Atomic Age

The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of
history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The
Gadget at the Trinity test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during
World War II. Although nuclear 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 ensuing bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
that ended World War II represented the first large-scale use of nuclear
technology and ushered in profound changes in sociopolitical thinking
and the course of technological development.

While atomic power was promoted for a time as the epitome of

progress and modernity,[2] entering into the nuclear power era also
entailed frightful implications of nuclear warfare, the Cold War,
mutual assured destruction, nuclear proliferation, the risk of nuclear
disaster (potentially as extreme as anthropogenic global nuclear
winter), as well as beneficial civilian applications in nuclear medicine.
It is no easy matter to fully segregate peaceful uses of nuclear An early nuclear power plant that
technology from military or terrorist uses (such as the fabrication of used atomic energy to generate
dirty bombs from radioactive waste), which complicated the electricity
development of a global nuclear-power export industry right from the
outset.

In 1973, concerning a flourishing nuclear power industry, the United States Atomic Energy Commission
predicted that, by the turn of the 21st century, one thousand 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 the nuclear arms race to nuclear 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
and partially 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 widespread public opposition, coming to a head with the Three Mile Island accident
in 1979, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, both of which adversely affected the nuclear power industry for
many decades.[5]

Contents
Early years
World War II
1950s
Atomic City
1960s
1970 to 2000
21st century
Chronology
Discovery and development
Nuclear arms deployment
"Atoms for Peace"
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl
Nuclear arms reduction
Fukushima
Influence on popular culture
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Early years
In 1901, Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford discovered that radioactivity 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 smiling Garden 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]

The concept of a nuclear chain reaction was hypothesized in 1933, shortly after Chadwick's discovery of the
neutron. Only a few years later, in December 1938 nuclear fission was discovered by Otto Hahn and his
assistant Fritz Strassmann, and explained, proved and explained by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch. The first
artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (Chicago Pile-1, or CP-1) took place in December 1942 under
the leadership of Enrico Fermi.[1]

In 1945, the pocketbook The Atomic Age heralded the untapped atomic power in everyday objects and
depicted a future where fossil 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 the Atomic 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".[8]

World War II
The phrase Atomic Age was coined by William L. Laurence, a journalist with The New York Times, who
became the official journalist for the Manhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons.[9][10] He
witnessed both the Trinity test and the bombing 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.[11] The Soviet Union would go on to test its 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".[12]

1950s
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. The atomic bomb
would render all conventional explosives obsolete and nuclear power
plants would do the same for power sources such as coal and oil.
There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear
power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, from
irradiating food to preserve it, to the development of nuclear medicine.
There would be an age of peace and plenty in which atomic energy
would "provide the power needed to desalinate water for the thirsty, This view of downtown Las Vegas
irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into shows a mushroom cloud in the
outer space".[2] This use would render the Atomic Age as significant background. Scenes such as this
a step in technological progress as the first smelting of bronze, of iron, were typical during the 1950s. From
or the commencement of the Industrial Revolution. 1951 to 1962 the government
conducted 100 atmospheric tests at
This included even cars, leading Ford to display the Ford Nucleon the nearby Nevada Test Site.[13]
concept car to the public in 1958. There was also the promise of golf
balls which could always be found and nuclear-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:[14]

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 things
could be done, then people quickly convinced themselves ... that they would be done.[14]

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".[15]

Some media reports predicted that thanks to the giant nuclear power stations of the near future electricity
would soon become much cheaper and that electricity meters would be removed, because power would be
"too cheap to meter."[16]

When the Shippingport 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".[17]

However Shippingport was an experimental reactor using highly enriched uranium (unlike most power
reactors) and originally intended for a (cancelled) nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Kenneth Nichols was a
consultant for the Connecticut Yankee and Yankee 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.[18]

Fear of possible atomic attack from the Soviet Union caused U.S. school children to participate in "duck and
cover" civil defense drills.[19]

Atomic City

During the 1950s, Las Vegas, Nevada, earned the nickname "Atomic City" for becoming a hotspot where
tourists would gather to watch above-ground nuclear weapons tests taking place at Nevada 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.[20] 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.[21]

Meanwhile, groups of tourists would drive out into the desert with family or friends to watch the detonations.

