the sound of pain-filled hisses filled the room.

Then came a statement that made (Y/N) stop: “he said Mr. Churchill sent him to Birmingham. National interest, he said…something about a robbery.” It was Arthur who was speaking. “He said he wants us to help him.”

“We don’t help coppers,” she heard John chime in.

“He knew all about our war records,” Arthur continued, “he said we’re patriots…like him. He wants us to be his eyes and ears. I said—” another pain-filled hiss left the eldest siblings lips, and it was followed by a soft ‘shh’. He continued once the pain had been assuaged, “I said we’d have a family meeting and take a vote,” he finished his statement.

A pause filled the room. (Y/N), who’d been standing still and listening in since she entered the dwelling, couldn’t stand in the same position any longer. Despite her efforts not to, her weight shifted, making the floorboard creak underneath her foot.

Tommy looked up from the ground upon hearing the sound, and his intense gaze connected with her worried one instantly. “We’ll discuss this later,” he then addressed his family in a low tone.

“What the fuck is wrong with him lately?” Arthur asked, annoyance laced into his tone.

“If I knew, I’d buy the cure from Compton’s chemists,” Polly chimed in, her tone matching Arthur’s.

Tommy’s eyes were still locked on (Y/N), who now felt like she had to make her presence known. She took a few steps forward into the room before speaking, “I’m sorry I…I didn’t know what I was arriving to,” she hesitantly said, feeling several pairs of eyes now locked onto her. She tried to withhold her expression, but surely there was a look of pain present on her face as she took in Arthur’s bloodied one. “Goodness,” she gasped, the tension quickly becoming too much for her to bear, “I…I wanted to bring something over for the evening. I baked plum bread from scratch,” she said, holding the enclosed tray out in front of her.

“Well isn’t that just bloody perfect,” Arthur muttered under his breath.

Silence hung in the room and (Y/N) wasn’t quite sure what to do. It seemed like every person in the family was glaring daggers at Tommy, and Tommy was just standing, brooding in front of the free-standing stove.

“I can just…I can leave and come back at a better…”

“No!” John interrupted her, pushing himself off of the wall he’d been leaning against, “you’re here now, so let’s try some of this bread.”

“Ok,” there was still a great deal of hesitance present in (Y/N)’s voice, but she still allowed John to take the tray from her hands when he motioned for it. She then glanced in Tommy’s direction, seeing that he was still glaring at the floor. Above everything else, she really wanted to speak to him. The conversation she walked in on was still in the forefront of her mind. She wasn’t sure how to make the first move though.

“Oh, (Y/N), this is grand!” John’s review of the bread cut through her thoughts, making her focus on the small group that was now trying it. Ada nodded her head in agreement with her brother as Polly quietly ate her piece. She didn’t look displeased with it though. Arthur was still staring at the piece that had been placed in front of him. (Y/N) figured he wouldn’t eat it that moment though, given the state he was currently in. A small smile creeped onto her face as she watched them enjoy the thing she’d spent so long baking.

“Tommy you’ve got to try it! It’s absolutely amazing, as always,” Ada said to her older brother, hoping that her shining review would coax him into having a bite.

“I’ll have some later,” he brushed her statement off, his eyes finding (Y/N) again. “(Y/N), can I talk to you?” he asked her then, his brows raising slightly.

“Yes,” she answered softly, knowing there really wasn’t any other response she could give.

He nodded before tipping his head in the direction of the betting shop doors. She nodded in agreement, wordlessly following behind him as they went into that section of the building.

The walk felt so long, even though they were really only moving to the next room over. (Y/N) bit on her cheek as she tried to think of what to say. She knew she wanted to be the first to speak. “What did I walk in on back there?” was what she settled on asking as they both came to a stop.

“It was nothing,” Tommy brushed the question off.

“It didn’t seem like nothing,” she doubled down, not buying his diversion. “Who has Mr. Churchill sent?”

“It’s not a big deal,” he tried another escape route.

“You’re helping the cops now?” she asked another question.

“(Y/N)…” his tone held a warning.

“Why does Arthur look like that?” her exasperation finally shined through this question as she motioned to the room they’d just left.

