That’s so interesting!

Banksy vibes

I was just thinking about this yesterday

Looks like they didn't even notice.

Basically the area around him was bleached by the blast

Looks like he got off the ladder after hearing something over head

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Russia was talking about throwing a few of these up..

I think this was one of a few photos showing the shadow burn-ins from a series of Time Magazine books about WW2. Haunting stuff to see when I was 8 and looking through my grandpa's books.

You might say he himself was bleached as well

That's dark

If they were close enough to the detonation, they wouldn’t have even heard the blast. Their bodies would have basically evaporated in an instant.

There Will Come Soft Rains, Ray Bradbury

This was my first introduction to these shadows, and it was frightening to learn of as a child. I hope never to see atomic bombs dropped on any country ever again. Horrifying.

Probably sounds mean, but honestly: the best way to go.

No chance of pain or fear = excellent.

Shadows usually are.

Yes imagine youre living elsewhere. Next day you hear your whole hometown where you grew up and your whole family died

Apparently some group of people thinks use of nuclear bomb is ethical (victim feels no pain). Scary to think that they might even vote for a nuclear war

I remember a trip to Hiroshima in the late 80s and seeing the wrought iron railings melted like plastic under a blow torch, and shadows etched in concrete

I came across that short story in high school, when I was in an IRobot phase. The old fashioned ideas of modern convenience and automation were so fascinating. For some reason that one in particular was my favorite. Now, looking back, I recognize the author's name as Fahrenheit 451. Wish I'd known back then because I probably could have written some much more interesting essays for my english course.

And spontaneous nuclear vaporization is the best way for that person to not deal with the sadness.

“And we all get burned as one more Sun comes sliding down the sky,

One more shadow leans against the wall

And the world begins to disappear…”

My first thought also.

That's so stupid. Only the people right next to the blast don't feel anything, everybody else is fucked.

That or incoming radioactive rain that kills you slowly

And if radioactive rain does hit you, what's the solution?

Sure beats slow radiation death.

Guess you'll die.

(In WWII era nobody knew what it was so they would die. In modern age so many things will be contaminated by radioactive rain that you'll likely consume it anyway, unless you were far away from the blast zone there's barely any chance of survival)

Fuck you, dolphin! Fuck you, whale!

Ray Bradbury is one of my favourite authors. One of the very first books I ever bought for myself was his series of short stories, The Martian Chronicles. We read so, so many of his various works, including Fahrenheit 451, while I was in middle school and high school, and it’s so wonderful to know that his works are still being taught (I know in some circles, he’s considered dated and I do understand). Still, it’s awesome to know that you appreciated his works, too! I highly recommend All Summer in a Day. It absolutely shattered my little heart when I read it back in sixth grade, but I still absolutely love how beautifully Bradbury was able to compose so much empathy and sorrow into just a few short pages.

Unfortunately the reality is worse. Human vaporization isn't really a thing. You can get blown apart by the shockwave, but even with the gamma radiation causing thermal waves of 10,000 F it still won't instantly incinerate a human. They just get flash cooked.

The shadows are caused by the person absorbing the intense light and thermal radiation emitted by the blast, which peels material off the building surface.

If they were close enough to the blast to be instantly killed by force or heat, it would most likely have been a strong enough force to also knock down the wooden building the shadow was etched into, or set it alight so it burned down.

It's unlikely many people caught like this lived long, but sadly it's not a given that they all died instantly or painlessly.

https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-bomb-wwii-shadows.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone

“I’m just going up a ladder, what’s the worst that can happen ? 🙄”

Fkn crazy

I was hinting at the solution being spontaneous vaporization.

For sure. As well as pretty much every normal death.

It's fucked up to think that this poor person likely in an instant was covered in severe burns and they had no idea why. They probably could not comprehend anything beyond sudden pain.

Proof that it's bad luck to stand under a ladder

I am unsure of the solution would be acidic or basic.

The museums in Hiroshima is tough too. The entire city of Hiroshima is quiet and peaceful

No they wouldn’t have evaporated in an instant. That wall is still standing. If they were in the vaporization zone so is that wall. Likely what happened is they were horribly burnt and died in great pain minutes to hours later.

There is a guy who survived both Atom bombs

Ah, my sincere apology. This is probably why I'm alone forever 😂

No worries! It's not always easy to tell when someone is asking a serious question or just being deadpan.

