Explanation for non-native speakers (like me) who didn't know the rule:
The words "how" and "like" clash because "How" already implies manner or appearance, making the addition of "like" (which serves a similar function with "what") superfluous.
In this case. It's hard to make a firm rule because you can construct sentences with both words in them that aren't wrong-sounding, because the same word can be used in subtly grammatically different ways.
A good rule of thumb is to phrase the sentence as a question and see if it sounds correct. "What does it look like?" is fine. "How does it look?" is fine. "How does it look like?" does not. In the question "Like how?", "like" is more akin to "I said, like, what do you want me to do?" - I'm no linguist, but they do have a term for that use.
Hah, this reminds me of the Isaac Asimov story about catching Nazi spies inflitrating the US...
Given Americans' general indifference to perfect grammer, if it "sounds" right they usually don't make a fuss. So they might have learned something new as well.
I haven’t read the Asimov story, but it was probably based on this true event:
As a result, U.S. troops began asking other soldiers questions that they felt only Americans would know the answers to in order to flush out the German infiltrators, which included naming state capitals, sports and trivia questions related to the U.S., etc. This practice resulted in Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke being held at gunpoint for some time after he incorrectly said the Chicago Cubs were in the American League[7][8][9][10] and a captain spending a week in detention after he was caught wearing German boots. General Omar Bradley was repeatedly stopped in his staff car by checkpoint guards who seemed to enjoy asking him such questions. The Skorzeny commando paranoia also contributed to numerous instances of mistaken identity. All over the Ardennes, U.S. soldiers attempted to persuade suspicious U.S. military policemen that they were genuine GIs.
Ugh, I'd fail any questions based on US sports. And, these days, 30 years removed high school civics, I'd likely miss some of the state capitals as well.
Hi, American here and "how" + "to look like" makes my teeth itch. However, people generally find grammar corrections to be needlessly pedantic when the erroneous grammar does not impede comprehension, so I've personally decided to choose my grammatical battles and simply fume about people talking about "how something looks like" in private instead.
I generally also choose to keep such complaints private, and I'm not sure what whim motivated me to speak up this time. Rather to my surprise, this trivial gripe has been voted up more than almost anything else I've written here over the last sixteen years. It would seem that there actually is, in some contexts, somehow, at least some appetite for grammatical pedantry!
Language is tricky. One of the trickiest things! There's so much tied up in it, objective and subjective. It's a simple tool. It's an academic object. It's a well-defined spec. It's a living ambiguous blob. But it's also one of the biggest pieces of one's culture. There's a reason the French are so possessive of their language where it lives in cultural exclaves. There's a reason the Irish have laws to keep their native language alive.
This is how it actually works. The brain machine learns from available data and sorts out which is correct. "Sounds right" is the output from that neural network. The "rules" are then derived from what some set of people think sounds right.
"How ___ like" is probably the single most common mistake I see among non-native speakers. Also, unlike other mistakes which can just sound informal, this one "sounds dumb", to use a mean phrase, but it's good to know for people trying to sound proper.
As a native English speaker who learned a foreign language (German) in high school, I have a pet theory about this, which is that I suspect most other languages use a word roughly equivalent to English "appear" (with which it would be correct to use "how", such as "how the atomic tests appeared from Los Angeles") even in colloquial speech, whereas English tends to reserve those synonyms for more formal registers of speech; in casual conversation in English, you wouldn't ask someone "how did he appear?" (unless you meant the other sense of "appear", as in "become visible"), but you would in, say, German (wie hat er ausgesehen? or wie sah er aus?). Of course, I'm sure learners of English as a foreign language are taught to say "what does he look like?" and not "how does he look like?", but I can imagine them struggling with remembering that just like I struggle with remembering genders and cases and declined forms in German.
