TEST B: UNDERWATER EXPLOSION 



switches which sent to LSM-60 the successive coded sig- 

 nals 'preliminary to the actual firing on the bomb. Dr. 

 E. W. Titterton counted off the final seconds ; through 

 loudspeakers the relentless toll was heard by the 42,000 

 men waiting outside the lagoon, and by radio listeners 

 throughout the world. 



The bomb detonated at 59.7 seconds after 8 :34 a.m. 

 on July 25, 1946, Bikini Local Time. This corresponded 

 to roughly 4:35 p.m. on July 24, Eastern Standard 

 Time and 9 :35 p.m. on July 24, Greenwich Civil Time. 

 The bomb was located at Latitude 11° 35' 05" North, 

 and Longitude 165° 30' 30" East. Its position was well 

 below the surface of the lagoon. 



Things happened so fast in the next five seconds 

 that few e.yewitnesses could afterwards recall the full 

 scope and sequence. of the phenomena. B}^ studying 

 slow^-motion films and analyzing the records caught by 

 the thousands of instruments, the scientists eventually 

 pieced together the full story.* 



When the bomb detonated, it released almost ex- 

 actly the same amount of energy as had been released 

 in Test A, namely 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ergs 

 (10-^ ergs), equivalent to a])out 20,000 tons of TNT. 



* Without question one reason ivhy observers had so much 

 trouble in retaining a clear impression of the explosion phenomena 

 was the lack of appropriate words and concepts. The explosion 

 phenoynena abounded in absolutely unprecedented inventions in 

 solid geometry. No adequate vocabulary existed for these novel- 

 ties. The vocabulary bottleneck continued for months even among 

 the scientific groups; finally, after two months of verbal groping, a 

 conference was held and over thirty special terms, with carefully 