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Why not neutral?

If you’re exposed to that amount of thermodynamic radiation, you will boil and steam out. The wall is not mostly water. The bodies are.

Oh they were the lucky ones (who died immediately)… the horror show for years afterwards is the real tragedy. It figures no one in Japan took Yamamoto seriously enough… he was a military genius and knew exactly what it would take to win the war - and openly questioned if anyone else in command understood what was to happen.

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9/11: 3,000 American civilians dead = 10 years of war in the Middle East

Nagasaki: 40,000 civilian deaths = to be honest a good way to go

Way to strawman.

Way to spew American propaganda that killing 40,000 civilians is somehow in any measure a generous and kind act

Some Japanese wartime leaders later admitted the atomic bombings gave them the final justification to stop the war they started and lost. Almost all Japanese cities had suffered mass fire bombings. The rice harvest that year was a failure meaning Japan faced starvation. And the world's largest army, the Red Army, was unstoppable.

It was more honorable to say the American doomsday bomb was too much rather than say we lost.

Not if the nerves were gone

>killing 40,000 civilians is somehow in any measure a generous and kind act

Literally no one has said anything of that sort. They are simply saying that being instantly vaporized isn't a terrible way to go all things considered. Obviously civilians dieing sucks, but that's what total war is. America didn't start the war in the Pacific, but they were instrumental in ending it.

You’re literally saying it. There’s no toll when a death is quick? Because everyone who died is a bastard orphan right? Because none of those people were productive members of society right? That’s the fucked mentality of westerners in war. It’s about winning and not the human cost. That’s how you kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam, Afghanistan. Both conflicts they US did not win.

I've been looking for this short story for years! Thought it was vonnegut for some reason. But I read it originally in English 1 in HS. Thank you!

I believe this was in Hiroshima, not Nagasaki.

I remember learning about this is HS. It wasn't on the curriculum, but I had an amazing history teacher. Then, a few years later, those black yard cutouts became popular. I still shudder every time I see one.

This person wasn't instantly vaporized, but surely some people were close enough to the blast, to be.

I thought that's what the other commentor was referring to.

Obviously, most people suffered a much worse fate, I think we all understand and agree on that. But surely some people were close enough that they died pretty much instantly.

Omg this is terrifying… like, did they MELT…. and turn to goo. or like poof: evaporated into the air particles???

You dumbass. I'm an Afghan. So trying to play the white knight card fails.

Literally the best way to die when you die is instant vaporization. If you die from illness, you have prolonged pain. If you die from most violent means, you die with fear and pain. If you die while under the effect of drugs and whatnot, you mind dies happy, but your body's cells are still "panicked" and trying a last ditch effort to stay alive. Which, technically one could say doesn't matter because the cells aren't able to think, but it's still not a nice state.

But to go from "I'm alive" to fully obliterated? That's a very preferable alternative to go.

The issue is with permissions.

For example, the second best way to die is with anaesthesia being administered, along with happy drugs. Your mind will die a painless and calm and happy death.

But just like with being nuked against your permission, getting "euthanized" against your will is just as bad. But in terms of WAYS to die, atomic disintegration is excellent.

Thats sad ngl :(

/r/murderedbywords

Was in Japan for a month last year and visited the Hiroshima Memorial. There was a chunk of concrete with shadow outlines of people against it. Very eerie to see in person. Saw a lot of other things including day of and days after photos from of the effects of people at ground zero, metal objects fused together, children’s clothing, paintings and drawings of people’s memory of the day. It was second only to the Holocaust museum in DC.

There wasn't much long-lived radioactive material after the blasts from WWII. You could walk through either city no problem a few days after they were bombed. Weapons aren't reactors.

Wouldn’t it be in reverse? Like the house should be darker then the silhouettes?

And he still lived a long life and died of natural old age causes. Both unlucky and lucky at the same time.

Holy crap... you're right. The ones that got vaporized did not leave a shadow. This just got 10 times worse for me now. Thanks. :( This has been my biggest fear since 1982 and War Games came out. I never expected to make it to 20. And now it's all happening again. Except this time I'm pushing 60. I don't want to die this way. I live near Eau Claire, WI and no, we won't get nuked, but the Twin Cities sure will and so my death will be long and painful. We are 90 miles eastward of them and so it will take about a day for the radiation to hit and 3-7 days to kill us. Luckily I have my diabetes insulin and when the first bomb hits I will be taking an overdose and just go to sleep.

