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Comment Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score 1) 672

I wonder if they are taking any bets on the probability of an "oops" incident.

Source: July 16, 1945: Trinity Blast Opens Atomic Age @ Wired "The Trinity test, as it was known, was the culmination of the American effort to win the race against Germany (and, ultimately, the Soviet Union) in building an atomic bomb. A mere three weeks after the test, the United States used atomic bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But prior to the 16th, none of those involved in the project knew if they had built a devastating new weapon or a spectacular dud. With gallows humor, the Los Alamos physicists got up a betting pool on the possible yield of the bomb. Estimates ranged from zero to as high as 45,000 tons of TNT. Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 for his work on nuclear fission, offered side odds on the bomb destroying all life on the planet."

Fermi did have a sense of humor. Offering a side bet for a contingency in which you can never collect sounds like classic scientist humor to me.

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