TheAtomic Age, also known as theAtomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the firstnuclear weapon,The Gadget at theTrinity test in New Mexico on 16 July 1945 duringWorld War II. Althoughnuclear chain reactions had been hypothesized in 1933 and the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (Chicago Pile-1) had taken place in December 1942,[1] the Trinity test and the ensuingbombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World WarII represented the first large-scale use ofnuclear technology and ushered in profound changes insociopolitical thinking and the course of technological development.
In 1973, concerning a flourishing nuclear power industry, theUnited States Atomic Energy Commission predicted that by the turn of the 21st century, 1,000 reactors would be producing electricity for homes and businesses across the U.S. However, the "nuclear dream" fell far short of what was promised because nuclear technology produced a range of social problems, from thenuclear arms race tonuclear meltdowns, and the unresolved difficulties of bomb plant cleanup and civilian plant waste disposal and decommissioning.[3] Since 1973, reactor orders declined sharply as electricity demand fell and construction costs rose. Many orders andpartially completed plants were cancelled.[4]
By the late 1970s, nuclear power had suffered a remarkable international destabilization, as it was faced with economic difficulties and widespreadpublic opposition, coming to a head with theThree Mile Island accident in 1979 and theChernobyl disaster in 1986, both of which adversely affected the nuclear power industry for many decades.[5]
In 1901,Frederick Soddy andErnest Rutherford discovered thatradioactivity was part of the process by which atoms changed from one kind to another, involving the release of energy. Soddy wrote in popular magazines that radioactivity was a potentially "inexhaustible" source of energy and offered a vision of an atomic future where it would be possible to "transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole earth one smilingGarden of Eden." The promise of an "atomic age," with nuclear energy as the global, utopian technology for the satisfaction of human needs, has been a recurring theme ever since. But "Soddy also saw that atomic energy could possibly be used to create terrible new weapons".[6][7]
In 1945, the pocketbookThe Atomic Age heralded the untapped atomic power in everyday objects and depicted a future wherefossil fuels would go unused. One science writer, David Dietz, wrote that instead of filling the gas tank of your car two or three times a week, you will travel for a year on a pellet of atomic energy the size of a vitamin pill.Glenn T. Seaborg, who chaired theAtomic Energy Commission, wrote "there will be nuclear powered earth-to-moon shuttles, nuclear powered artificial hearts, plutonium heated swimming pools for SCUBA divers, and much more".[10]
The phraseAtomic Age was coined byWilliam L. Laurence, ajournalist withThe New York Times, who became the official journalist for theManhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons.[11][12] He witnessed both theTrinity test and thebombing of Nagasaki and went on to write a series of articles extolling the virtues of the new weapon. His reporting before and after the bombings helped to spur public awareness of the potential of nuclear technology and in part motivated development of the technology in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union.[13] The Soviet Union would go on to testits first nuclear weapon in 1949.
In 1949, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission chairman,David Lilienthal stated that "atomic energy is not simply a search for new energy, but more significantly a beginning of human history in which faith in knowledge can vitalize man's whole life".[14]
This view of downtown Las Vegas shows amushroom cloud in the background. Scenes such as this were typical during the 1950s. From 1951 to 1962 the government conducted 100 atmospheric tests at the nearbyNevada Test Site.[15]
The phrase gained popularity as a feeling of nuclear optimism emerged in the 1950s in which it was believed that all power generators in the future would be atomic in nature. Theatomic bomb would render all conventional explosives obsolete, andnuclear power plants would do the same for power sources such ascoal andoil. There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, fromirradiating food to preserve it, to the development ofnuclear medicine. There would be an age of peace and plenty in which atomic energy would "provide the power needed todesalinate water for the thirsty, irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into outer space".[2] This use would render the Atomic Age as significant a step in technological progress as the first smelting ofbronze, ofiron, or the commencement of theIndustrial Revolution.
