That’s the amount of mass converted to energy when Little Boy detonated over Hiroshima. E = mc2 in action produced a 15 kiloton explosion. 1.7% of the payload.
My late wife and I were humbled to be at the Peace Park during the 50th anniversary memorial observance. I remember being at Aioi Hashi with her, the T-shaped bridge that was the intended target for the bombardier. A crosswind would steer Little Boy so that it detonated 600 m over Shima Hospital.
We were humbled by being treated as guests on that memorial visit. People taking their pictures with us. Later we would talk with Hibakusha that my wife knew. Again. Open arms, no malice. Quite the opposite.
I remember actual pieces of cement with people’s shadows burnt into them. Streamers of paper cranes. So many cranes. For a little girl who died of leukemia. The Genbaku dome. In ruins, untouched.
A homeless man. My shock to find Japanese homeless! Sitting just outside the Peace Park. On a bench on the Motoyasu River, the Genbaku dome in sight. He beaconed me over. Face leathered, all smile through broken and rotted teeth.
He opens his jacket. He beams. I am not sure what he’s showing me. Then he pulls it out. A rabbit. A baby rabbit. Little short eared one. It shivers. I cry like a little girl. Japanese tourists milling about, watching. I pet it. Can’t see through the tears.
And one guy survived both. He was waiting to leave he ro Shima. I'm sure you know the annunciation after getting well enough to go home to Nagasaki and boom it go there lights again. He lived up till recently
@Vivaci Little Boy was a very inefficient bomb. It had a payload of about 64 kg and only about 1 kg or less actually fissioned. Thus the 1.7% of the payload comment.
Of that 1 kg that fissioned, only 700 mg was converted to energy. That is the mass of 700 micro liters of water.