Despite the health risks associated with nuclear 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.[22]

1960s
By exploiting the peaceful uses of the "friendly atom" in medical applications, earth removal and,
subsequently, in nuclear power plants, the nuclear industry and government sought to allay public fears about
nuclear technology and promote the acceptance of nuclear weapons. At the peak of the Atomic Age, the
United States government initiated Operation Plowshare, involving "peaceful nuclear explosions". The United
States Atomic Energy Commission chairman announced that the Plowshares project 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".[23]

Project 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".[24] Proposed uses included widening the Panama Canal, constructing a new sea-level waterway
through Nicaragua 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 to extract shale oil in eastern Utah and
western Colorado. Serious consideration was also given to using these explosives for various mining
operations. One proposal suggested using nuclear blasts to connect underground aquifers in Arizona. Another
plan involved surface blasting on the western slope of California's Sacramento Valley for a water transport
project.[24] However, there were many negative impacts from Project Plowshare's 27 nuclear explosions.[24]
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.[24]
In the Thunderbirds TV series, a set of vehicles was presented that were imagined to be completely nuclear, as
shown in cutaways presented in their comic-books.

The term "atomic age" was initially used in a positive, futuristic sense, but by the 1960s the threats posed by
nuclear weapons had begun to edge out nuclear power as the dominant motif of the atom.

1970 to 2000
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:[25]

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 A photograph taken in the abandoned
century. Their syncretism mingles the conscious and the city of Pripyat. The Chernobyl
unconscious, religious fulfilment and industrial nuclear power plant can be seen on
achievement, the limitations of uses of materials and the horizon.
boundless artistic inspiration, utopia come true and the
continued search for harmony.[25]

In 1973, the United States Atomic Energy Commission predicted that, by the turn of the 21st century, one
thousand reactors would be producing electricity for homes and businesses across the USA. 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 creates plutonium 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, and have not yet reached fruition.[26]

By the late 1970s, nuclear power suffered a remarkable international destabilization, as it was faced with
economic difficulties and widespread public opposition, coming to a head with the Three Mile Island accident
in 1979, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, both of which adversely affected the nuclear power industry for
decades thereafter. A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine commented on 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.[27]
So, 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.[28]

21st century
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 the fall 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 term is used by some science fiction fans to describe not
only the era following the conclusion of the Second World War but The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster in Japan, the worst nuclear
also contemporary history up to the present day.
accident in 25 years, displaced
The nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance 50,000 households after radiation
of reactors, and has proposed new safer (but generally untested) leaked into the air, soil and sea.[29]
reactor designs but there is no guarantee that the reactors will be
designed, built and operated correctly.[30] Mistakes do occur and the
designers of reactors at Fukushima in Japan did not anticipate that a tsunami generated by an earthquake
would disable the backup systems that were supposed to stabilize the reactor after the earthquake.[31]
According to UBS AG, the Fukushima I nuclear accidents have cast doubt on whether even an advanced
economy like Japan can master nuclear safety.[32] Catastrophic scenarios involving terrorist attacks are also
conceivable.[30] An interdisciplinary team from MIT has estimated that if nuclear power use tripled from 2005
to 2055 (2%[33]–7%), at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period.[34][35]

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 subsequent Abe
administration.[36] Germany plans to completely phase out nuclear energy by 2022.[37]

Chronology
A large anti-nuclear demonstration was held on May 6, 1979, in Washington D.C., when 125,000 people[38]
including the Governor of California, attended a march and rally against nuclear power.[39] In New York City
on September 23, 1979, almost 200,000 people attended a protest against nuclear power.[40] Anti-nuclear
power protests preceded the shutdown of the Shoreham, Yankee Rowe, Millstone I, Rancho Seco, Maine
Yankee, and about a dozen other nuclear power plants.[41]

On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons
and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political
demonstration in American history.[42][43] International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on
June 20, 1983, at 50 sites across the United States.[44][45] In 1986, hundreds of people walked from Los
Angeles to Washington, D.C., in the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.[46] There were
many Nevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and
1990s.[47][48]