Tommy exhaled a sigh as he looked away from his partner. It was already enough that his entire family was coming down on him…he didn’t need it from her as well. “This isn’t something you need to worry about, (Y/N),” he told her once he composed himself.

“You said you wouldn’t hold anything from me, Tommy,” she reminded him of a promise that he made to her in their early months. A promise that came as a result of him showing up to her family’s house broken and bloodied…over something he couldn’t share.

Her parents hated him from that day forward, but she found a way to continue to see him. He assured her that would be the last time nothing was withheld…until now it seems.

“This is different,” he shook his head.

“Different how?” she asked for him to elaborate.

“Different in the sense that if it all goes according to plan, we move up in the world,” his elaboration was still vague.

“That doesn’t tell me much,” she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well it’s all I can share,” his tone was now dismissive as he lifted his hand, his palm to the ceiling.

(Y/N) stared at him for a few moments, silently hoping that he’d take that statement back and clue her in to what was going on. She had to bite on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering after those moments had passed and nothing more was said.

“Well I think I need to leave then,” she finally said, her voice just above a whisper.

Tommy’s brows furrowed at her statement, “what?”

“You promised that you wouldn’t keep anything from me, that there’d be no secrets in regards to what sort of business you’re doing,” she reminded him, “we agreed that that would be the only way we could work.”

“I said that this was different, (Y/N),” he argued his cause, “there has to be an exception for it.”

“I can’t make an exception, Tommy,” she shook her head, her tone slightly wavering, “because if I make one now, you’ll have me making another down the road.”

“(Y/N), I don’t need this…”

“Do you know what day it is, Tommy?” she cut him off, her eyebrows raised. He said nothing. “Huh?” she asked for a response. Silence was all she got. “You don’t…” she sighed in defeat, shaking her head as she looked to the floor. “It’s been a year…one whole year since we shared our feelings for each other. One whole year since I thought I found the person who I was going to be with for the rest of my life. But now I don’t know anymore…”

“(Y/N)…” he tried to get out but she wasn’t hearing it.

“This is your last chance,” she gave him the ultimatum, “tell me or I leave.”

The tension between the two was practically palpable. (Y/N) waited on bated breath for him to share what he’d been hiding from her. Tommy weighed his options in his mind - no one knew that he still had the guns in his possession. He was hoping that the last person who knew was (Y/N). But now since she stumbled in on that conversation, she wanted to know more. He’d remembered the promise he made those several months ago. And while the last thing he wanted to do was break it, he just couldn’t bring himself to reveal the secret he was withholding from the entire family. If she knew, everyone would know, was his thinking.

“I’m leaving,” she made her decision, cutting into his thoughts and making him realize that he hadn’t said anything.

She took one last look at him, honestly still hoping that he’d make some grand gesture and save everything, but he just stood there, a look of disbelief clear across his face. She had to follow through with her decision. With a deep breath, she walked past him and exited the building through the betting shop door. Turning and walking back past the family would have been too much for her. She needed to get away with the least amount of Shelbys seeing her.

Tommy blinked a few times after the door to the shop closed. He was frozen in disbelief. So much had happened in the span of a short time. And now (Y/N) was gone.

He remembered the bottle of rum that he’d brought for Arthur’s wounds. It wasn’t whiskey, but the last thing he wanted to do was go out now, so the rum would do.

Polly, John and Arthur were still sitting in the kitchen when he re-entered it. He didn’t make eye contact with any of them, instead making a b-line for the bottle of alcohol and bringing it to his lips the second he had it in his hands.

“Where’s (Y/N)?” Arthur questioned, looking less bloody now than he had before.

“She left,” Tommy answered before taking another drink from the bottle.

“Shame…this bread’s fucking amazing,” John shared his praises for the woman’s baking skills. “You should try some,” he insisted.

“I don’t want any,” Tommy shook his head.

“Try some!” Arthur shouted, motioning to the small portion of the bread that was left, “before we eat it all on ya.”

“Fine,” Tommy huffed under his breath, moving over to where the baked good was sitting. He took the knife and cut himself the smallest slice, putting it right into his mouth and eating it without giving any clue as to what he thought of it. He then walked out of the room, exiting the home the opposite way (Y/N) had.

The three remaining people in the room all watched him leave, wondering what exactly was making him even more vexed than usual.

