Nuclear Portraits

In Los Alamos at the Bradbury Science museum there is a collection of professionally done portraits that hang on the walls of the room showcasing the history of the atomic bomb.

The portraits were taken in the last ten years and are of various people involved in creating or supporting the creation of the atomic bomb within the Los Alamos community. The portraits are part of a book filled with recollections about life in the 1940s when the bomb was being created and everything about Los Alamos including the town itself was kept secret.

This display of portraits really moved me. It shows the people involved in one of the most significant developments of human kind as normal human beings. They're old now, almost all are retired and many have passed. Next to each portrait is a biography explaining the person and their involvement in Los Alamos. Many have photos showing them when they were in their twenties and thirties at Los Alamos. When they were young and times were simpler.

Like the lead characters in the movie Men In Black our popular culture likes to depict people that work for the government on secret projects as different from us, with less emotion and more capability to handle the work than the average person. The truth is the people who built the atomic bomb in secrecy and the people that toil for the government to protect us today are just like us.

This display offers us a chance to see them without the veil and understand them for who they are and what they've done.










The book associated with this display is "They Changed the World: People of the Manhattan Project" by A.J. Melnick