---
title: "Detonation of First Atomic Bomb"
year: 1945
country: "United States"
canonical: "https://recap.at/1945/trinity-test"
slug: "trinity-test"
recapType: "global_event"
startDate: "1945-01-01"
---

# Detonation of First Atomic Bomb

> The Trinity test detonates the first nuclear weapon in New Mexico, initiating the atomic age and Cold War.

On July 16, 1945, the United States detonated the world's first nuclear weapon in the New Mexico desert, a test codenamed Trinity. The explosion yielded roughly 22 kilotons and instantly validated decades of theoretical physics, setting off an arms race and fundamentally reshaping global power.

## Summary

Detonation is a type of combustion involving a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations propagate supersonically through shock waves with speeds about 1 km/sec and differ from deflagrations which have subsonic flame speeds about 1 m/sec. Detonation may form from an explosion of fuel-oxidizer mixture. Compared with deflagration, detonation doesn't need to have an external oxidizer. Oxidizers and fuel mix when deflagration occurs. Detonation is more destructive than deflagration. In detonation, the flame front travels through the air-fuel faster than sound; while in deflagration, the flame front travels through the air-fuel slower than sound.

## Voices

- **President Harry S. Truman, U.S. President** (official, celebratory) - White House statement, August 6, 1945
  > The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
- **J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of Los Alamos Laboratory** (developer, shocked) - Synthesized from period accounts - Oppenheimer interviews, 1945
  > Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
- **Pope Pius XII, Head of the Roman Catholic Church** (analyst, grieving) - Synthesized from period accounts - Vatican Radio broadcast, August 1945
  > A new and dreadful instrument of destruction has been placed in human hands. The conscience of mankind must address what science has unleashed.
- **General Leslie Groves, Military Director of the Manhattan Project** (official, supportive) - Synthesized from period accounts - Report to Secretary of War Stimson, July 1945
  > The test was successful beyond the most optimistic expectations. We have delivered a weapon of unprecedented destructive capacity to the nation.
- **Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist** (expert, skeptical) - Synthesized from period accounts - Einstein statements, August 1945
  > If I had known the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.

## Sources

- [Detonation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detonation) - Wikipedia

---
Canonical: https://recap.at/1945/trinity-test