Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico. As a boy recently arrived in America, I remember my sense of accomplishment when I was able to spell "Albuquerque" as well as "Mississippi" and "Tallahassee". We have already visited another city in New Mexico, Santa Fe, in the posting on this blog, "The Would-Have-Been Nation Of Westland".
Albuquerque began as a Spanish settlement. It became part of independent Mexico and then passed to U.S. control. One reason for settlement of the southwest, other than gold and inexpensive land, was that the dry climate was beneficial for those with certain ailments.
New Mexico is where the first atomic bomb was tested. The fissile material can be either plutonium or the 235 isotope of uranium. Both materials are difficult to obtain. Only about one atom out of 140 in natural uranium is the 235 isotope. The rest are mostly the heavier 238 isotope.
An atom of uranium has 92 protons in it's nucleus. This means that an atom of the 235 isotope has 143 neutrons and the 238 isotope has 151 neutrons. Isotopes are atoms of the same element but with differing numbers of neutrons. The 238 isotope is held together by it's greater number of neutrons more securely so that it cannot be split by a high-speed neutron. Only the 235 isotope is fissionable. When the atom is split, several more neutrons are released and the chain reaction continues.
The one atom of the 235 isotope out of about 140 in natural uranium must be painstakingly separated, in one of several possible ways, in the process known as enrichment. Plutonium is a man-made element that comes from firing neutrons into uranium so that they join, rather than split, the nucleus. This creates an unstable uranium nucleus so that two neutrons transform into protons by ejecting electrons. This creates the new element of plutonium, since an element is defined by the number of neutrons, and plutonium, like uranium-235, is fissile.
The first nuclear detonation, the one tested in New Mexico, was a plutonium bomb, which is of a more complex design than a uranium bomb. The design of the uranium bomb was considered as so simple that it didn't need to be tested.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a uranium bomb and the one on Nagasaki a plutonium bomb. The research and building of the atomic bomb had been called the Manhattan Project.
If you ever run out of things to worry about there is always how careless we can be with nuclear weapons and materials. Did you know that a nuclear bomb was once accidentally dropped in New Mexico, but the information was not released until much later?
Three U.S. states in a row, Georgia, South Carolina and, North Carolina all have had bombs dropped on them either accidentally or because of an aerial mishap. The one dropped off the coast of Georgia has never been found.
Four bombs were once dropped on California due to an aerial mishap.
Four bombs were dropped on Spain because of an aerial refueling accident, one of which landed in water.
Fortunately, none of the above bombs resulted in a nuclear detonation.
As for the security of nuclear materials, a vast amount of it, specifically plutonium, went missing after the end of the Soviet Union, and has never been recovered or accounted for.
Anyway, here is Albuquerque.
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This is being written from Niagara County, in New York State. In 1995 there was the terrible bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. What kind of people would do something like this? The bomb was a rental truck filled with barrels of racing fuel mixed with nitrogen- based fertilizer. Even if this was an enemy of the country, this was in no way a military target and the vast majority of those killed were civilians, including many children.
Then came the unbelievable news that it was a local, Tim McVeigh, who had carried out the bombing. Someone who had grown up among us had done this. McVeigh was unrepentant about the bombing.
The first of the following scenes is at the Survivor Tree, so-called because it survived the bombing.
Then came the unbelievable news that it was a local, Tim McVeigh, who had carried out the bombing. Someone who had grown up among us had done this. McVeigh was unrepentant about the bombing.
The first of the following scenes is at the Survivor Tree, so-called because it survived the bombing.
Tulsa, also in the state of Oklahoma, is known for two things, Christianity and oil. The U.S. south is known as the Bible Belt, and Tulsa is called " The Buckle of the Bible Belt".
One thing that populated California was the "Dust Bowl" of the 1930s on the Plains. Incessant plowing led to a tremendous amount of wind erosion, with great clouds of dust in the sky. Arrivals in California from Oklahoma were known as "Okies".
One thing that populated California was the "Dust Bowl" of the 1930s on the Plains. Incessant plowing led to a tremendous amount of wind erosion, with great clouds of dust in the sky. Arrivals in California from Oklahoma were known as "Okies".
Denver is in a logical place for a city. It is immediately west of the Rocky Mountains and clearly originated as a place for people moving westward to rest and resupply before proceeding across the mountains.
Due to it's altitude, Denver is known as the "Mile-High City". This means that water boils more quickly in Denver than at lower altitudes, because there is less atmospheric pressure. If the earth's radius is about 4,000 miles, and Denver is a mile above sea level, a quick calculation of gravity, using the Inverse Square Law, tells us that an object that weighed 1,000 kg at sea level would weigh only 995 kg in Denver.
Due to it's altitude, Denver is known as the "Mile-High City". This means that water boils more quickly in Denver than at lower altitudes, because there is less atmospheric pressure. If the earth's radius is about 4,000 miles, and Denver is a mile above sea level, a quick calculation of gravity, using the Inverse Square Law, tells us that an object that weighed 1,000 kg at sea level would weigh only 995 kg in Denver.
