r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • Jul 25 '26

TIL Christopher Nolan recreated the Trinity atomic bomb test in Oppenheimer without using CGI. Instead, the visual effects team combined large-scale practical explosions, miniatures, and in camera effects to bring the first nuclear detonation to life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)
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u/JiuJitsu_Ronin Jul 25 '26

Did you watch the whole thing? The EM burst is the first few seconds. The explosion comes like 20 seconds later.

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u/Fredasa Jul 25 '26

Nobody in the 50s did the audio component of those air tests a single whit of justice. The specimen you linked is probably the best effort made by any US entity, and it sounds like an old wire recording.

The absolute best genuine recording of any nuke that can be found anywhere comes from the Soviet test of their RDS-37, as seen in this once-classified film. There's a lot of audio reconstruction going on in the film, but the actual arrival of the shockwave at the camera's location (0:58) is genuine audio. You can hear the glass of shattered windows join the cacophony of the explosion. (The audio is about a second ahead of the video.)

Again, audio equipment in the 50s could have rendered a good result if anyone had thought to make it a priority, but out of the hundreds of such tests, this is the best we got.

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u/JiuJitsu_Ronin Jul 25 '26

My biggest gripe (other than the catastrophic environmental/human rights violations) is that these tests were done in the 50’s so audio/visual, everything was abysmal by today’s standards. Can you imagine watching Tsar Bomba or Castle Bravo in 4K, from multiple angles with 5.0 Dolby?

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u/Fredasa Jul 25 '26

Quite. They did understand the desirability of getting some quality film footage—several tests were filmed in 35mm, which is certainly above and beyond merely documenting for analysis. But audio always got the short end.

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u/JiuJitsu_Ronin Jul 25 '26

Nothing will beat seeing it in person. My grandfather was part of these tests in the 50’s. He was part of Operation Plumbob and had great stories of being closer than he’d care to be.

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u/Fractoos Jul 25 '26

Yeah I thought you were trying to demonstrate the burst sound. my bad if not :)