“More for us,” John shrugged, his carefree comment clearing the tension as he moved over to cut himself another slice of the bread.

Tommy returned to the house on Watery Lane later that evening and let out a sigh of relief when he found what he was looking for.

There was still a small piece of the plum bread (Y/N) had brought over left of the table. He sighed as he sat down on one of the chairs before reaching out to take the leftover piece.

Another sigh left his lips as he ate the bread. He couldn’t get (Y/N) out of his mind since she left him earlier, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t fighting with himself over what he should do now.

As much as he wanted her in his life, he had to honor her wishes. And even if she posed the earlier question to him again, he wasn’t sure if he’d give a different response. What was happening now was different…he had to keep his cards close to his chest. She should have understood that, right?

He couldn’t deny that he missed her though. The fact that he actually came back to have a second piece of the bread she made for them had him realizing that there would be many reasons why he’d be missing her.

“I have something for you,” the barmaid, Grace, announced as she entered the snug, where the three oldest Shelby brothers had been holed up for the majority of the day. She’d been working at the Garrison for several months now, and she’d quickly found her place within the establishment.

“What is it?” Arthur asked as he brought his glass up to his lips, his eyebrows raised in intrigue.

“Plum bread. I made it…figured you’d need something after all of the meetings that have been happening,” she answered, explaining the reason behind the gesture.

John and Arthur exchanged a look upon hearing what she’d brought. They hadn’t had plum bread since (Y/N) left it for them. Hesitantly, they looked over at Tommy. His expression wasn’t readable.

“Leave it on the table and then you’re good to go, Grace,” Tommy spoke up to instruct her. He felt his brothers’ eyes on him, and knew that they’d be watching closely to see what he’d do next.

“Ok,” she nodded, carefully setting the serving dish and accompanying plates on the table before she turned and exited the snug.

The three men looked at the bread for a few moments. John and Arthur both didn’t want to be the first to make a move, and they most certainly knew that Tommy wasn’t going to.

It was kind of Grace to bake for them, and they no doubt took it as one of her attempts to break the ice between her and the Shelby family. She’d been chipping away at it since she arrived months ago.

But the elephant in the room was looming large now, and it had made itself known via the choice of baked good that the aforementioned blonde woman had brought.

“Shall we try it then?” Arthur was the first to finally speak up. He took his eyes off the dish for a moment to look at his brothers.

“Might as well,” John shrugged as he replied.

Now they both were looking at Tommy. It became apparent that they weren’t going to make a move until he signed off on it. “Go on,” he finally instructed them, motioning to the bread with his chin.

That was all the two men needed. Arthur took on the job of cutting the bread while John divvied out the plates. They even cut a piece for Tommy, who didn’t seem like he was too keen on eating it.

What they did not need was an invitation to eat the bread. More silence filled the room as they did so. It took a few bites from both of them before they were sharing a look with each other. Something had been silently agreed upon between them, and now they were deciding whether they should share their thoughts with Tommy.

“How is it?” Tommy broke into their nonverbal conversation, knowing the looks they were sharing all too well.

“It’s…” Arthur started, finishing his statement off with a breath instead of continuing before he looked to John for assistance. Between the two of them, he knew the latter was a more colorful commentator.

“It’s not like hers,” John filled in the blank, shaking his head slightly as he looked down at the remaining piece of bread on his plate.

The name didn’t even need to be said. Tommy knew who they were taking about. He exhaled a breath before nodding his head. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the piece sitting in front of him.

“She ain’t got that special touch like (Y/N) did,” Arthur then added his thoughts, addressing the elephant in the room by name.

Tommy’s look was once again unreadable. Glimpses of the woman he’d lost were swirling around his mind, and they wouldn’t leave no matter how hard he tried. Sometimes he wished he would have done things differently. He wished she was still in his life.

What’s done is done was always what came to mind when he got to thinking like that. But even though that phrase came to mind, he still wasn’t going to try the bread, for his remembrance of how she made it was one of the only good things he had left.