I’d be super interested in your take on the human cost of the war in the pacific if hadn’t ended with the use of atomic weapons.

Oh my gosh, that’s so cool! I’m happy to have helped. You’re very welcome.

His was an ashashin.

If only we could do this for Russia too in Ukraine..

Edit: not as in nuking Russia.. as in giving them an out like NATO boots on the ground.

I was curious too and found this: "Objects and people in its path shielded objects behind them by absorbing the light and energy. The surrounding light bleached the concrete or stone around the "shadow." In other words, those eerie shadows are actually how the sidewalk or building looked, more or less, before the nuclear blast." Source

Go read the book “To hell and back” it’s accounts of survivors of the nuke. If you were ever a proponent of using these weapons that book will cure you of that.

I had to take breaks between chapters.

I can’t tell you the answer to your question, but I can tell you that I read a book in hs just titled “Hiroshima” and one of the stories was about how there were soldiers whose job it was to stare at the sky and watch for a nuke. When the bomb went off and they were staring directly at it, it literally melted their eyeballs out of their heads.

Yeah, that was my guess, it's not so much a "burn" as the flash was so intensely bright that it bleached the pigment out of everything, much like the Sun, and the people and objects simply blocked that initial Flash in the moments they were incinerated.

Truly horrifying.

Must have been a window cleaner, cos there’s also the shadow of his ladder.🤣

That’s what you think of, seeing this image? What a horrible take.

I wouldnt say the city is quiet like in solemnity, it is a fun and beautiful city to visit

Depends on the dose. In low doses, coping with it, and facing an increased cancer risk. In high doses, rapid onset trans-cranial lead poisoning.

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi

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New cure for covid?

WoW, I hope the photographer didn’t die of radiation!🤣

His boss also didn’t believe him when he came in for work and then he heard the second bomb and immediately dropped to the floor

Ty for answering my (way too curious brain!) question….

I remember first learning about the nuclear shadows when I was around 8 from a WW2 book. And about that same time, I was starting to explore literature, and I found the short story There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury. (If you're unfamiliar, the story is about an automated house in the future, where the automation continues despite the inhabitants missing - then about halfway through the story, they describe a shadow of a boy and a ball in mid-throw burned into the side of the house.)

I remember the dread I felt when I read the line in the story about the shadow, that "click" because I understood what it meant, and so that has always stuck with me.

There's a Death Stranding reference in here somewhere

Maybe Japan shouldn’t have attacked the US in the first place. BTW what about the millions Japan killed in China and Korea? Together Japan, Germany and Italy were responsible for the deaths of between 50 and 60 million people. Hard to feel sorry for them.

Yeah I can't decide if he is the luckiest or most unlucky guy to ever live.

I've been to the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki. Seeing the nuclear shadows in person was jarring.

Right, because all of the civilians killed in that blast definitely had control over the actions of their government /s

And what about all the innocent civilians killed by the Japanese in the various countries the Japanese caused all the death and destruction? Killed by the Japanese by the millions.

That’s some weak ass whataboutism

Warcrime?

Penis.

Thanks very much for linking the story, I hadn’t read any Bradbury before but i really liked it and will look into more of his work now 😊

So the answer to people killing millions of innocent people is to kill millions more? Yeah good thing you aren’t in any sort of position of power huh? Every country has killed innocents in mass numbers so it would be no problem if we just burned your children for those crimes right? With that thought process you are part of those sorts of problems and it would be beneficial if you never had a say in anything ever.

No the answer to stop the war. Would it have been better to invade the island of Japan and kill maybe a million more military on both sides and main land Japanese civilians?

No but stopping the war has to be agreed upon by both parties and while the majority of the civilians of japan no longer supported the war effort their government would not sign any form of treaty to end this. Nuking them was a gross extension of power not just once but twice. The proper answer would have been to sanction the fuck out of a island that had burned most bridges to its surrounding neighbors but our answer to the problem was unfortunately to try to cause the most death we could to a bunch of people not involved in a way shape or form because we wanted to see a big boom. So the idea that oh well they deserved it because they killed people too is a very harmful thought process in general.