This included even cars, leadingFord Motor Company to display theFord Nucleonconcept car to the public in 1958. There was also the promise of golf balls which could always be found andnuclear-powered aircraft, which the U.S. federal government even spent US$1.5 billion researching.[2] Nuclear policymaking became almost a collective technocratic fantasy, or at least was driven by fantasy:[16]
The very idea of splitting the atom had an almost magical grip on the imaginations of inventors and policymakers. As soon as someone said—in an even mildly credible way—that these thingscould be done, then people quickly convinced themselves ... that theywould be done.[16]
In the US, military planners "believed that demonstrating the civilian applications of the atom would also affirm the American system of private enterprise, showcase the expertise of scientists, increase personal living standards, and defend the democratic lifestyle against communism".[17] Some media reports predicted that thanks to the giant nuclear power stations of the near futureelectricity would soon become much cheaper and thatelectricity meters would be removed, because power would be "too cheap to meter."[18]
When theShippingport reactor went online in 1957 it produced electricity at a cost roughly ten times that of coal-fired generation. Scientists at the AEC's own Brookhaven Laboratory "wrote a 1958 report describing accident scenarios in which 3,000 people would die immediately, with another 40,000 injured".[19] However Shippingport was an experimental reactor using highlyenriched uranium (unlike most power reactors) and originally intended for a (cancelled) nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
Kenneth Nichols, a consultant for theConnecticut Yankee andYankee Rowe nuclear power stations, wrote that while considered "experimental" and not expected to be competitive with coal and oil, they "became competitive because of inflation ... and the large increase in price of coal and oil." He wrote that for nuclear power stations the capital cost is the major cost factor over the life of the plant, hence "antinukes" try to increase costs and building time with changing regulations and lengthy hearings, so that "it takes almost twice as long to build a (U.S.-designed boiling-water or pressurised water) atomic power plant in the United States as in France, Japan, Taiwan or South Korea." French pressurised-water nuclear plants produce 60% of their electric power and have proven to be much cheaper than oil or coal.[20]
During the 1950s,Las Vegas earned the nickname "Atomic City" for becoming a hotspot where tourists would gather to watch above-ground nuclear weapons tests taking place atNevada Test Site. Following the detonation of Able, one of the first atomic bombs dropped at the Nevada Test Site, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce began advertising the tests as an entertainment spectacle to tourists.
The detonations proved popular, and casinos throughout the city capitalised on the tests by advertising hotel rooms or rooftops which offered views of the testing site or by planning "Dawn Bomb Parties" where people would come together to celebrate the detonations.[21] Most parties started at midnight, and musicians would perform at the venues until 4:00 a.m. when the party would briefly stop so guests could silently watch the detonation. Some casinos capitalised on the tests further by creating so called "atomic cocktails", a mixture of vodka, cognac, sherry and champagne.[22] Meanwhile, groups of tourists would drive out into the desert with family or friends to watch the detonations.
Despite the health risks associated withnuclear fallout, tourists and viewers were told to simply "shower". Later on, however, anyone who had worked at the testing site or lived in areas exposed to nuclear fallout fell ill and had higher chances of developing cancer or suffering pre-mature deaths.[23]
The term "atomic age" was initially used in a positive, futuristic sense, but by the 1960s the threats posed bynuclear weapons had begun to edge out nuclear power as the dominant motif of the atom. In theThunderbirds TV series, a set of vehicles was presented that were imagined to be completely nuclear, as shown in cutaways presented in their comic-books.