MASTERLIST

Tagged: @mystcldydrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21

@mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @theshelbyslimited @peakyswritings

@just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry

@captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @mischievouslittlecreature

@stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder

@cillmequick @dandelionprints @letal-y-poetica @garrison-girl-08 @insanitybyanothername

@depxiety @justrainandcoffee @dragons-are-my-favorite @mrs-bond @cljordan-imperium

@brummiereader @red-riding-wood @everythingelseisextra @little-diable @thomashelbyswife

@shaddixlife @ryecosse @padfootdaredmetoo @novashelby

[metamatar]

After the first nuclear test at Los Alamos

Many of the scientists and technicians who understood the destructive potential of the atomic bomb felt that the U.S. should first conduct a peaceful demonstration to warn the Japanese of the consequences of refusing to surrender. Szilard and several other Met Lab scientists had collaborated on the Franck Report, issued in June of 1945, which called for a demonstration. However, the Franck Report was rejected by the scientists who served on the Interim Committee’s Scientific Panel – J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, and Arthur Compton – who wrote, “We see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

[...] Szilard toned down his rhetoric over the course of several different drafts of the petition. Between 65 and 150 people signed the various different drafts that he proposed at the Chicago Met Lab and Oak Ridge project site [...]

The petition fared better at Oak Ridge than at Los Alamos. Another Hungarian-American physicist, Edward Teller, brought the petition to that site with the intent to gain signatures there too. However, at the advice of J. Robert Oppenheimer, he ultimately decided not to do so. “Oppenheimer talked me out of it, saying that we as scientists have no business to meddle in political pressure of that kind. We know too little about that. I am ashamed to say that he managed to talk me out of the right intention,”

From the Nuclear Museum

[qpr-competition]

WELCOME TO THE QPR COMPETITION

the matchups in round 1 are as follows

part 1:

Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens vs Peri Dubois and Abel Moreau from Entropic Float

Sonic and Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog vs Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes from Elementary

Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus from The Locked Tomb series vs Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist

John Watson and Sherlock Holmes from ACD's collection of stories vs c!Ranboo and c!Tubbo from Dream SMP

Arthur Lester and John Doe from Malevolent podcast vs Polly and Yaretzi from Hello From The Hallowoods

Abed Nadir and Troy Barnes from Community vs ART and Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries

Team Rocket from Pokémon vs Mane 6 Ensemble from My Little Pony

Timothy Stoker and Sasha James from The Magnus Archives vs The Doctor and The Master from Doctor Who

part 2:

Jesse Cosay and Lake from Infinity Train vs Joe Tazuna and Sara Chidouin from Your Turn To Die

Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney vs Kris and Susie from Deltarune

Oscar Wilde and Zolf Smith from Rusty Quill Gaming vs Mollymauk Tealeaf and Yasha Nydoorin from Critical Role

Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee from Lord Of The Rings vs Loid Forger and Yor Forger from Spy X Family

Hunter and Willow Park from The Owl House vs Arepo and God Of Arepo from Tumblr Folktales

Sakuko Kodama and Satoru Takahashi from Koisenu Futari | Two People Who Can't Fall In Love vs Compton Boole and Cassie O'Pia from Psychonauts

Lapis Lazuli and Peridot from Steven Universe vs Kazuki Kurusu and Rei Suwa from Buddy Daddies

Nepeta Leijon and Equius Zahhak from Homestuck vs The Scooby Gang from Scooby-Doo

see you at 6 pm GMT 17th February for the first half of the first round!

[denimbex1986]

'"Oppenheimer" is built around the Trinity Test, the famous 1945 event where J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists tested an atomic bomb for the first time. This historic moment is the fulcrum on which Christopher Nolan's brilliant, horrifying film turns. Everything prior to the test focuses on Oppenheimer's passion for physics and beating the Nazi's to the punch, while everything after shows how the titular physicist became haunted by his own work and was ostracized by many of his former colleagues and allies as he spoke out against nuclear proliferation.

Nolan told Entertainment Tonight that his film "has a lot to do with the consequences of actions — sort of going ahead and doing these things and then having to deal with the consequences for years afterwards." It's an understatement to say that the consequences of Oppenheimer's work were monumental. The result of the Manhattan Project, which he led, was a world forever changed. But you can at least say these consequences were perhaps preferable to the potential outcome of a world incinerated. As Nolan told ET:

"Oppenheimer was running the Manhattan Project and they were doing their calculations, early on they saw the possibility that when they triggered the first atomic device, to test it, they might start a chain reaction that set fire to the atmosphere and destroyed the whole world."