On May 1, 2005, forty thousand anti-nuclear/anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New
York, 60 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[49][50] This was the largest anti-nuclear
rally in the U.S. for several decades.[51]
Discovery and development
1896 – Henri Becquerel notices that uranium gives off an unknown radiation which fogs
photographic film.[52]
1898 – Marie Curie discovers thorium gives off a similar radiation. She calls it radioactivity.[52]
1903 – Ernest Rutherford begins to speak of the possibility of atomic energy.[53]
1905 – Albert Einstein formulates the special theory of relativity which explains the
phenomenon of radioactivity as mass–energy equivalence.[53]
1911 – Ernest Rutherford formulates a theory about the structure of the atomic nucleus based
on his experiments with alpha particles.[54]
1930 – Otto Hahn writes an article with his prophecy "The Atom – the source of power of the
future?" in the newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.[55]
1932 – James Chadwick discovers the neutron.[56]
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 assistant Fritz Strassmann by bombarding uranium
with fast neutrons discover experimentally and prove nuclear fission with radiochemical
methods.[57]
6 January 1939 – Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann publish the first paper about their discovery
in the German review Die Naturwissenschaften.[58]
10 February 1939 – Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann publish the second paper about their
discovery in Die Naturwissenschaften, using for the first time the term uranium fission, and
predict the liberation of additional neutrons in the fission process.[59]
11 February 1939 – Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch publish the first theoretical
interpretation of nuclear fission, a term coined by Frisch, in the British review Nature.[60]
11 October 1939 – The Einstein–Szilárd letter, suggesting that the United States construct a
nuclear weapon, is delivered to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt signs the
order to build a nuclear weapon on 6 December 1941.[61]
26 February 1941 – Discovery of plutonium by Glenn Seaborg and Arthur Wahl.
September 1942 – General Leslie Groves takes charge of the Manhattan Project.
2 December 1942 – Under the leadership of Fermi, the first self-sustaining nuclear chain
reaction takes place in Chicago, United States, at the Chicago Pile-1.

Nuclear arms deployment

16 July 1945 – The first nuclear weapon is detonated in a plutonium form near Socorro, New
Mexico, United States in the successful Trinity test.
6 August 1945 – The second nuclear weapon is detonated and the first to be deployed in
combat when the Little Boy uranium bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
9 August 1945 – The third nuclear weapon is detonated and the second (and last so far) to be
deployed in combat, when the Fat Man plutonium bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of
Nagasaki.
5 September 1951 – The U.S. Air Force announces the awarding of a contract for the
development of an "atomic-powered airplane".
1 November 1952 – The first hydrogen bomb, largely designed by Edward Teller, is tested at
Eniwetok Atoll.
"Atoms for Peace"
8 December 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech before the UN General
Assembly, announces the Atoms for Peace program to provide nuclear power to developing
countries.
21 January 1954 – The first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), is launched into
the Thames River near New London, Connecticut, United States.
27 June 1954 – The first nuclear power plant begins operation near Obninsk, USSR.
17 September 1954 – Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission,
states that nuclear energy will be "too cheap to meter".[62]
29 September 1957 – 200+ people die as a result of the Mayak nuclear waste storage tank
explosion in Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union. Two hundred and seventy thousand people were
exposed to dangerous radiation levels.[63]
1957 to 1959 – The Soviet Union and the United States both begin deployment of ICBMs.
1958 – The neutron bomb, a special type of tactical nuclear weapon developed specifically to
release a relatively large portion of its energy as energetic neutron radiation, is invented by
Samuel Cohen of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
1960 – Herman Kahn publishes the book On Thermonuclear War.
November 1961 – In Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck appears outlining the plans
of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for the construction of
an enormous network of concrete-lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United
States sufficient to shelter millions of people to serve as a refuge in case of nuclear war.[64]
12 October 1962 to 28 October 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis brings Earth to the brink of
nuclear war.
10 October 1963 – The Partial Test Ban Treaty goes into effect, banning above ground nuclear
testing.
26 August 1966 – The first pebble bed reactor goes on line in Jülich, West Germany (some
nuclear engineers think that the pebble bed reactor design can be adapted for atomic powered
vehicles).
27 January 1967–The Outer Space Treaty bans the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.
1968 – Physicist Freeman J. Dyson proposes building a space ark using an Orion nuclear-
pulse propulsion rocket powered by hydrogen bombs. The rocket would have a payload of
50,000 tonnes, a crew of 240, and be able to travel at 3.3% of the speed of light and would
reach Alpha Centauri in 133 years. It would cost $367 billion in 1968 dollars, which is the
equivalent of about $2.2 trillion in 2012 dollars.[65][66]

