Posted by Richard Smit on October 03, 2005 at 08:02:00:
Let it not go unnoticed that the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred just a few weeks ago.
HIROSHIMA
A city and seaport in Japan which was destroyed on 6th August 1945 by the first atomic bomb dropped in warfare by an American Super fortress B25 bomber. Over 140 000 humans were killed and injured by the explosion and subsequent radioactivity. Many leading architects help rebuild the city within 5 years after the war and every year an international conference is held there, to oppose nuclear weapons.
Where did it all start?
URANUS
In 1781, Sir William Herschel discovered the giant planet Uranus using a telescope which he created himself. The discovery of Uranus overthrew everything that mankind knew about the existing universe at that time. Herschel was not a conventional scientist, but a passionate amateur who did not accept the usual state of things. He questioned and explored, and this probably led him to discover Uranus.
URANIUM
Just eight years later in 1789 uranium was discovered, although only first isolated in 1841 by E. Peligot. It became the foundation for the modern nuclear age.
PLUTO
Formally discovered in 1930, but little was known about it until its satellite was discovered in 1978.
PLUTONIUM
Just 10 years later in 1940 plutonium was discovered. It is produced in nuclear reactors by beta-decay from uranium 239, and was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 with similar dire results, three days after the atomic attack on Hiroshima. Emperor Hirohito ordered his forces to surrender and the 2nd World War came to an end.
WORLDS FIRST NUCLEAR REACTOR
In 1942 the world’s first nuclear reactor was switched on in Chicago. Uranium and plutonium changed science and altered the way the scientific world created both energy and weapons of mass destruction
INTERNATIONAL TENSION
Looking back there are some who say that they can see the good that the nuclear age has brought, but there are many more, I believe, who “clearly see” the horrors that it has brought in its name, the main reason for the strong international tension and opposition, over the nuclear activities of both North Korea and Iran.
Let us together, pray that nuclear weapons never again, be used in warfare.