By exploiting the peaceful uses of the "friendly atom" in medical applications, earth removal and subsequently in nuclear power plants, the nuclear industry and U.S. government sought to allay public fears about nuclear technology and promote the acceptance ofnuclear weapons. At the peak of the Atomic Age, the U.S. initiatedProject Plowshare, involving "peaceful nuclear explosions". TheUnited States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman announced that Plowshare was intended to "highlight the peaceful applications of nuclear explosive devices and thereby create a climate of world opinion that is more favorable to weapons development and tests".[24] Plowshare "was named directly from the Bible itself, specifically Micah 4:3, which states that God will beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks, so that no country could lift up weapons against another".[25]
Proposed uses included widening thePanama Canal, constructing a new sea-level waterway throughNicaragua nicknamed the Pan-Atomic Canal, cutting paths through mountainous areas for highways, and connecting inland river systems. Other proposals involved blasting caverns for water, natural gas, and petroleum storage. It was proposed to plant underground atomic bombs toextract shale oil in easternUtah and westernColorado. Serious consideration was given to using these explosives for various mining operations. One proposal suggested using nuclear blasts to connect undergroundaquifers inArizona. Another plan involved surface blasting on the western slope ofCalifornia'sSacramento Valley for a water transport project.[25]
However, there were many negative impacts from Project Plowshare's 27 nuclear explosions.[25] Consequences included blighted land, relocated communities,tritium-contaminated water, radioactivity, and fallout from debris being hurled high into the atmosphere. These were ignored and downplayed until the program was terminated in 1977, due in large part to public opposition, after $770 million had been spent on the project.[25]
French advocates of nuclear power developed an aesthetic vision of nuclear technology as art to bolster support for the technology. Leclerq compares the nuclear cooling tower to some of the grandest architectural monuments of Western culture:[26]
The age in which we live has, for the public, been marked by the nuclear engineer and the gigantic edifices he has created. For builders and visitors alike, nuclear power plants will be considered the cathedrals of the 20th century. Their syncretism mingles the conscious and the unconscious, religious fulfilment and industrial achievement, the limitations of uses of materials and boundless artistic inspiration, utopia come true and the continued search for harmony.[26]
In 1973, the AEC predicted that, by the turn of the 21st century 1,000 reactors would be producing electricity for homes and businesses across the U.S. But after 1973, reactor orders declined sharply as electricity demand fell and construction costs rose. Many orders and partially completed plants were cancelled.[4]
Nuclear power has proved controversial since the 1970s.Highly radioactive materials may overheat and escape from the reactor building. Nuclear waste (spent nuclear fuel) needs to be regularly removed from the reactors and disposed of safely for up to a million years, so that it does not pollute the environment. Recycling of nuclear waste has been discussed, but it createsplutonium which can be used in weapons, and in any case still leaves much unwanted waste to be stored and disposed of. Large,purpose-built facilities for long-term disposal of nuclear waste have been difficult to site.[27]
By the late 1970s, nuclear power suffered a remarkable international destabilization, as it was faced with economic difficulties and widespreadpublic opposition, coming to a head with theThree Mile Island accident in 1979 and theChernobyl disaster in 1986, both of which adversely affected the nuclear power industry for decades thereafter. A cover story in the 11 February 1985 issue ofForbes magazine addresses the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States:
The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale ... only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.[28]
In a period just over 30 years, the early dramatic rise of nuclear power went into equally meteoric reverse. With no other energy technology has there been a conjunction of such rapid and revolutionary international emergence, followed so quickly by equally transformative demise.[29]
In the 21st century, the label of the "Atomic Age" connotes either a sense of nostalgia or naïveté and is considered by many to have ended with thefall of the Soviet Union in 1991, though the term continues to be used by many historians to describe the era following the conclusion of the Second World War. Atomic energy and weapons continue to have a strong effect on world politics in the 21st century.
The nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors and has proposed new safer (but generally untested) reactor designs, but there is no guarantee that the reactors will be designed, built and operated correctly.[31] Mistakes do occur, and natural disasters can effect nuclear power plants, such as the2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami thatdamaged the Fukushima plant in Japan.[32] According toUBS AG, the Fukushima accident cast doubt on whether even an advanced economy like Japan can master nuclear safety.[33] Catastrophic scenarios involving terrorist attacks are also conceivable.[31] An interdisciplinary team from MIT has estimated that if nuclear power use tripled from 2005 to 2055 (2%[34]–7%), at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period.[35][36]
In September 2012, in reaction to the Fukushima disaster, Japan announced that it would completely phase out nuclear power by 2030, although the likelihood of this goal became unlikely during the subsequentAbe administration.[37] Germany planned to completely phase out nuclear energy by 2022[38] but was still using 11.9% in 2021.[needs update] In 2022, following theRussian invasion of Ukraine, the United Kingdom pledged to build up to 8 new reactors to reduce their reliance on gas and oil and hopes that 25% of all energy produced will be by nuclear means.[39]
On August 1, 2024,Vipin Narang, a seniorPentagon official, remarked, "We now find ourselves in nothing short of a new nuclear age." He attributed this development to an "unprecedented mix of multiple revisionist nuclear challengers who are uninterested in arms control or risk-reduction efforts, each rapidly modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals."[40]
A large anti-nuclear demonstration was held on 6 May 1979, in Washington D.C., when 125,000 people[41] including the governor of California, attended a march and rally againstnuclear power.[42] In New York City on 23 September 1979, almost 200,000 people attended a protest against nuclear power.[43] Anti-nuclear power protests preceded the shutdown of theShoreham,Yankee Rowe,Millstone I,Rancho Seco,Maine Yankee, and about a dozen other nuclear power plants.[44]
On 12 June 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City'sCentral Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to theCold Wararms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history.[45][46] International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on 20 June 1983, at 50 sites across the United States.[47][48]In 1986, hundreds of people walked fromLos Angeles toWashington, D.C., in theGreat Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.[49] There were manyNevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and 1990s.[50][51]
On May 1, 2005, 40,000 anti-nuclear/anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New York, 60 years after theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[52][53] This was the largest anti-nuclear rally in the U.S. for several decades.[54]
1934 –Enrico Fermi begins bombarding uranium with slow neutrons;Ida Noddack predicts that uranium nuclei will break up under bombardment by fast neutrons. (Fermi does not pursue this because his theoretical mathematical predictions do not predict this result.)
17 December 1938 –Otto Hahn and his assistantFritz Strassmann, by bombarding uranium with fast neutrons, discover experimentally and prove nuclear fission with radiochemical methods.[60]
6 January 1939 – Hahn and Strassmann publish the first paper about their discovery in the German reviewDie Naturwissenschaften.[61]
10 February 1939 – Hahn and Strassmann publish the second paper about their discovery inDie Naturwissenschaften, using for the first time the termuranium fission, and predict the liberation of additional neutrons in the fission process.[62]
11 February 1939 –Lise Meitner and her nephewOtto Frisch publish the first theoretical interpretation of nuclear fission, a term coined by Frisch, in the British reviewNature.[63]
11 October 1939 – TheEinstein–Szilárd letter, suggesting that the United States construct a nuclear weapon, is delivered to PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt signs the order to build a nuclear weapon on 6 December 1941.[64]
16 July 1945 – The first nuclear weapon is detonated in a plutonium form nearSocorro,New Mexico, United States in the successfulTrinity test.
6 August 1945 – The second nuclear weapon, and the first to be deployed in combat, is detonated when theLittle Boy uranium bomb was droppedon the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
9 August 1945 – The third nuclear weapon—and the second and last to be deployed in combat—is detonated when theFat Man plutonium bomb was droppedon the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
6 May 1979 – A large anti-nuclear demonstration was held in Washington, D.C., when 125,000 people[41] including the Governor of California, attended a march and rally againstnuclear power.[42]
23 September 1979 – In New York City, almost 200,000 people attended a protest against nuclear power.[43]
1993–2007 – Nuclear power is the primary source of electricity in France. Throughout these two decades, France produced over three quarters of its power from nuclear sources (78.8%), the highest percentage in the world at the time.[71][72]
31 July 1991 – As the Cold War ends, theStart I treaty is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union, reducing the deployed nuclear warheads of each side to no more than 6,000 each.
1993 – TheMegatons to Megawatts Program is agreed upon by Russia and the United States and begins to be implemented in 1995. When it is completed in 2013, five hundred tonnes of uranium derived from 20,000 nuclear warheads from Russia will have been converted from weapons-grade to reactor-grade uranium and used in United States nuclear plants to generate electricity. This has provided 10% of the electrical power of the U.S. (50% of its nuclear power) during the 1995–2013 period.[73]
21 November 2006 – Implementation of theITERfusion power reactor project nearCadarache, France is begun. Construction is to be completed in 2016 with the hope that the research conducted there will allow the introduction of practical commercial fusion power plants by 2050.
