After the first atomic bomb explosion (seen here from 10,000 yards away, in a time series from .006 seconds to .081 seconds after detonation), Oppenheimer recalled, “a few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent.”
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin in Smithsonian Magazine:
A new biography of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the secret Los Alamos lab, chronicles the tense months leading up to the atomic bomb’s initial test and the debate among his co-workers about how the weapon should be used.
More here.