Nimbus, Cumulonimbus, Stratus, Clouds are everywhere in the sky. Every day, unless you live in a desert. Clouds teach us important lessons in life. I am not the weather man, but if you tell me I am a philosopher I would feel proud. I like to look at the sky, when I have nothing else to do. And today it is cloudy, no blue at all.
We had a playground near our house. Often covered with fresh grass, it is a great place to be. When there is no sun, I would just lie on the grass and look at the sky, the clouds just drifting, just like the life. If you would like to know important lessons of silence, I suggest you read my previous article. But here I would like to emphasize on a historical cloud that changed the course of million lives as today.
A historical day, end of an Era.
It was 9th August 1945. There was a B29 plane flying over Japanese shores in stealth mode with, accompanying wing aircrafts. I would like you to meet Major Charles W. Sweeny who is the captain of the aircraft Bockscar. Yes, as you guessed it this is not an ordinary flight. The aircraft is carrying the "Fatman" the heaviest of the two atomic bombs which are responsible for end of the war, by means of instant death to over 100000 people. Which would seal the fate of many more to come. Just two days before, Hiroshima was bombed and everyone around the world shook in horror as the devastating effects of the nuclear power. Even the creators of the nuclear weapons began to doubt their sanity, as human beings. Cruel in its nature, destructive in power, atomic bombs are one of the cruelest creations of modern ethical, developed man. Hence, the second bomb, was supposed to cause more harm, as it was even bigger than the first in weight and destructive power.
We will come back to the day of the bombing, the B29 came to the primary target of the atomic bomb, the city of Kokura. However, on this day, the sky of Kokura was covered with smoky clouds due previous bombing combined with poor weather. And as visual targeting was the norm those days, Captain Sweeny decided to move to the secondary target, and around 1100 hours they reached the City of Nagasaki. Now he had bigger problems. The Nagasaki also was covered with smoke and clouds that day. While waiting for the clouds to clear, they had limited time until they reach the limit of their fuel capacity to fly back to the base. Captain Sweeny had a decision to make, either drop the bomb, with radar guidance, blindly over the clouds, with bigger chance of missing target or abandon the mission. Yet, in the last minute, suddenly a death hole was opened up in the carpet of clouds showing the city underneath, and at 1102 the "Fat Man" left its safe compartment to rapidly descend towards the Mitsubishi, factories in the heart of the city.
At 1600 feet above the ground the bomb detonated, and before even the B29 left the scene, 40000 lives were lost, in seconds which followed the detonation. The closest were lucky, as I am sure they did not even feel what happened when their bodies vaporized in hot nuclear blast shockwave. The death must be instantaneous in such close range. Unlucky were the ones which were wounded, and the children and animals whom to be born in the years to come. Survivors who lost their loved ones, as they were there to witness the aftermath and faced the consequences of radiation. It sure ended war; however, everyone doubted the method. Cruelty ended with cruelty. Who knows, what would have happened, if dictators stayed in power until the new millennium? right?
A cloud would save the day Story.
Even today the sky is cloudy, just like the day in Nagasaki, there is mist everywhere. I am glad, I am not in the era of the world war, and there is no B29 over the clouds. It made me think, what would have happened if there was no opening in the clouds that day. Would that save 20000 more lives? Could that save more lives and still ended the war. Yes, I do have enormous respect for the innocent looking clouds over my head. And the nature, is so unpredictable. A cloud did save the day in this historical story for people in Kokura, who lived their whole lives, but tragic for the Nagasakians.
If you have any cloud stories I would like to know. maybe I will expand this article another day.
Hiroshima Bombing
Following is a paragraph from the book, what is time about the bomb "incident". I would apologize if you would not grasp the full meaning of paragraph.
But it appears the arrow moves and hits the target after all. So, the time must not consist of instances. And how does our brain get around this problem? Our brain, or the mind tries to understand the world. And it creates the freeze frames in time which are again arbitrary as time has no instances. Imagine when we talk about the Hiroshima bomb incident. The picture of the gigantic mushroom cloud comes into our mind. But if time has no instances, we cannot talk about the Hiroshima bomb. It would be meaningless. There is no specific point in time which can be pointed out as the Hiroshima bomb incident.
Hiroshima bomb incident,
It is not the plane that flew with the bomb over Japan,
It is not the release of the bomb
It is not the travel of the bomb through the air
It is not the impact of the bomb on ground
It is not the detonation
It is not the explosion
It is not the nuclear blast
It is not the shock wave
It is not the collapse of the buildings and the clouds that followed
It is a collection of every one of these events. And we know by the arrow paradox we cannot talk about an individual event which happened at an instance of time as time seems to be instance less in the first place
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