What is the concept of the first british atomic bomb?

Like it or not, science and technology sees unprecedented growth during dire times. This is probably because funding flows into different branches of science like never before, allowing for progress inconceivable during ordinary times. Just like how the COVID-19 pandemic saw a global collective search for vaccines, there have been other times in the past - mostly during wars - when a number of scientific fields received a tremendous boost.

World War II was one such period when scientific progress was at its pinnacle. The ability to split an atom through nuclear fission was discovered in the 1930s. With its ability to release immense power realised, it wasn't long before the race to build a bomb with it was on. The Manhattan Project was born early in the 1940s and we all know what happened in Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

To retain influence                                           

While the Manhattan Project was led by the U.S., it was done in collaboration with the U.K. along with support from Canada. Following the war, however, the U.S. refused to share atomic information with the U.K. With the objective of avoiding complete dependence on the U.S., and to remain a great power and retain its influence, Britain sought to become a nuclear power.

The prospect was discussed in a secret cabinet committee in October 1946. While Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton and President of the Board of Trade Stafford Cripps were opposed to the idea of a British bomb citing the huge costs involved, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin had his way and work went ahead. By the time the bomb was ready, however, Winston Churchill's government came to power.

Penney at the helm

Led by British mathematician William Penney, who had worked on the world's first atomic bomb in the U.S., the project that went on to become Operation Hurricane began with a secret laboratory tasked with developing the trigger device. With the Soviets managing to successfully explode their first atomic bomb in 1949, Penney's team was under further pressure. Soon enough, the Brits were ready with their bomb.

Early in 1951, the Australian government agreed that the blast could take place at the uninhabited Monte Bello islands, an archipelago of over 100 islands lying off the coast of north-western Australia. The region was declared a prohibited zone and ships and aircraft were later warned to stay clear of an area of 23,500 nautical square miles off the coast.

Plym carries the bomb

 The troops were mobilised, the first set of vessels left for their destination in January 1952 and six months later HMS Plym, carrying the bomb, and the fleet flagship HMS Campania, made their way. The radioactive core, which used British and Canadian plutonium, was flown out later, and installed in the bomb on Plym very close to the scheduled detonation.

On the morning of October 3, 1952, Britain's first atomic bomb exploded, sending thousands of tonnes of rock, mud, and sea-water blasting into the air. The Plym was instantly vaporised, with scant bits of red-hot metal from the vessel falling on one of the islands even starting a fire.

An eye-witness account of a Reuters correspondent stationed less than 100 miles away mentions a grand flash followed by the appearance of a grey cloud-a zigzag Z-shaped cloud as opposed to the mushroom cloud that we instantly associate with such detonations.

The success of Operation Hurricane resulted in Penney being knighted. Churchill, who was serving as the Prime Minister of the U.K. for a second time, announced to the House of Commons that there had been no casualties and that everything had gone according to plan. While he did congratulate the Labour Party for their role in the whole project, he also did take a dig at them saying that 'as an old parliamentarian I was rather astonished that something well over £100 million could be disbursed without Parliament being made aware of it.'

Like it or not, science and technology sees unprecedented growth during dire times. This is probably because funding flows into different branches of science like never before, allowing for progress inconceivable during ordinary times. Just like how the COVID-19 pandemic saw a global collective search for vaccines, there have been other times in the past - mostly during wars - when a number of scientific fields received a tremendous boost.

World War II was one such period when scientific progress was at its pinnacle. The ability to split an atom through nuclear fission was discovered in the 1930s. With its ability to release immense power realised, it wasn't long before the race to build a bomb with it was on. The Manhattan Project was born early in the 1940s and we all know what happened in Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

To retain influence                                           

While the Manhattan Project was led by the U.S., it was done in collaboration with the U.K. along with support from Canada. Following the war, however, the U.S. refused to share atomic information with the U.K. With the objective of avoiding complete dependence on the U.S., and to remain a great power and retain its influence, Britain sought to become a nuclear power.