This is also a pet peeve of mine. However, I suspect this bothers us because we’ve grown up with standard “western” English (US/UK/Canada/Australia/etc). “How does X Y like” is common in other forms of English, some of which might even be native (but non-western)! For example, I bet this construction is standard in Indian English. Based on population alone, I think this is a losing battle; English is probably going to adopt the structure we dislike. That’s unfortunate for me and you. But I think fighting it is a fool’s errand.
Because the conventions that are considered “standard” evolve over time to match the most common usage. Non-western English is probably already the most common English, due to India alone. Those speaking patterns have been relatively isolated so far, but online media brings it into the mainstream. My main claim is that it will take over the present “standard” usage, because of the sheer quantity (but not in an alarmist xenophobic way, lol).
Some examples that have become normalized for me personally, I think due to working with lots of international folks in tech:
- “i have a doubt” instead of “i have a question”
- “i will not claim X” instead of “i would not claim X” or “i don’t claim X”
- “this is not as X as compared with Y” instead of “this is not as X as Y” or “this is not X compared with Y”
- "it will anyways be fun" instead of "anyways, it will be fun"
I’m not sure if these are broad patterns, or just peculiarities of the specific crowd i hang with. And I don’t think these are standard usages yet, but I’ve become familiar enough that I say these sometimes, despite intuitively feeling that they are wrong.
Edit: i think most of the phrases i have adopted are from Indian English, but unsure.
If it’s the quantity, wouldn’t people just drop English all to gather? (I’m not a proscriptivist for the record, but I do like some non-English languages more than others. Hopefully that’s not too verboten to confess here lol.)
I don’t think it’s verboten! I prefer Turkish over French.
English will certainly continue to evolve, and eventually it may be dropped altogether. But for example, you couldn’t understand English as it was spoken in the 1400s. It is different enough that we have a separate name for it, “Middle English”. Many of the changes languages undergo are influenced by interacting with other languages. There’s no reason to believe English will stop now.
As to why English will probably keep evolving instead of being totally dropped — it is now the lingua franca for most of the world. It would be unlikely to “just drop” the most useful language 90% of people know.
I disagree with the implication that "majority rules" is such an immutable truth that the minority shouldn't even bother fighting or expressing their opinion.
Languages evolve. It is foolish to think that you will stop the evolution. And also purposeless — there is nothing better or worse about my great grandfather’s English, my English, or my kid’s English.
I get it - I am not a hardcore prescriptivist. Language is defined by usage.
But you're going too far in the other direction. Like... language nihilism. It's OK to care. Language is deeply, unavoidably personal. Look at how people describe the feeling they get when they read "how __ like": "Itch". It's not only an academic opinion - it's also a piece of who we are.
I think a lot of folks who haven’t looked in to pop culture and pop science in the ~1950s assume a lot more of Fallout is totally made-up than really is…
Starting with the fact that every one of those novelty songs on the soundtrack were actual period songs. “Atom Bomb Baby” might not have been a huge hit (or maybe it was, I can’t seem to find info), but it’s period music:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3tzsma/update_ama_...
I don't know if I'd say it was the inspiration, as that is probably better credited largely to the book, "A Canticle for Leibowitz", and the "Mad Max" films. But the Fallout franchise certainly makes plenty of satirical reference to the Atomic Craze.
Makes me wonder how many living people on earth have seen a nuclear explosion with their own eyes. It can't be very high, maybe 1-10 thousand? Not a number you would want to see increase, to be sure.
Somewhere between 400,000-550,000 (the number varies greatly depending on source) US servicemen (Army, Navy, and Marines) participated in nuclear tests from 1946 to 1962. As of 2024, about 10,000 were still alive.
The Sedan test [1], part of Project Plowshare, was an underground test in Nevada that sent fallout across a large swath of the U.S. Midwaste, sorry, Midwest.
The wife's family lived in Omaha, Nebraska at the time. A lot of cancer in her family. But then a lot of smokers as well. So who knows.
Regardless, that one was a major fuck-up that seems to have kind of put the kibosh on "underground" testing of that sort.
These are neat images, but it's hard to tell how they differ from long exposures taken without any illumination by atomic blast. I've taken long exposures at night that look very similar.
