The filming of many scenes will
be long remembered in Hollywood. For
instance, the reenactment of the "brickpile" test underneath Stagg
Field at the University of Chicago, an event which one atomic expert,
Dr. Henry T. Wensel, prophesied would "2000 years from now, when
all our present sources of energy are exhausted. become recognized
as possibly the most important date in all history."
Keen interest also was displayed by workers
and actors alike in scenes taking
place in such famed atomic laboratories as those at Columbia University.
the University of Chicago and Los Alamos. for these. actual atomic
equipment valued at more than $100,000 was rented by the studio,
and additional thousands spent in duplicating instruments that could
not otherwise be obtained. Included in the rented equipment were
various types of Geiger-Muller counters. for detecting radioactivity,
and a cathode ray oscillograph for measuring energy and indicating
fission.
The greatest excitement on the set
came with the filming of the New Mexico bomb test at Alamogordo.
and the Hiroshima raid. To depict the blinding flash of the atom
bomb, greater than mid-day light, it is estimated that over two-and-a-half
million watts of light were used for each scene, the equivalent
of more than 42,000 average house bulbs. More than a million watts
powered a battery of huge skylights surrounding the set with a million-and-a-half
watts coming from 100 spot lamps. An intricate system demanding
ten miles of cable connected the set with the studio's main generator,
bringing a simultaneous blinding flash from all the lamps and throwing
a maximum load on the generator..
For these and all other scenes showing
the atom bomb, iall persons not directly
connected with the film were barred from the stage. The one exception
was Dr. Oppenheimer, who visited Hollywood at the precise moment
when Actor Hume Cronyn was depicting him in one of the most dramatic
events of the New Mexico test. The young, thinnish physicist, in
distinct contrast to the popular conception of bearded. dignifieJ
scientific genius, saluted his screen prototype by doffing his hat
and tossing it to Cronyn, shouting as he did so, "Hello, Oppy!"
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| "It's equal to
the destructive power of 20,000 tons of TNT!" |

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