Fun fact (which I stumbled upon during a visit to Hiroshima)…

After touring the museum and its surrounding grounds, you are left with the impression that Ground Zero was directly above the Peace Memorial or perhaps the Dome. At least, that’s what I felt. If you Google “ground zero” those are the photos that will show up.

After the museum, my colleague and I were walking to a nearby shopping mall. About halfway to the mall, we came upon a small cement monument just outside the front door of an apartment building…

That is ground zero.

I’ve walked through areas scorched by wildfires that were hot enough to fuse sand into tiny glass beads…there were “shadows” of cattle and kangaroos on the ground. It’s essentially a grease spot.

Really?!?! I felt like above the dome was ground zero. When we go back I have to check it out again

Cursed with an interesting life?

The answer to the killing of millions of people? No.

The way to stop the continued killing of millions of people? History would indicate, yes.

Oh yes history would in fact indicate that because if you try to remove a entire island out of existence then absolutely yes they stop their shit. However if i want my baby mother to stop being controlling about my child i should just kill her, if i want my dog to behave i should just beat it to a inch of its life so it cant misbehave anymore if i want the bullying in school to stop i should just shoot it up. The point is yes it worked. Was that necessary and should we just have the thought process of well they killed people too so its cool. No. All of this aside am I suffering from guilt and losing sleep over this no absolutely not but to defend the slaughtering of a race cuz they did bad stuff too is really not how your brain should work.

You’re welcome! I’m always to happy to share his works. I suppose it’s just my inner child that loves the stories and wants to share them. I hope you enjoy all that you find.

Nah. If that was ground zero it would have just been obliterated from the source of the blast down given the size of the dome.

In this one case, given the failure of Allied precision bombing, the expected loss of life from the impending Operation Downfall, and the Japanese reluctance to accept unconditional surrender, it made sense. I don’t think there has ever or will ever be any other time in history where this will be the case.

If causing mass death was the point, the US could have skipped the bombs and gone straight to invasion.

"thermodynamic radiation" is not a term that means anything...

I can guarantee the person that caused that shadow did not catch covid

Way to completely miss the point of what was actually said.

You do not understand the assignment. Nor do you seem to understand war or authoritarianism.

The point was not to eradicate the Japanese people. That was the kind of shit the Axis powers were doing. Allied forces had endured a bloodbath in Okinawa and had every reason to believe it would be much, much worse in the Japanese home islands. Make whatever argument you wish in hindsight, but remember that the Allies didn’t have that information (the Cold War, whatever was going on in the Japanese commanders’ or Stalin’s head, any of it) in front of them. Diplomacy wasn’t going to work, as the Japanese kept trying to negotiate conditional surrender even though they had no leverage.

The Allies wanted the war over and the ones responsible punished. That was it. That was their motive. Given that Churchill and Stalin in particular didn’t like or trust each other, Operation Unthinkable had the potential to become a reality the longer the war continued. The bombs were the least bad option on the table.

Yes it does. It’s thermo, so temperature, and it’s dynamic, so it’s exciting!

it's actually really close, like 100m

Unless you’re that poor bastard who got nuked twice

Seriously, nobody has had a worse few days than that guy

I have a book my dad picked up in Japan while serving in the Navy during the Korean War. Second photo is shadows of pedestrians on a bridge. Lots of photos like this and statistics.

That’s historically wrong but i did enjoy that reading. The scientists that developed the bombs had even advised to not use them to our government who was very adamant to just using them regardless because they felt it would end things. (Which it did) That being said the argument of well we had to cuz the fear of the unknown is also easily passed on simply because if we look slightly into the future we had this thing with russia you know the cold war where both parties could nuke each other anytime and our thought was well if thats gonna happen we have to do it first. Yet that didnt happen even with spys and intel neither party knew every single plan at all times so with that argument of “well we just didnt know what might happen so we bombed them” doesnt hold up cuz then we shoulda just did the same cuz well we dont know. Invasion keeps being brought up like thats even valid. If i can kill millions of “bad guys” and lose nobody on my side why would i send my people to die when thats my option. Regardless we bombed the shit out of people that had nothing to do with the war and no matter how you spin that its not good. War is not good, necessary at times but not good.

