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Cosmic Bomb (phrase)
"Cosmic bomb" was another name for the atomic bomb. It was used for a short period of time in 1945 and 1946. The first ''New York Times'' story about the bombing of Hiroshima referred to "this terrible new weapon, which the War Department also calls the 'Cosmic Bomb.'" Another article noted that "what the Army has called the 'cosmic bomb' was not regarded by those responsible for winning the war against Japan as the factor which, of itself, would give the war its finishing touch", and a headline reported "Secret War Nipped Reich Cosmic Bomb." Thomas Pynchon uses the phrase several times in his 1973 novel ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which is set roughly in the period during which the term was current. The term rapidly fell into disuse as applied to weaponry, soon yielding to "atomic bomb" (which, in turn, was eventually to yield to "nuclear weapon"). In equestrian circles, it survived for many years in the racing career of a thoroughbred named "Cosmic Bomb" and in the pedigrees of horse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deployed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict so far. In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 64 Japanese cities. The war in the European theatre concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: "Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon; and "Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction."National Book Awards – 1974" . Retrieved 2012-03-29. (With essays by Casey Hicks and Chad Post from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. The mock acceptance speech by Irwin Corey is not reprinted by NBF.) Hailing from |
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000". Traversing a wide range of knowledge, ''Gravity's Rainbow'' transgresses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with ''A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories'' by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as 'unreadable,' 'turgid,' 'overw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetars
A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field (∼109 to 1011 T, ∼1013 to 1015 G). The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.Ward; Brownlee, p.286 The existence of magnetars was proposed in 1992 by Robert Duncan and . Their proposal sought to explain the properties of transient sources of gamma rays, now known as soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). Over the following decade, the magnetar hypothesis became widely accepted, and was extended to explain anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). , 24 confirmed magnetars were known. It has been suggested that magnetars are the source of fast radio bursts (FRB), in particular as a result of findings in 2020 by scientists using the Australian Square Kilometre Array. Description Like other neutron stars, magnetars are around in diameter, and have a mass about 1.4 solar masses. They are formed by the collapse of a star with a mass 10– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