This seems to be one of, if not the main element of Oppenheimer's story that drew Nolan towards making his three-hour biopic. As the director put it, pushing the detonator with the knowledge that this single act could wipe out humankind was, "as dramatic a scene I could imagine in motion pictures." But was this really the case? Did Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project associates really press the button without being certain of the consequences?

The crux of Nolan's biopic

For his version of the Trinity Test, Christopher Nolan wanted to create as realistic an explosion as possible and set himself the goal of recreating a nuclear detonation without the use of CGI. In "Oppenheimer," this moment is preceded by a brief conversation between Cillian Murphy's Oppie and Matt Damon's Leslie "Dick" Groves, the US Army Lieutenant General who oversaw the Manhattan Project. In the darkly humorous back and forth, Groves asks, "Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?" to which Oppenheimer responds, "Chances are near zero."

This is Nolan's big moment. The "dramatic" scene that captured his attention early on. The director certainly manages to build the tension as the score escalates and the countdown to the test begins. But in reality, when Oppenheimer and co. actually hit the detonate button, were the chances of destroying the world really "near zero"? Well, it seems there's some confusion over that question.

In a 2015 Scientific American piece, John Horgan recalls interviewing the head of the Manhattan Project's theoretical division, Hans Bethe (played by Gustaf Skarsgård in "Oppenheimer"), who seemed to categorically rule out the idea that he and his team were uncertain of the consequences of detonating the bomb. As Bethe recalls it, it was Hungarian physicist Edward Teller (Benny Safdie in Nolan's film) who first raised concerns over the atom bomb potentially setting fire to the atmosphere and causing a chain reaction that could wipe out life on Earth. Back in 1942, Bethe claimed to have sat down and "looked at the problem" before concluding that it was "incredibly unlikely." But the team needed to run further calculations to make sure. After all, this was the fate of humanity they were toying with.

'The earth would be vaporized'

In the Scientific American piece, Hans Bethe specifically recalled Edward Teller raising concerns about "nitrogen in the air" and "a nuclear reaction in which two nitrogen nuclei collide and become oxygen plus carbon," thereby "setting free a lot of energy." According to Bethe, that question "caused great excitement." But even after the German theoretical physicist was able to deem that outcome "incredibly unlikely," Teller was intent on running his own calculations. As Bethe put it:

"Teller at Los Alamos put a very good calculator on this problem, [Emil] Konopinski, who was an expert on weak interactors, and Konopinski together with [inaudible] showed that it was incredibly impossible to set the hydrogen, to set the atmosphere on fire. They wrote one or two very good papers on it, and that put the question really at rest."

Still, as you might expect, concern over the issue persisted, and is certainly present in the brilliant yet horrifying biopic that is "Oppenheimer." Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Oppenheimer's superior, Arthur Compton (who isn't portrayed in "Oppenheimer") continued to fret about setting the world on fire even after the Trinity Test. As Inside Science notes, Compton spoke to The American Weekly for a 1959 feature titled "The bomb – the end of the world?" where he publicly worried about hydrogen in the oceans and nitrogen in the air being set alight by future nuclear explosions. All of which led author of the piece Pearl S. Buck to surmise, "The earth would be vaporized," to which Compton responded, "Exactly."

Was Compton just uninformed?

Arthur Compton's comments in '59 suggest the head of the Metallurgical Laboratory in Los Alamos might not have been as convinced as his colleagues that the Trinity Test wouldn't wipe out the human race. But as Bethe reportedly clarified in his conversation with Scientific American's John Horgan:

"[Compton] didn't see my calculations. He even less saw Konopinski's much better calculations, so it was still spooking in his mind when he gave an interview at some point, and so it got into the open literature, and people are still excited about it."

Bethe also surmised that "it was absolutely clear before the Los Alamos test that nothing like [igniting the earth's atmosphere] would happen." That view was, as Inside Science points out, supported by a 1946 report authored by three scientists who'd worked on the Manhattan Project, in which they wrote:

"It is shown that, whatever the temperature to which a section of the atmosphere may be heated, no self-propagating chain of nuclear reactions is likely to be started. The energy losses to radiation always overcompensate the gains due to the reactions. It is impossible to reach such temperature unless fission bombs or thermonuclear bombs are used which greatly exceed the bombs now under consideration."

