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Anniversary of the 1st Nuclear Test Blast (“TRINITY”), Phila. Federal Building & Liberty Bell…Support the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty
July 16, 2022 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
J. Robert Oppenheimer: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac
Saturday, July 16, Noon, 6th & Market Streets, in front of the Philadelphia Federal Building and across the street from the Liberty Bell, Vigil remembering the 77th anniversary of the first atomic test blast in Alamogordo, New Mexico, code-named “TRINITY”.
The vigil will consist of large banners and posters including ones of the passage from the Bhagavad Gita which J.Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, remembered in the immediate aftermath of the “TRINITY” test blast: ‘Now, I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”
There will also be readings at the vigil from Manhattan Project scientists who witnessed the Trinity test.
Following the dramatic vigil, participants will walk around the Liberty Bell promoting and petitioning the U.S. government to sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
“The place in the New Mexico desert chosen for the Trinity test site was known as “Jornada del Muerto” – Journey of Death or Dead Man’s Trail… The final assembly of the Trinity nuclear test device began on July 13, 1945. The bomb consisted of two parts – the plutonium ‘core’ and the high explosive shell……On July 16, At 5:09 and 45 seconds the countdown began.”… At the viewing site, the visitors were told to lie down on the sand, turn faces from the blast, and bury their heads in their arms. But no one complied. As Edward Teller said, they were “determined to look the beast in the eye”, 20 miles from ground zero…”At 5:29and 45 seconds the firing circuit closed. In a millionth of a second, conditions at the center of the bomb core resembled the state of the universe moments after its first primordial explosion.”
“I am sure that at the end of the world, in the last millisecond
of the earth’s existence, the last human will see what we saw.”
George Kistiakowsky, Manhattan Project scientist
– From JOURNEY OF DEATH by Rich Conti and prepared by the Brandywine Peace Community, 1995