Time seemed to have stopped ...

Operation Hardtack Poplar, July 1958.Credit...Photograph via Wikimedia Commons

This pix of an H Bomb going off resonates to yours truly in terms of just how horrific said tech truly is. Without question, man has the ability to destroy civilization at the push of a button. The question now is, will we push it?

In a nuclear detonation, the thermal and shock effects are the most immediate and are unimaginable. The fission-fusion process that occurs in a thermonuclear explosion happens in a millionth of a second.

As I watched from 20 miles away, all the materials in the bomb, barge and surrounding lagoon water and air had been vaporized and raised to a temperature of tens of millions of degrees.

As the X-rays and neutrons from the bomb raced outward, they left the heavier material particles behind, creating a radiation front that was absorbed by the surrounding air. The radiation, absorption, reradiation and expansion processes continued, cooling the bomb mass within milliseconds.

The outer high-pressure shock region cooled and lost its opacity as it raced toward me, and a hotter inner fireball again appeared.

This point in the process is called breakaway, occurring about three seconds after detonation, when the fireball radius was already nearly 5,500 feet.

By now, the fireball had begun to rise, engulfing more and more atmosphere and sweeping up coral and more lagoon water into an enormous column. The ball of fire eventually reached a radius of 1.65 miles.

Time seemed to have stopped. I had lost my count of the seconds.

The heat was becoming unbearable. Bare spots at my ankles were starting to hurt. The aluminum foil hood I had fashioned for protection was beginning to fail.

I thought that the hair on the back of my head might catch on fire.

The brightness the detonation created defies description. I worried that my high-density goggles would fail. - Rod Buntzen

Read on, the power of this tech run amok is both mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.

Operation Hardtack Oak, June 1958.Credit...Los Alamos National Labs