Also i suppose one more thing as someone who has grown up in a military family but not served in any war myself i would absolutely say no i do not understand war, not from a personal level, however i do understand that the slaughtering of millions of innocents even if thats “ what needs” to be done is not something that people should have the mind set of “well serves them right”

not really a horrible take considering that if they don’t get an out to this war their next target is a NATO country which will end up with nukes being dropped. he worded it badly, he doesn’t want nukes dropped on russia.

Edit: are the people downvoting me seriously supporters of appeasement? cmon guys we learned this back in 1939.

There are some fascinating assumptions hidden in your statement, but I can’t be bothered to unpack them.

Well considering it was all based on what you said in yours it seems both of us are just assuming shit ay? Either way have a wonderful night :)

Was it, though? Was it?

Cursed Les Paul.

Username checks out

Yeah. Definitely better way to go than seeing your entire body is burnt and there are hanging skins on arms while wanting to drink some water.

The book, The making of the nuclear bomb, talks of people walking in the streets with skin hanging from their face and arms. A gentleman holding his own eye. They talked of 100s of people running into the river due to severe burns only to die just moments later as they recovered from the shock.

People were permanently blinded, the hospital infrastructure was destroyed, so the many who were in severe pain could get no help. And of course there were the cases of accute radiation syndrome.

The Nuclear bomb is a terrible instrument of war. And of course, it's chief purpose is demoralizing the enemy, or to put it differently, killing civilians.

It's actually very easy to feel sorry for the innocent people that had to die in this bombing, Heroshima, and the Tokyo fire bombings.

Most shouldn't have to try.

Of course that doesnt detract from the genocides Japan committed in China.

However, what makes the Nuclear Bomb unique, is that for the first time we are capable of nearly instantaneously killing all of humanity, without much effort at all.

The ongoing conventional bombing of Japan was FAR more destructive (and lethal) than the atomic bombing. People always seem to forget that.

By mid-1945, the US was running out of targets to destroy. Yet the Japanese were showing absolutely zero indication of entering into surrender negotiations. (We were reading their encoded messages. We knew their plans!)

The civilian populations were being trained in the manufacturing and use of homemade weapons to defend the home islands. The Japanese Imperial Army informed the Emperor that it would only require 20 million civilian deaths to repulse an American land invasion, which they felt they could easily absorb and recover from, while the Americans would surely lose their stomach for the war afterwards. (Just as they assumed the Americans would lose their stomachs for war after the attack on Pearl Harbor)

The cities targeted for nuclear weapons were chosen solely because they were ones of only a few cities that had not already been utterly destroyed by conventional bombing, or recognized as having historical/religious significance.

(Yep, that’s right. The US spared some Japanese cities specifically because they had historical or religious importance to the Japanese. I cannot think of another nation in history that has spared an enemy’s cities, in a time of total war, specifically because those cities were precious to the enemy.)

You are not addressing the death and destruction that an invasion of the Japanese main island would have caused. The estimate is that a million death would have occurred had there been an invasion and most of those deaths would have been Japanese civilians caught in the middle of all the fighting.

After the Hiroshima bomb the Japanese military was not interested in surrendering. After the Nagasaki bomb, they were still not interested in surrendering and it was only the intervention of the Emperor that caused the Japanese Military to lay down their arms. An invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been a blood bath on all sides.

Again, please do not dismiss the millions of people (military and especially civilians) killed either directly or indirectly by the war started by Japan and its allies.

Ummm….I think you have me confused with someone who disagrees with you.

(And the one million casualties is what the US calculated it would cost the American military in an invasion of the Japanese home islands. The Japanese estimated it would cost 20 million of its own civilian population in defending against such an invasion…a cost they were actively preparing to absorb.)

I apologize if I have misunderstood you

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So that's a yes?

Ok Edith

Honestly, the fact that you even mentioned sanctions upthread shows you’re either being obtuse or actively misrepresenting the facts. The time for sanctions ended December 6, 1941. The blood of the Japanese people that died was on the hands of the Japanese government from that point on.

The hidden assumptions I mentioned above that I see include 1) that the US was the aggressor in the Pacific war (no one except the historically ignorant seriously believes this) and 2) that entirely destroying the Japanese people was a desired outcome (it wasn’t, at least not to anyone with actual command authority). I don’t know if that’s ignorance or malice on your part, but either way, that makes you a de facto Axis apologist, which is totally indefensible.

Is this in Japan

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Surprised the wooden house didn't go up in flames or get blasted

Even if you can't hear, you can still see the blast.