Like recent Northern Lights occurrences where phone cameras capture them much more vibrantly than they appear to the naked eye. But that might be more of the phone sensor being more sensitive to colors in low light than the human eye is.
you make it sound like it is something specific to phone cameras, when any digital camera has a chip much more sensitive than your eyes. add in the ability to do long exposure, and your camera will give you much more information to what's out there.
Yeah, phone/camera has become close to the same thing for many people I guess. I meant camera (of the modern digital sensor type).
I'm not aware of phone cameras being able to do long "open shutter" types of exposures, but maybe I'm mistaken. Wouldn't that need a tripod or some other sort of physical stabilization? All the aurora photos I saw a few weeks ago had been taken from a hand-held phone and were fairly sharp and clear. Is image stabilization so good that a modern camera can take a sharp, hand-held multi-second exposure?
my camera phone has been able to do longer exposures for quite some time now. some apps even have astro mode. my phone will do long exposure instead of using the flash, and expects the user to hold the camera steady (ha!) but i'm assuming uses a lot of stacking.
and yes, if you want good long exposure, you don't want to do it hand held. but the "AI" is doing a lot in the post processing to fool you into thinking hand held is an option
In his latest podcast Joe Rogan claimed that John Wayne and others died from cancer caused by radiation from a nuclear test upwind of a movie set for "The Conquerers". Wayne was also a heavy smoker so nobody really knows. Nobody knows how much death and misery the tests caused, or how much war was avoided by nuclear deterence.
By the early 1980s around 40% of the cast and crew had developed cancer, also including Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. And the movie nuclear bombed at the box office.
Reminiscent of the shooting of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, where there was a toxic-waste-producing facility right nearby (and you can supposedly see toxic waste on camera) and some of the cast and crew got ill or died from horrible cancers.[0]
The HPS site contradicts Rogan's claim (as far as I understand Rogan's claim); it's written by an expert in this field:
I agree that 91 cancers of 220 cast members sounds like a lot. It suggests a cancer rate of 91/200 × 100 = 41.3%. But is that abnormally high? Statistics on cancer occurrence in the United States suggest that the lifetime risk of cancer for males is about 39.7% and 36.7% for females, not greatly different than the rates among the cast. As we mature, the odds of dying of cancer increase from about 25% to 50%. Whenever a cancer survey is made among a small group (say, 100 persons or less), there are variations in the observed cancer rates, either larger or smaller. Moreover, it has also been reported that many cast members were heavy smokers, increasing their risk over the average. I believe that given the available information, there is no compelling evidence that the cancer rate among the cast was higher than national rates.
>>Between 1951 and 1992, the United States conducted 928 atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas.
Just how nuclear waste polluted is Nevada?
Surely ~1000 tests in one place can't be good. Wouldn't be surprised if people around there do get cancers.
There's nobody around there but the fallout plumes traveled far generally into the north east of the site. Also depends on weather since the particles have to be brought down to ground level e.g. by rain. Places like St George Utah had particularly high amounts but also the area to the north of there through to south west Montana.
I think the John Wayne movie was filmed in an area outside St George called Snow Canyon. It's a state park so if you're inclined you can go there with a Geiger counter.
It wasn’t just from that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory] had 4 of their 10 experimental nuclear reactors melt down (including a big one in ‘59), and was notorious for not disposing of nuclear and chemical waste correctly. Including burn pits.
They had fires in their plutonium ‘hot lab’ at least once we know about.
They regularly burned radioactive waste in open pits.
It’s right next door to Hollywood and many common film shooting locations. John Wayne regularly worked in Simi valley which is right next door.
Also, smoking like a chimney. Also, the whole nuclear bomb test/downwinder stuff too of course.
It’s not just direct exposure either - thyroid issues are common in the generation that grew up when this was happening, and many of them drank milk, ate cheese, etc. from cows grazing on grass that got this contamination on it. Including from Simi valley, where it was a big industry.
