The Trinity Experiments

by Thomas Merlan   ©1997     101 pages      $15.00

On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain War Time, the wold entered the Nuclear Age with the successful detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity Site in New Mexico. The Trinity Experiments is the first study of the actual experiments associated with evaluating the effects of the explosion. The study was very timely because, during the final year of this study, several scientists associated with the Manhattan Project and nuclear physics passed away.

The Trinity Experiments describes some elements of the experimental program that accompanied the atomic test, with emphasis on experiments deployed in the core area of the test. The information should facilitate the identification of artifacts that may have remained in place after the test. Using oral interviews of scientists and their post-blast technical reports, plus historic photographs, Mr. Merlan has documented how the scientists adapted and modified their experiments from the original plans developed at Los Alamos and how they made do with the technology at hand, with no idea of the final magnitude of the explosion. The Trinity Experiments is written for the general audience. Through the clearly written and nontechnical descriptions and illustrations of the experiments, the reader gains an understanding of how the first atomic explosion was recorded.
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