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl

28 March 1979 – The Three Mile Island accident occurs at the Three Mile Island Nuclear
Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, dampening enthusiasm in the United States
for nuclear power, and causing a dramatic shift in the growth of nuclear power in the United
States.
6 May 1979 – A large anti-nuclear demonstration was held in Washington, D.C., when 125,000
people[38] including the Governor of California, attended a march and rally against nuclear
power.[39]
23 September 1979 – In New York City, almost 200,000 people attended a protest against
nuclear power.[40]
26 April 1986 – The Chernobyl disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near
Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR, reducing enthusiasm for nuclear power among many people in the
world, and causing a dramatic shift in the growth of nuclear power.
Nuclear arms reduction
8 December 1987 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington
1987. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed after negotiations following the October
11–12, 1986 Reykjavík Summit to go farther than a nuclear freeze – they agreed to reduce
nuclear arsenals. IRBMs and SRBMs were eliminated.
1990–Present – Nuclear power is the primary source of electricity in France. Throughout the
1990s and 2000s (decade), France produces over three quarters of its power from nuclear
sources (78.8%), the highest percentage in the world during these 2 decades.[67][68]
31 July 1991 – As the Cold War ends, the Start 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 – The Megatons 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.[69]
2006 – Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace and environmentalists such as Stewart
Brand[70] suggest the deployment of more advanced nuclear power technology for electric
power generation (such as pebble-bed reactors) to combat global warming.
21 November 2006 – Implementation of the ITER fusion power reactor project near Cadarache,
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 – A number of nuclear engineers begin to suggest that, to combat global warming,
it would be more efficient to build nuclear reactors that operate on the thorium cycle.[71][72]
8 April 2010 – The New START treaty is signed by the United States and Russia in Prague. It
mandates the eventual reduction by both sides to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic
nuclear weapons each.

Fukushima
11 March 2011 – A tsunami resulting from the Tōhoku earthquake causes severe damage to
the Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan, causing partial nuclear meltdowns in several of
the reactors. Many international leaders express concerns about the accidents and some
countries re-evaluate existing nuclear energy programs. On 11 April 2011 this event was rated
level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale by the Japanese government's nuclear safety
agency.[73][74] 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.

