I Am Become Death

The photography class that I am taking was supposed to take a field trip to Cades Cove today but it was called on account of rain. Lot's of rain. Rain, rain, rain. Alexis had already planned a shopping day in Pigeon Forge with the two boys since I was going to be gone, so I made a field trip of my own to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, TN.

Shots of a plasma ball. I did them with a slow shutter speed (1.6" with an f-stop of 11) to get a bit of glow. These turned out good but the overhead lights really kept me from getting the whole shot without having reflections on the glass. I'm going to have to see if I can get in first thing one Saturday and convince them to turn off the lights in this room before anyone else gets there. Those would be amazing.

Similar to a plasma ball, this is a disk where the electrical charges will react to wherever you touch on the disk. I liked the lightning look.
Old cold miners hat with acetylene lamp (I think it was acetylene). Can you imagine working in deep dark mines wearing only this for light? Sorry about the reflections, it was stored in a glass enclosure. I even used a polarizing filter to minimize reflections.
These ornamental looking things are actually modern day drill tips used for drilling for oil.
They have a very cool model of a offshore drilling rig that is amazing. Here I took two shots of the same picture, only shifting focus from background (left) to the foreground (right).
Cut away view of an internal combustion engine. This was one of the few displays that actually got any natural light so I wanted to take advantage of that.
Self portrait in a parabolic solar dish that is used to collect solar light (not a solar energy panel, it actually funnels light into tubes that light up inside). Yes I am wearing my mp3 player ear buds. I have to have music playing when shooting.Spinning model of an atom.Why so glum, Mr. Nuclear Energy Worker?Oh, your right hand fell off? That sucks pretty bad. I guess radiation poisoning will do that to ya! (Funny thing is, the same glove has been off for over a year now...don't think the curator has noticed yet.)
Pretty pattern don't you think? Can you guess what it is?
How about this one?
Now? Still can't figure out what this has to do with "energy"?Still nothing? Ok, think "sudden release of energy". You're staring down the wrong end of a 1,900 lb short range attack missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.Exact replica of the bomb that was detonated over Hiroshima. The uranium-235 used in it was produced here and the United States nuclear weapons fuel is stockpiled at the Y-12 plant.
Mark 28 bomb, our first thermonuclear device, "kicking it up a notch" as Emeril would say.
Visiting this museum always astounds me with our creative ability to take thisrevise it into the worlds largest building (at the time) full of rudimentary controls like this
and create something like this

I am NOT going to go into the politics and morality of it. I think we did what had to be done. But it is an odd mix of pride in our (humankind's...not just the US) ability to create something like it and shame in our having created the necessity for it.

The post title? It's from a Hindu scripture of which Robert Oppenheimer later said he was reminded of after overseeing the development of the atomic bomb. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."