Nobody likes to talk about it because good luck quantifying it at this point - and the gov’t does a lot to avoid blowback succeeding. National Security and all.
It doesn’t help that the governments own radiation death models put the population wide cost at several hundred thousand lives lost population wide. But LNT doesn’t really work. But also, clearly there are issues.
Did some research on the yields of the nuclear weapons placed in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis which apparently are now well-known, largely due to information released by Soviet officials and military historians in the decades following the Cold War (specifically in the early 1990s).
While the United States was unaware of the sheer number of warheads at the time (estimating far fewer or none operational), it is now confirmed that approximately 158 nuclear warheads were on the island.
The yields for these specific weapon systems were as follows:
1. Strategic Ballistic Missiles
These were the weapons that triggered the crisis—long-range missiles capable of striking deep into the continental United States.
a) SS-4 Sandal (R-12) Missiles
Yield: ~1 Megaton (1,000 kT)
Status: There were roughly 36 to 40 of these missiles in Cuba. The warheads were present and could have been mated to the missiles within hours. A 1 MT explosion is roughly 60–70 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
b) SS-5 Skean (R-14) Missiles
Yield: ~1 to 2.3 Megatons (1,000–2,300 kT)
Status: The nuclear warheads for these missiles did arrive in Cuba, but the missiles themselves were blocked by the quarantine (blockade) and never reached the island.
2. Tactical (Battlefield) Nuclear Weapons
This is the category that most alarmed historians and officials when it was revealed in the 1990s. The U.S. did not know these were present or operational. If the U.S. had invaded (as was being debated), local Soviet commanders had pre-delegated authority (later rescinded) to use these against American landing forces.
a) FKR-1 (Meteor) Cruise Missiles
Yield: 5 to 14 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were approximately 80 of these warheads. These were ground-launched cruise missiles intended for coastal defense and could have been used to strike the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay or incoming amphibious fleets.
b) Luna (FROG) Artillery Rockets
Yield: 2 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were 12 of these warheads. These were short-range battlefield rockets intended to destroy troop concentrations on the beachheads.
c) IL-28 "Beagle" Bombers
Yield: ~28–30 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were 6 nuclear bombs (likely the RDS-4 type) specifically for these light bombers. The aircraft were capable of striking targets in Florida or regionally.
It's kinda hard to imagine why on earth you'd ever build a warhead larger than 100kT. At that point it's just destruction for the sake of destruction, not to win a war, but to ensure that everyone loses... Well, that is the point of MAD, but it just seems reckless and inhuman.
A reason, at least for a period of time, was accuracy of the delivery systems. You can’t attack a hardened target with a 100kt weapon and a delivery system with a 1km CEP, for example.
> "There are also pictures of people enjoying the spectacle that demonstrate the morbid fascination that many Americans had with nuclear weapons at the time."
This is, in my opinion, a stupid statement; people today, with today's sensibilities, writing about people decades, almost a century ago. The was nothing "morbid" about it. It was a new, and extremely powerful technology. Those people were not watching while licking their lips thinking about the people that can be killed with this technology. They were thinking about the "clean and limitless" energy that was supposed to have come from this new technology. Stop trying to foist your "modern" ideals on people many years ago.
>>They were thinking about the "clean and limitless" energy that was supposed to have come from this new technology.
There is plenty of articles, books and every other media from that period of time with people expressing horror at the sheer power of these weapons, not to mention the pervasive belief that a nuclear war is just a matter of time, with kids in schools being taught how to hide under their desks and face away from a nuclear blast should one happen. There definitely was a "morbid" fascination in the sense that people wanted to see the blasts that could obliterate their cities without a warning. There was hope and belief that we'll have nuclear powered everything within couple decades at most, but people weren't building and buying nuclear shelters out of hope for the better nuclear future.
>>Stop trying to foist your "modern" ideals on people many years ago.
I think that's an unnecessary remark, especially given that you are also attributing a certain belief to everyone of that era when it very clearly wasn't universal.