But even in the case of these larger bombs, which would of course be invented in the years following Oppenheimer's work at Los Alamos, the scientists concluded that "energy transfer from electrons to light quanta by Compton scattering will provide a further safety factor and will make a chain reaction in air impossible." The word "impossible" is quite reassuring, even if the rest of the language is a reminder of why Cillian Murphy didn't even try to understand physics for his role in "Oppenheimer."

Drama vs reality

Chain reactions are a central metaphor in "Oppenheimer," beginning with Cillian Murphy's physicist watching ripples emanate from rain droplets falling in an Oxford puddle during the movie's opening moments. That carries right the way through to the harrowing final moments of "Oppenheimer," where it's suggested that even though the atom bomb didn't wipe out humankind, J. Robert Oppenheimer started a chain reaction of scientific research and geopolitical bellicosity that will ultimately lead to our destruction anyway.

Which, when combined with Christopher Nolan playing up the drama of the Manhattan Project scientists not knowing what would happen when they tested the bomb, is why C Obviously, there's no way to know whether Nolan was fully aware of that reality when he wrote "Oppenheimer." And there's no doubt the stakes for the Trinity Test buildup are significantly raised by Cillian Murphy's line about the chances of the world exploding being just "near zero."

In a Fandango discussion, Nolan spoke about "the moment where Oppenheimer and his team couldn't entirely rule out the idea that when they let off that first device they'd start a chain reaction that would destroy the world." The director once again focused on the cinematic potential of such a scene, saying, "That just seemed like the most incredible moment in time to take the audience to be in that room with them." Does it matter that the actual moment in time wasn't quite so dramatic? Maybe, but it hardly undermines Nolan's devastating suggestion at the film's end that no matter what happened at the Trinity Test, the chain reaction that leads to our doom has been set in motion.'

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Oppenheimer subsequently gave the following account of its deliberations:

The other two assignments which the panel had – one was quite slight. We were asked to comment on whether the bomb should be used. I think the reason we were asked for that comment was because a petition had been sent in from a very distinguished and thoughtful group of scientists: 'No, it should not be used.' It would be better for everything that they should not. We didn't know beans about the military situation in Japan. We didn't know whether they could be caused to surrender by other means or whether the invasion was really inevitable. But in back of our minds was the the notion that the invasion was inevitable because we had been told that. I have not been able to review this document, but what it said I think is characteristic of how technical people should answer questions.

We said that we didn't think that being scientists especially qualified us as to how to answer this question of how the bombs should be used or not; opinion was divided among us as it would be among other people if they knew about it.* We thought the two overriding considerations were the saving of lives in the war and the effect of our actions on the stability, on our strength and the stability of the postwar world. We did say that we did not think that exploding one of these things as a firecracker over a desert was likely to be very impressive.

* It was E. O. Lawrence who objected most strongly to the dropping of the bomb. He did so, according to Compton, because some of his pupils had been Japanese.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[tenth-sentence]

They felt themselves caught in a vast machinery and they certainly were inadequately informed as to the true political and strategic situation.†

† General Groves states that he, too, had not been told of the Japanese peace feelers. The State Department, on the other hand, though it knew every detail of the action taken by Tokyo in this connexion, had been given not the slightest warning of the imminent use of the new weapon.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[funkylittlebaldcharapoll]

FUNKY LITTLE BALD CHARACTER POLL ROUND SIX: FINALE

these 3 teams of finalists have battled their best, bravest and baldest. they've found alliances, even friendship, as they've fought through the rounds. but now is almost time for their trials to come to an end.

normally, only one team would be able to claim victory. but the union has other plans. they've been able to UNIONIZE every one of their opponents so far-- why stop here? if all 3 teams get within 17% of each other, everyone walks away with a victory.

otherwise?

may the b(ald)est characters win.

(old man art by @rats2, kappa art by @joelleity!)

(i'm so sorry for how long the poll title is. imagine how i feel having to type all the tags out)