The prospect was discussed in a secret cabinet committee in October 1946. While Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton and President of the Board of Trade Stafford Cripps were opposed to the idea of a British bomb citing the huge costs involved, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin had his way and work went ahead. By the time the bomb was ready, however, Winston Churchill's government came to power.

Penney at the helm

Led by British mathematician William Penney, who had worked on the world's first atomic bomb in the U.S., the project that went on to become Operation Hurricane began with a secret laboratory tasked with developing the trigger device. With the Soviets managing to successfully explode their first atomic bomb in 1949, Penney's team was under further pressure. Soon enough, the Brits were ready with their bomb.

Early in 1951, the Australian government agreed that the blast could take place at the uninhabited Monte Bello islands, an archipelago of over 100 islands lying off the coast of north-western Australia. The region was declared a prohibited zone and ships and aircraft were later warned to stay clear of an area of 23,500 nautical square miles off the coast.

Plym carries the bomb

 The troops were mobilised, the first set of vessels left for their destination in January 1952 and six months later HMS Plym, carrying the bomb, and the fleet flagship HMS Campania, made their way. The radioactive core, which used British and Canadian plutonium, was flown out later, and installed in the bomb on Plym very close to the scheduled detonation.

On the morning of October 3, 1952, Britain's first atomic bomb exploded, sending thousands of tonnes of rock, mud, and sea-water blasting into the air. The Plym was instantly vaporised, with scant bits of red-hot metal from the vessel falling on one of the islands even starting a fire.

An eye-witness account of a Reuters correspondent stationed less than 100 miles away mentions a grand flash followed by the appearance of a grey cloud-a zigzag Z-shaped cloud as opposed to the mushroom cloud that we instantly associate with such detonations.

The success of Operation Hurricane resulted in Penney being knighted. Churchill, who was serving as the Prime Minister of the U.K. for a second time, announced to the House of Commons that there had been no casualties and that everything had gone according to plan. While he did congratulate the Labour Party for their role in the whole project, he also did take a dig at them saying that 'as an old parliamentarian I was rather astonished that something well over £100 million could be disbursed without Parliament being made aware of it.'

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HOW FAST DOES EARTH GO ROUND THE SUN?

Earth's average orbital speed is about 30 kilometers per second. In other units, that's about 19 miles per second, or 67,000 miles per hour, or 110,000 kilometers per hour (110 million meters per hour).

Let's calculate that. First of all we know that in general, the distance you travel equals the speed at which you travel multiplied by the time (duration) of travel. If we reverse that, we get that the average speed is equal to the distance traveled over the time taken.

We also know that the time it takes for the Earth to go once around the Sun is one year. So, in order to know the speed, we just have to figure out the distance traveled by the Earth when it goes once around the Sun. To do that we will assume that the orbit of the Earth is circular (which is not exactly right, it is more like an ellipse, but for our purpose a circle is close enough). So the distance traveled in one year is just the circumference of the circle. (Remember, the circumference of a circle is equal to 2×?×radius.)

The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 149,600,000 km. (Astronomers call this an astronomical unit, or AU for short.) Therefore, in one year, the Earth travels a distance of 2×?×(149,600,000 km). This means that the speed is about:

speed = 2×?×(149,600,000 km)/(1 year)

and if we convert that to more meaningful units (knowing that there are, on average, about 365.25 days in a year, and 24 hours per day) we get:

speed = 107,000 km/h (or, if you prefer, 67,000 miles per hour)

So the Earth moves at about 110,000 km/h around the Sun (which is about one thousand times faster than the typical speed of a car on a highway!)

Credit: Ask an Astronomer

Picture credit: Google

WHAT DID EARLY EARTH LOOK LIKE?