The people involved at the beginning were very concerned about just reactors, e.g. Fermi. That's why Hanford was built where it is/was. And the Idaho National Lab.
If you're curious the linked article has pretty much all the infomation available.
It was written by Alex Wellerstein,
a historian of science and nuclear weapons and a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
who has likely looked over almost all the unclassified US bomb test material, read a substantial amount of it, and at various time has had access to classified portions.
The article has three addendum, updates as more information came to light about the name of dancer, the photographer, the article series that was published, etc.
It's bound to more informative than anything I could tell you given I'm in AU not the US and know somewhat more about Emu Field and the Montebello's than I do about Yucca Flat.
>There are also pictures of people
enjoying the spectacle that
demonstrate the morbid fascination
that many Americans had with nuclear
weapons at the time.
Was this written with ai? No person in any time period wouldn't be interested. Big explosions are never boring.
The article doesn't generally read like AI to me, though I can't discount the possibility that I have been fooled by a new and more advanced slop machine.
I think HN is probably biased towards a subset of the population that is perennially interested in nuclear explosions. They surely occupied a much greater part of the public consciousness in the 50s than they do today (and certainly much greater than a few years ago, before a nuclear power invaded Europe).
Then there was that thing where RAF bombers pretended to bomb US cities... which had to be hushed up as it made it clear that US air defence systems weren't nearly as good as the public had been told.
Or if you have a meeting to practise talking about nuking people, the people who you are talking about nuking might think you are actually going to nuke them and nuke you before you nuke them.
On the topic of atomic bombs I have some rhetorical questions
1. What happened to the deadly radioactivity?
2. Would exploding the equivalent amount of TNT look exactly the same?
3. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
4. What happened to the deadly radioactivity in Japan?
5. What is carpet bombing?
6. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
I have a feeling the point made by these rhetorical questions is not the one you intended. These all have obvious, verifiable, and plain/boring answers.
People even detected the radioactivity before nukes were public, and you can still measure the differences in steel today.
I'll answer because some people are probably genuinely curious to some of these.
> 1. What happened to the deadly radioactivity?
It mostly decayed out. Generally speaking, 8 half-lives mean that it's essentially decayed to "gone". High-level atmospheric tests usually cause it to spread out and depending on wind patterns can dissipate enough to be essentially harmless - though with precision instruments you can measure the differences throughout the whole world. Steel from shipwrecks from before the first explosion can be desirable for some of this equipment.
With explosions closer to or below ground level, there can be longer-lasting elements baked into the ground, like Trinitite (a green glass like material) that can have trace amounts of cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, which going by the 8 times rule means that it'll be "dangerous" for ~240 years.
Also the type of bomb matters to what is left behind. A uranium bomb will leave different radioactive byproducts than a plutonium bomb.
To break it down to layman terms, nuclear explosions are also designed to emit energy extremely fast, meaning the radioactive chain reaction "burns" through elements very fast. This is different that the fuel in a nuclear reactor, which is designed to burn hot and slow, meaning there are more longer-lasting byproducts left over and why Chernobyl is a no go zone for thousands of years, but we can live in Hiroshima.
Most of the cancers that happened were from people downwind from the explosion. Most of these elements that caused the cancers and sicknesses decayed away within a couple of years.
> 2. Would exploding the equivalent amount of TNT look exactly the same?
No. It wouldn't produce anywhere near the amount of heat/light. The TNT equivalent is usually used to measure the destructive force equivalent of the explosion.
> 3. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
The US may "fake" having a number operating bombs ready, etc. But obviously there's no need to fake it as the US destroyed 2 cities at the end of world war 2 and exploded hundreds of test bombs since.
> 4. What happened to the deadly radioactivity in Japan?
The bombs dropped were exploded high in the atmosphere to spread the explosive force of the bombs. Most of the radioactive material was carried away by the winds and/or had a short half-life. Most radioactive material from the bombs decayed away and there is no longer a statistically significant higher risk of cancer in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
> 5. What is carpet bombing?