2006–2009 – Nuclear engineers begin to suggest that, to combat global warming, it would be more efficient to build nuclear reactors that operate on thethorium cycle.[75][76]
8 April 2010 – TheNew START treaty is signed by the United States and Russia inPrague. It mandates the eventual reduction by both sides to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons each.
11 March 2011 – A tsunami resulting from the Tōhoku earthquake causes severe damage to the Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan, causing partialnuclear meltdowns in several of the reactors. Many international leaders express concerns about the accidents, and some countries re-evaluate existing nuclear energy programs. The event is rated level 7 on theInternational Nuclear Event Scale by the Japanese government's nuclear safety agency.[77][78] Other than the Chernobyl disaster, it is the only nuclear accident to be rated at level 7, the highest level on the scale, and caused the most dramatic shift in nuclear policy to date.
1945 – The Atomaton chapter ofSweet Adelines was formed by Edna Mae Anderson after she and her sister singers decided, "We have an atom of an idea and a ton of energy." The name also recognized the Atomic Age—just three days afterSweet Adelines was founded (13 July 1945), the first nuclear bomb, Trinity, was detonated.
1954 – The science fiction filmGodzilla was released, about an iconicfictional monster that is a gigantic irradiateddinosaur, transformed from the fallout of a hydrogen bomb test.
23 January 1957 –Walt Disney Productions released the film "Our Friend the Atom" describing the marvelous benefits of atomic power. As well as being presented as an episode on the TV showDisneyland, this film was also shown to almost allbaby boomers in theirpublic school auditoriums or their science classes and was instrumental in creating within that generation a mostly favorable attitude toward nuclear power.[80]
1959 – The popular filmOn the Beach shows the last remnants of humanity in Australia awaiting the end of thehuman race after a nuclear war.
1964 – The filmDr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (akaDr. Strangelove), ablack comedy directed byStanley Kubrick about an accidentally triggered nuclear war, was released.
1982 – Thedocumentary filmThe Atomic Cafe, detailing society's attitudes toward the atomic bomb in the early Atomic Age, debuted to widespread acclaim.
1982 –Jonathan Schell's bookFate of the Earth, about the consequences of nuclear war, is published. The book "forces even the most reluctant person to confront the unthinkable: the destruction of humanity and possibly most life on Earth". The best-selling book instigated theNuclear Freeze campaign.
20 November 1983 –The Day After, an American television movie was aired on theABC Television Network and in the Soviet Union. The film portrays a fictional nuclear war between the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact. After the film, a panel discussion was presented in whichCarl Sagan suggested that we need toreduce the number of nuclear weapons as a matter of "planetary hygiene". This film was seen by over 100,000,000 people and was instrumental in greatly increasing public support for theNuclear Freeze campaign.
^The two words atomic and nuclear are synonymous in the context of atomic power and weapons. The atom consists of a nucleus and one or more electrons. All atomic reactions involve changing one atom into another by changing the nucleus. Historically atomic power is an older term, and nuclear power is newer.President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" Speech
^Gonzalez, Juan (9 August 2005)."ATOMIC TRUTHS PLAGUE PRIZE COVERUP".New York Daily News.Laurence, the only journalist the U.S. government permitted to witness the bombing of Nagasaki, is also the reporter who first coined the term "Atomic Age." ... Nagasaki, Laurence launched his Times series, where he extolled the bomb and sought to discredit other accounts about effects of the bomb.[permanent dead link]
^On this incident, see David Holloway,Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994): 59–60.
^John Byrne and Steven M. Hoffman (1996).Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk, Transaction Publishers, p. 85.
^Simon, Steven; Bouville, Andre (2006)."Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks".American Scientist. AmericanScientist.org. Retrieved12 September 2020.Exposures 50 years ago still have health implications today that will continue into the future.
^abJohn Byrne and Steven M. Hoffman (1996).Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk, Transaction Publishers, pp. 50–51.
"Presidency in the Nuclear Age", conference and forum at theJFK Library, Boston, 12 October 2009. Four panels: "The Race to Build the Bomb and the Decision to Use It", "Cuban Missile Crisis and the First Nuclear Test Ban Treaty", "The Cold War and the Nuclear Arms Race", and "Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and the Presidency".