Salt Lake City is in the state of Utah. It is built in the relatively flat area, known as the Great Basin. We saw in my geology theory, described in "The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com that the Great Basin is actually where the north pole was in the previous polar era. It is flat, amid the Rocky Mountains, because of magma emergence from below as the longitudinal lines of magma emergence, caused by the earth's spin, converged there. This also explains the hot geyser, Old Faithful, in Yellowstone National Park.
This is explained in sections 6) and 7) of the theory. Near Salt Lake City is the Great Salt Lake. We saw in section L) of the theory that this is one of the regularly-spaced centers of magma emergence across the world. This is what provides the heat for Old Faithful. In our visit to "Hungary", we saw that the hot springs there are because Lake Balaton is another of the centers of magma emergence.
The reason that the Great Salt Lake is so-called is that this was once seafloor, pushed westward by the spreading of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge until it was forced upwards by collision with the Pacific Plate. This tectonic collision is also what formed the Rocky Mountains. Ocean water was trapped as the seafloor was forced upwards. Most of it evaporated, leaving it's salt concentrated in the Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake City is also known for the Mormons. The following scenes begin in Temple Square, between the Salt Lake Temple and the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is the oval domed building. The Temple could be thought of as the Mormon version of Solomon's Temple. The Seagull Monument commemorates when the Mormon Pioneers crops were being consumed by crickets, until seagulls descended and ate the crickets.
This is being written not too far from Palmyra, NY, where Joseph Smith lived and claimed to have been guided to the golden plates, written in a "Reformed Egyptian" language by the angel Moroni, and to have been able to translate the writing on the plates, which told about the appearance of Jesus in the western hemisphere, using a "seer stone", to produce The Book of Mormon, which is accepted by Mormons alongside the Bible.
This is Salt Lake City.
This is explained in sections 6) and 7) of the theory. Near Salt Lake City is the Great Salt Lake. We saw in section L) of the theory that this is one of the regularly-spaced centers of magma emergence across the world. This is what provides the heat for Old Faithful. In our visit to "Hungary", we saw that the hot springs there are because Lake Balaton is another of the centers of magma emergence.
The reason that the Great Salt Lake is so-called is that this was once seafloor, pushed westward by the spreading of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge until it was forced upwards by collision with the Pacific Plate. This tectonic collision is also what formed the Rocky Mountains. Ocean water was trapped as the seafloor was forced upwards. Most of it evaporated, leaving it's salt concentrated in the Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake City is also known for the Mormons. The following scenes begin in Temple Square, between the Salt Lake Temple and the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is the oval domed building. The Temple could be thought of as the Mormon version of Solomon's Temple. The Seagull Monument commemorates when the Mormon Pioneers crops were being consumed by crickets, until seagulls descended and ate the crickets.
This is being written not too far from Palmyra, NY, where Joseph Smith lived and claimed to have been guided to the golden plates, written in a "Reformed Egyptian" language by the angel Moroni, and to have been able to translate the writing on the plates, which told about the appearance of Jesus in the western hemisphere, using a "seer stone", to produce The Book of Mormon, which is accepted by Mormons alongside the Bible.
This is Salt Lake City.
Kansas City is in both states of Missouri and Kansas. It is near the center of the U.S. St. Louis has it's arch, representing the " Gateway to the West". But the terrain of Missouri is green and looks "eastern". It is not until we pass Kansas City, entering Kansas, that the terrain really starts to look "western".
Wichita, in Kansas, began as a stopover on the way westward. It is the world capital of aircraft manufacturing. When I was eight years old, not only was "Wichita Lineman" always on the radio but we moved to a city with an airport. I was taken to the airport one day and got a chance to look inside a Cessna Skyhawk, which must have been manufactured in Wichita.
Remember the unit of measure for vertical distances that I thought of, called a "Grav" for gravity. If we measure time in seconds then a grav is 16 feet. This is a very convenient distance to measure by because if we measure an altitude in gravs then the square root of that number is the number of seconds that a compact object would take to fall from that height to the ground, neglecting air resistance. Conversely, the square of the number of seconds that the fall takes gives us the altitude in gravs.
This is Wichita.
Remember the unit of measure for vertical distances that I thought of, called a "Grav" for gravity. If we measure time in seconds then a grav is 16 feet. This is a very convenient distance to measure by because if we measure an altitude in gravs then the square root of that number is the number of seconds that a compact object would take to fall from that height to the ground, neglecting air resistance. Conversely, the square of the number of seconds that the fall takes gives us the altitude in gravs.
This is Wichita.
Omaha, in the state of Nebraska, was, like Chicago, a great center of meatpacking.
Des Moines, in Iowa, originated with a French fort.
Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin, is to wheat what Chicago and Omaha are to beef. Wheat was shipped from Milwaukee out onto the Great Lakes. Before the opening of the Welland Canal the furthest east that a ship could go from Milwaukee was to Buffalo. The grain silos on Buffalo's Lake Erie waterfront held and processed great amounts of wheat from Milwaukee.
Milwaukee is also known for it's breweries. It was a focal point of German immigration, for whom beer was a necessity.
Milwaukee is also known for it's breweries. It was a focal point of German immigration, for whom beer was a necessity.
Fargo, in North Dakota, is named for one of the founders of Wells Fargo Bank. William Fargo was once mayor of Buffalo, NY. He had a mansion in Buffalo but it has been demolished.