It's when you have a fleet of bombers drop massive amounts of traditional bombs on a city, as was done to Germany and Japan during world war 2 (and by the Germans to a few cities like Rotterdam).
> 6. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
1. It is difficult to believe that the deadly radioactivity was just blown away. Where was it blown to? Upwards to space?
2. Then perhaps a larger amount of TNT
3. Unfortunately USA has a long list of questionable history (moon landing, 911, to name a few)
4. Cancers could be from the chemical weapons used
5. Fire bombing and carpet bombing could explain what happed in Japan
6. Again, Hollywood, currency backed by Gold fakery, list goes on.
You seem to not be operating in good faith, but that one is interesting:
> Then perhaps a larger amount of TNT
You can replicate something on the size of the WWII bombs with TNT, but you can't get anything much larger. A TNT explosion is relatively slow, and if you blow too much of it, it will disperse before blowing.
Or other types of explosives that mushroom with lights and colors. We've seen real life examples of those. I'm just trying to have a controversial discussion while following HN rules and vibes. No politics, just facts. I didn't provide references hoping some curious mind would go searching for the truth themselves. Compelling evidence is out there. For example
- Tokyo was carpet/fire bombed at the same time. Image comparisons between Tokyo and Hiroshima/Nagasaki destructions are extremely identical
- Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima are harbor cities, which explains implanting the large amounts of TNT. (this tactic happened several times in recent history and is documented). This is actually the opinion of an American army member from when the alleged bombing happened. Good luck finding the video.
Not a lot of facts, as most of your comment is trivial to disprove.
> Image comparisons between Tokyo and Hiroshima/Nagasaki destructions are extremely identical
The destruction in Tokyo is completely different from Hiroshima/Nagasaki. It's not centralized, and there's no mark of the extreme high temperatures the nuclear weapons create.
> Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima are harbor cities, which explains implanting the large amounts of TNT.
The place where the explosions happened is completely clear from the remains you can find there today. You can just get some satellite images and look.
You are clearly going for a "wake up sheep!" comment, so go and wake up.
I'm open to discussion. If I see compelling evidence I could change my mind. Unfortunately I don't believe there is anything called "nuclear weapons". Just nuclear energy. Anyway that's old news. The new race is AI. Soon there is going to be a major event claiming to be AI superiority that will seem like magic. If that happens, I hope you remember my comment.
pet peeve - pick one:
"How the Atomic Tests Looked from Los Angeles"
or
"What the Atomic Tests Looked Like from Los Angeles"
just don't mash them together like this.
Explanation for non-native speakers (like me) who didn't know the rule:
The words "how" and "like" clash because "How" already implies manner or appearance, making the addition of "like" (which serves a similar function with "what") superfluous.
"How" expects an adjective -> "how does he look" "he looks happy"
"What" expects a noun -> "what is he?" "a dog"
"Like" invites a comparison -> "what does he look like?" "he looks like Lassie"
When you combine "how" and "like" it gives native speakers an itch because you're requesting I create a comparison with an adjective.
In this case. It's hard to make a firm rule because you can construct sentences with both words in them that aren't wrong-sounding, because the same word can be used in subtly grammatically different ways.
A good rule of thumb is to phrase the sentence as a question and see if it sounds correct. "What does it look like?" is fine. "How does it look?" is fine. "How does it look like?" does not. In the question "Like how?", "like" is more akin to "I said, like, what do you want me to do?" - I'm no linguist, but they do have a term for that use.
Hah, this reminds me of the Isaac Asimov story about catching Nazi spies inflitrating the US...
Given Americans' general indifference to perfect grammer, if it "sounds" right they usually don't make a fuss. So they might have learned something new as well.