At the start, it was just a fiery ball of molten (liquid) rock. As it cooled, lumps formed on the surface of the molten rock. The surface gradually hardened into a crust. Volcanoes kept on pouring steam and gases onto the surface, which led to the atmosphere being formed. As Earth cooled further, clouds of steam became water, creating vast oceans. The crust eventually cooled to form the continents.

Three recent studies improve our understanding of environmental conditions on early Earth—important not just for reconstructing the history of our own planet, but for assessing the habitability of planetary bodies in general.

The first of these studies was led by John Tarduno from the University of Rochester and reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors present evidence of a strong magnetic field around Earth, from about 4.1 billion to 4 billion years ago. Their conclusion is based on magnetite inclusions in certain minerals (zircons), and thus appears to be very reliable. A strong magnetic field would have been critical for life to originate on Earth, because it would have protected the surface from the solar wind. Stars like our Sun are known to expel large amounts of harmful radiation when they are still young, and without a magnetic field it is doubtful life on Earth’s surface would have been able to survive the barrage.

credit: smithsonianmag

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WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF EARTH?

Earth is not quite a perfect sphere. The spinning of the planet causes it to bulge at the equator. Scientists describe Earth’s shape as ‘geoid’, which, interestingly, means ‘Earth-shaped’.

The shape of the Earth is geoid.

Earth looks like a blue marble with white swirls and areas of brown, yellow, green and white from space.

  • The blue is water, which covers about 71 per cent of Earth’s surface.
  • The white swirls are clouds. The areas of brown, yellow and green are land.
  • The areas of white are ice and snow.

Scientists use geodesy, which is the science of measuring Earth’s shape, gravity and rotation. Geodesy provides accurate measurements that show Earth is round. Even though our planet is a sphere, it is not a perfect sphere. Because of the force caused when Earth rotates, the North and South Poles are slightly flat.

Credit: Byjus

Picture credit: Google

WHAT MAKES EARTH UNIQUE?

Earth is the only planet in our Solar System with oxygen in its atmosphere and lots of liquid water on its surface, allowing life, in its various forms, to exist. It is our beautiful blue planet, thriving with a multitude of living animals, plants and, of course, human beings!

In the solar system, the Earth is the third planet from the sun, and it is the only planet known to have life. According to different sources of evidence like radiometric dating, the Earth is believed to be more than 4.5 billion years old. Out of the four terrestrial planets, the Earth is the largest and densest planet. The lithosphere is made up of numerous tectonic plates that keep moving over millions of years. Water in the oceans cover about 71% of the total surface of the Earth, and the remaining 29% is covered by the continents and islands, which have rivers and lakes. The ability of the Earth to harbor life makes the Earth a unique planet in the solar system, and this stems from the fact that water in liquid form exists on the planet. Similarly, the existence of gaseous oxygen in the atmosphere of the Earth also supports life.

credit: worldatlas

picture credit: Google

HOW DID EARTH BEGIN?

Scientists think Earth was formed at roughly the same time as the Sun and other planets when the Solar System came together from a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. As the nebula collapsed because of its gravity, it spun faster and flattened into a disc. Most of the material was pulled towards the centre to form the Sun. Gradually, the rest of this vast cloud began to cool and the gas condensed into trillions of droplets. These droplets were slowly pulled together by their own gravity and formed clumps. Leftover particles within the disc collided and stuck together to form other larger bodies, including Earth.

When Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was a sterile ball of rock, slammed by meteorites and carpeted with erupting volcanoes. Within a billion years, it had become inhabited by microorganisms. Today, life covers every centimetre of the planet, from the highest mountains to the deepest sea. Yet, every other planet in the solar system seems lifeless.

Many ideas have been proposed to explain how life began. Most are based on the assumption that cells are too complex to have formed all at once, so life must have started with just one component that survived and somehow created the others around it. When put into practice in the lab, however, these ideas don’t produce anything particularly lifelike. It is, some researchers are starting to realise, like trying to build a car by making a chassis and hoping wheels and an engine will spontaneously appear.

Credit: newscientist

Picture credit: Google