16 July 1945. The Trinity atomic test succeeds, ushering in the Atomic Age. It was one of the best-kept secrets of the time, but despite all efforts, the very nature of the detonation was enough to reveal its existence. What exactly happened? The mystery began on the other side of the country, in the state of New York, when Kodak detected a series of black spots on defective X-ray films…
The Cover-Up and the Discovery
How do you hide an atomic explosion? Today that would be virtually impossible, but the United States tried it in the '40s. When Trinity changed history forever, local media spoke of a “great conventional explosion”, suggesting an accidental event. In fact, even the governor of New Mexico was not aware of the nature of the device, and essentially learned about it after Hiroshima. However, an atomic bomb is much more than its explosion, and some things had not been fully understood…
The latest video published by Veritasium does an excellent job explaining that situation: Kodak, the famous photographic company, discovered a series of black spots on its unused X-ray films. They had never been removed from their original packaging, but somehow they were exposed to radiation. While that wasn't a new problem (radium was used in clocks and instruments, and could contaminate films), Kodak maintained strict control over its production lines. Something else was interfering.
The Investigation
In August 1945, a Kodak investigator named Julian H. Webb was tasked with analyzing the origin of the contamination. His initial measurement of alpha particles yielded no positive results, so radium and other similar emitters were ruled out. Instead, when measuring beta particles, Webb detected high activity. Combining energy values with the half-life of the particles, the investigator concluded that the contaminant was the isotope cerium-141... which could only come from a nuclear fission explosion.
https://old.neoteo.com/ingenieros-de-kodak-tercera-guerra/As if that weren't enough, cerium appeared in other Kodak paper mills, hundreds of kilometers apart. The reason? Radioactive fallout. The Trinity explosion threw all that material into the atmosphere, and wind currents did the rest, covering more than a thousand kilometers and contaminating rivers. The water from those rivers was used by Kodak's paper mills, ruining their films from the start.
Now, scientists at Los Alamos learned of Kodak's detection, and logically requested additional details such as half-life, particle size, and radioactivity records per square mile... but don't forget that all of this was secret, and Webb (who had been part of the Manhattan Project) ended up sharing his data in 1949, four years later.
Kodak immediately recognized the problem and was forced to monitor fallout levels at its facilities, while the US government multiplied its atomic tests. The original idea was to find a site on the East Coast, so that contamination would be carried toward the Atlantic by the prevailing westerly winds. However, they chose Nevada, due to its proximity to weapons laboratories.
https://old.neoteo.com/que-pasaria-si-detonan-todas-las-bombas-nucleares/A Shocking Bargain
In 1951, Kodak detected a new detonation (probably under Operation Ranger or Buster–Jangle) and threatened to sue the government for damage to its products, but both parties reached an agreement: Kodak would receive alerts and predictions about the movement of radioactive fallout, and in exchange... it had to keep its mouth shut.
Over the following twelve years, contamination from the hundred or so surface nuclear tests covered a large part of the country. That contamination reached the food chain, with the presence of iodine (thyroid cancer) and strontium (a calcium analog that ends up in bones). The agreement between the government and the photographic industry was publicly denounced and criticized in 1997, especially by Senator Tom Harkin, who forcefully stated: “The government protected rolls of film, but not the lives of our children.”