Influence on popular culture

1895 – Robert Cromie published The Crack of Doom (1895), which gives a plausible
description of an atomic bomb.[75]
1914 – H. G. Wells publishes science fiction novel The World Set Free, describing how
scientists discover potentially limitless energy locked inside of atoms, and describes the
deployment of atomic bombs.
October 1939 – Amazing Stories published a painting of an atomic power plant by science
fiction artist Howard M. Duffin on its back cover.[76]
1940 – Robert A. Heinlein published the science fiction
short story "Blowups Happen" about an accident at an
atomic power plant.
1940 – Robert A. Heinlein published the short story
"Solution Unsatisfactory" which posits radioactive dust as
a weapon that the U.S. develops in a crash program to end
World War II.
1945 – The Atomaton chapter of Sweet 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 after Sweet Adelines was founded (July 13,
1945), the first nuclear bomb, Trinity, was detonated.
5 July 1946 – The bikini swimsuit, named after Bikini Atoll,
where an atomic bomb test called Operation Crossroads
had taken place a few days earlier on 1 July 1946, was
introduced at a fashion show in Paris.[77]
1946 – Virgil Jordan published Manifesto for the Atomic Cover of Atomic War number one,
Age, Rutgers University Press. November, 1952
1948 – Voltolino Fontani published : Manifesto of Eaismo,
Società Editrice Italiana, Livorno.
1951 – Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel Foundation (consisting mostly of stories originally
published between 1942 and 1944) is published. In this novel, the first novel of the Foundation
series, the Foundation on Terminus, guided by Psychohistory, invents a religion called
Scientism which has an atomic priesthood based on the scientific use of atomic energy to
pacify, impress, and control the masses of the barbarian inhabitants of the stellar kingdoms
surrounding Terminus as the Galactic Empire breaks up.
1954 – Them!, a science fiction film about humanity's battle with a nest of giant mutant ants,
was one of the first of the "nuclear monster" movies.
1954 – The science fiction film Godzilla was released, about an iconic fictional monster that is
a gigantic irradiated dinosaur, transformed from the fallout of an H-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 on the TV show
Disneyland, this film was also shown to almost all baby boomers in their public school
auditoriums or their science classes and was instrumental in creating within that generation a
mostly favorable attitude toward nuclear power.[78]
1957–The current leader of the Nizari sect of Ismaili Shia Islam, Shah Karim al-Husayni, the
Aga Khan IV, acceded to the Imamship at age 20. One of the titles bestowed on him by his
followers was his designation as The Imam of the Atomic Age.[79]
1958 – The Atomium was constructed for the Brussels World's Fair.
1958 –The Peace Symbol was designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement by
Gerald Holtom.[80]
1959 – The popular film On the Beach shows the last remnants of humanity in Australia
awaiting the end of the human race after a nuclear war.
1959 – The novel Alas, Babylon focuses on a community in Florida after a nuclear apocalypse.
23 September 1962 – The Jetsons animated TV series began on ABC, attempting to
humorously depict life in the fully developed Atomic Age of 2062.
1964 – The film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (aka
Dr. Strangelove), a black comedy directed by Stanley Kubrick about an accidentally triggered
nuclear war, was released.
1970 – The underground comic book Hydrogen Bomb Funnies is published.[81]
 1982 – The documentary film The Atomic Cafe, detailing society's attitudes toward the atomic
bomb in the early Atomic Age, debuted to widespread acclaim.
1982 – Jonathan Schell's book Fate 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 the
nuclear freeze movement.
1983 – The cartoon book The End by cartoonist Skip Morrow, about the lighter side of nuclear
apocalypse, is published.[82]
20 November 1983 – The Day After, an American television movie was aired on the ABC
Television Network, and also 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 is presented in which Carl Sagan suggested that we need to reduce 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 the nuclear freeze
movement.
1985 – 1990 in the Film series Back to the Future, references to the Atomic Age and uses of
Nuclear Energy are broadly explored; for example the use of Plutonium in the time machine,
the concept of "Mr. Fusion" (a futuristic small scale fusion reactor for domestic use that can use
garbage as fuel) and references to the common 1950s conceptions of the Atomic Age.
17 December 1989 – The animated cartoon series The Simpsons debuted on television on the
Fox Network, providing a humorous look at the Atomic Age, since the main protagonist, Homer
Simpson, is employed as an operator at a nuclear power plant.
Beginning in the 1990s, nostalgia stores that specialize in selling modern furniture or artifacts
from the 1950s often have included the words Atomic Age as part of the name of, or advertising
for the store.
1997 – The first installment of the Fallout series, a video game series set in an alternate earth
post-apocalyptic world, is released by Black Isle Studios/Interplay. Both the visual style and
many Inseries references deal with the atomic age optimism towards nuclear power and the
stark contrast it creates to the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
1999 – Blast from the Past was released. It is a romantic comedy film about a nuclear physicist,
his wife, and son that enter a well-equipped spacious fallout shelter during the 1962 Cuban
Missile Crisis. They do not emerge until 35 years later, in 1997. The film shows their reaction to
contemporary society.
1999 – Larry Niven published the science fiction novel Rainbow Mars. In this novel, in the 31st
century, Earth uses a dating system based on what is called the Atomic Era, in which the year
one is 1945. Thus, what we call the year 3053 A.D. (the year the novel begins) is in the novel
the year 1108 A.E.
Autumn 2007 – Bachelor Pad Magazine, "The New Digest of Atomic Age Culture" began
publication.[83]
23 November 2010 – Civilization V, the fifth game in a long-running popular turn-based
strategy game series, was released. One of the many eras in the game is the Atomic era where
players can make ICBMs, nuclear reactors and submarines and even sci-fi style giant nuclear-
powered robots.
25 May 2018 - Parmaanu, an Indian movie regarding the Second Pokhran Project was
released.

See also
Atomic Age (comics)
Atomic Age (design)
Eaismo
 Googie architecture
Information Age
Jet Age
Machine Age
Mid-century modern
Nuclear art
Nuclear electric rocket
Nuclear power debate
Nuclear weapons in popular culture
Retrofuturism
Space Age
Space age pop
Timeline of nuclear weapons development

References
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Further reading
"Presidency in the Nuclear Age" (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Events-and-Awards/Forums.aspx?f=2
009), conference and forum at the JFK Library, Boston, October 12, 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".

External links
Annotated bibliography on the Nuclear Age (https://web.archive.org/web/20110905235003/htt
p://alsos.wlu.edu/default.aspx) at the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues.
Atomic Age Alliance (http://www.atomicage.org), a volunteer group dedicated to preserving
Atomic Age culture and architecture.
The Nation in the Nuclear Age (http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/36809/slide-show-nation-n
uclear-age), a slideshow by The Nation.
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