"Atomic explosion stopped at millionths of a second": media microtemporalities and time synchronisation
- From 1945 to the early 1960s, the US government undertook numerous atomic and hydrogen bomb tests. These full-scale explosions were recorded on film from various angles, and at different speeds. Indeed, it soon became required to obtain images of the very first milli-seconds of the expanding phase of the atomic fireball. Ultrahigh-speed cameras able to produce such images were specifically developed for that purpose. This article explores the different “media-temporalities” that intersect in those images. I focus on the “micro-processes happening on a technical level that are very fast,” and more specifically the ones that go into the “Rapatronic camera” designed by Harold Edgerton (head of the US national defense contractor company EG&G) to record the atomic fireball early formation. The scientific slow-motion films and high-speed photographic images operate at the junction of the micro-scale temporality of the atomic explosions’ early phases, and the macro-scale temporality of the political and ecological implications of these explosions. I argue that these films are the objects and inscriptions of micro-temporalities, macro-history and geological times.
Author: | Antoine Prévost-Balga |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-554095 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10328 |
ISSN: | 2280-9481 |
Parent Title (German): | Cinergie |
Publisher: | Università di Bologna - Dipartimento di Scienze per la Qualità della vita |
Place of publication: | Bologna |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2020/07/30 |
Date of first Publication: | 2020/07/30 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/08/28 |
Tag: | High-Speed photography; Media Temporality; Micro-Processes; Synchronization |
Volume: | 9 |
Issue: | 17 |
Page Number: | 10 |
First Page: | 173 |
Last Page: | 182 |
Note: | This work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
HeBIS-PPN: | 470968826 |
Institutes: | Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 7 Künste und Unterhaltung / 79 Sport, Spiele, Unterhaltung / 791 Öffentliche Darbietungen, Film, Rundfunk |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0 |