I haven’t read the Asimov story, but it was probably based on this true event:
As a result, U.S. troops began asking other soldiers questions that they felt only Americans would know the answers to in order to flush out the German infiltrators, which included naming state capitals, sports and trivia questions related to the U.S., etc. This practice resulted in Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke being held at gunpoint for some time after he incorrectly said the Chicago Cubs were in the American League[7][8][9][10] and a captain spending a week in detention after he was caught wearing German boots. General Omar Bradley was repeatedly stopped in his staff car by checkpoint guards who seemed to enjoy asking him such questions. The Skorzeny commando paranoia also contributed to numerous instances of mistaken identity. All over the Ardennes, U.S. soldiers attempted to persuade suspicious U.S. military policemen that they were genuine GIs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greif
Close and possibly inspired by it, but it's the reverse idea though -- that no real American would actually know all the words to the national anthem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Refuge_Could_Save
Ugh, I'd fail any questions based on US sports. And, these days, 30 years removed high school civics, I'd likely miss some of the state capitals as well.
Hi, American here and "how" + "to look like" makes my teeth itch. However, people generally find grammar corrections to be needlessly pedantic when the erroneous grammar does not impede comprehension, so I've personally decided to choose my grammatical battles and simply fume about people talking about "how something looks like" in private instead.
I generally also choose to keep such complaints private, and I'm not sure what whim motivated me to speak up this time. Rather to my surprise, this trivial gripe has been voted up more than almost anything else I've written here over the last sixteen years. It would seem that there actually is, in some contexts, somehow, at least some appetite for grammatical pedantry!
You're writing in a forum whose members are known to be notoriously pedantic. You're in good company!
Language is tricky. One of the trickiest things! There's so much tied up in it, objective and subjective. It's a simple tool. It's an academic object. It's a well-defined spec. It's a living ambiguous blob. But it's also one of the biggest pieces of one's culture. There's a reason the French are so possessive of their language where it lives in cultural exclaves. There's a reason the Irish have laws to keep their native language alive.
> "sounds" right
This is how it actually works. The brain machine learns from available data and sorts out which is correct. "Sounds right" is the output from that neural network. The "rules" are then derived from what some set of people think sounds right.
"How ___ like" is probably the single most common mistake I see among non-native speakers. Also, unlike other mistakes which can just sound informal, this one "sounds dumb", to use a mean phrase, but it's good to know for people trying to sound proper.
As a native English speaker who learned a foreign language (German) in high school, I have a pet theory about this, which is that I suspect most other languages use a word roughly equivalent to English "appear" (with which it would be correct to use "how", such as "how the atomic tests appeared from Los Angeles") even in colloquial speech, whereas English tends to reserve those synonyms for more formal registers of speech; in casual conversation in English, you wouldn't ask someone "how did he appear?" (unless you meant the other sense of "appear", as in "become visible"), but you would in, say, German (wie hat er ausgesehen? or wie sah er aus?). Of course, I'm sure learners of English as a foreign language are taught to say "what does he look like?" and not "how does he look like?", but I can imagine them struggling with remembering that just like I struggle with remembering genders and cases and declined forms in German.
This is also a pet peeve of mine. However, I suspect this bothers us because we’ve grown up with standard “western” English (US/UK/Canada/Australia/etc). “How does X Y like” is common in other forms of English, some of which might even be native (but non-western)! For example, I bet this construction is standard in Indian English. Based on population alone, I think this is a losing battle; English is probably going to adopt the structure we dislike. That’s unfortunate for me and you. But I think fighting it is a fool’s errand.
Because westerners are out numbered or because we embrace an ethic that is self deprecating? Connect the dots.
Because the conventions that are considered “standard” evolve over time to match the most common usage. Non-western English is probably already the most common English, due to India alone. Those speaking patterns have been relatively isolated so far, but online media brings it into the mainstream. My main claim is that it will take over the present “standard” usage, because of the sheer quantity (but not in an alarmist xenophobic way, lol).
