spynotes ::
  June 29, 2006
Da Bomb

This morning, at the breakfast table, I had to try to explain nuclear war to AJ. He had brought David Macaulay�s The New Way Things Work downstairs with him and was staring at a picture of the cross-section of a staircase leading seven stories below the surface of the earth to a small room. �What�s fallout?� he asked. I flipped back a couple of pages to his favorite page in the book so far, a picture of nuclear fission on the left and nuclear fusion on the right. �That looks like static electricity,� he said.

�That�s because it shows the insides of atoms like the picture of static electricity. Nuclear fission is splitting atoms. Nuclear fusion is sticking atoms together. Both things create energy and both result in radiation. Do you remember what radiation is?�

�The sun has radiation.�

�That�s right. Like the sun�s energy, the energy from nuclear power can be used for good things like making electricity for us to use. But some of the sun�s radiation is dangerous. That�s why we wear sunscreen. Some of nuclear energy is dangerous too. If there were a nuclear explosion, we call the radiation afterwards �fallout.� That picture is a fallout shelter. It�s underground so people escape the dangerous radiation. We�re not really sure if they work, though.�

�When is there a nuclear explosion?�

�Well, hopefully never. There could be an accident at a nuclear power plant. Or some bad people might try to use nuclear radiation to hurt other people. But lots of people work very hard to try to keep that from happening.�

There was silence after this. I�ve heard nothing more on the subject, but given AJ�s tendency to percolate things for about three days, I have a feeling we�ll be talking about this again. In the mean time, I�m trying to figure out how to answer the question that is even more challenging than �What is nuclear fission?�, the question I fear is coming.

�Why would someone make a nuclear explosion?�

I just don�t know, AJ. Even at age 5 � perhaps especially at age 5 � the line between science and ethics is very thin.

4 people said it like they meant it

 
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