Some examples that have become normalized for me personally, I think due to working with lots of international folks in tech:
- “i have a doubt” instead of “i have a question”
- “i will not claim X” instead of “i would not claim X” or “i don’t claim X”
- “this is not as X as compared with Y” instead of “this is not as X as Y” or “this is not X compared with Y”
- "it will anyways be fun" instead of "anyways, it will be fun"
I’m not sure if these are broad patterns, or just peculiarities of the specific crowd i hang with. And I don’t think these are standard usages yet, but I’ve become familiar enough that I say these sometimes, despite intuitively feeling that they are wrong.
Edit: i think most of the phrases i have adopted are from Indian English, but unsure.
If it’s the quantity, wouldn’t people just drop English all to gather? (I’m not a proscriptivist for the record, but I do like some non-English languages more than others. Hopefully that’s not too verboten to confess here lol.)
I don’t think it’s verboten! I prefer Turkish over French.
English will certainly continue to evolve, and eventually it may be dropped altogether. But for example, you couldn’t understand English as it was spoken in the 1400s. It is different enough that we have a separate name for it, “Middle English”. Many of the changes languages undergo are influenced by interacting with other languages. There’s no reason to believe English will stop now.
As to why English will probably keep evolving instead of being totally dropped — it is now the lingua franca for most of the world. It would be unlikely to “just drop” the most useful language 90% of people know.
I disagree with the implication that "majority rules" is such an immutable truth that the minority shouldn't even bother fighting or expressing their opinion.
Languages evolve. It is foolish to think that you will stop the evolution. And also purposeless — there is nothing better or worse about my great grandfather’s English, my English, or my kid’s English.
I get it - I am not a hardcore prescriptivist. Language is defined by usage.
But you're going too far in the other direction. Like... language nihilism. It's OK to care. Language is deeply, unavoidably personal. Look at how people describe the feeling they get when they read "how __ like": "Itch". It's not only an academic opinion - it's also a piece of who we are.
Also, the atoms do not need tests, they have functioned reliably for billions of years.
The plutonium atoms in the bombs were pretty new and rather unreliable.
Thanks for pointing that out. As a non-native speaker, I have learned something new.
This is a pretty common construction among some non-native English speakers.
As a non-native speaker, TIL.
Then again, my brain tries to complete the sentence as "Atomic Test-and-Set".
Hey, don't go off of the topic. No need to loose your mind! I could probably get you some counselling for cheap!
> Hey, don't go off of the[sic] topic. No need to loose[sic] your mind! I could probably get you some counselling[sic] for cheap!
Are you purposely trying to drive people crazy?
Eye don't no, our ewe?
Yes, but you missed "for cheap" ;-)
>Casinos, hotels and inns flaunted their north-facing vistas, offering special “atomic cocktails” and “Dawn Bomb Parties.”
What a time...
If you’re in to this period Atomic Cafe is a great watch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atomic_Cafe
I'm convinced this kind of thing is 90% of the inspiration for the Fallout franchise.
I think a lot of folks who haven’t looked in to pop culture and pop science in the ~1950s assume a lot more of Fallout is totally made-up than really is…
Starting with the fact that every one of those novelty songs on the soundtrack were actual period songs. “Atom Bomb Baby” might not have been a huge hit (or maybe it was, I can’t seem to find info), but it’s period music: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3tzsma/update_ama_...
I don't know if I'd say it was the inspiration, as that is probably better credited largely to the book, "A Canticle for Leibowitz", and the "Mad Max" films. But the Fallout franchise certainly makes plenty of satirical reference to the Atomic Craze.
Makes me wonder how many living people on earth have seen a nuclear explosion with their own eyes. It can't be very high, maybe 1-10 thousand? Not a number you would want to see increase, to be sure.
Interesting question.
Somewhere between 400,000-550,000 (the number varies greatly depending on source) US servicemen (Army, Navy, and Marines) participated in nuclear tests from 1946 to 1962. As of 2024, about 10,000 were still alive.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/studiog/news/military-veteran...
The French used between 15,000-30,000, but the actual number is secret.
I couldn't find numbers for the Soviet testing program. The Chinese used over 100,000 laborers for their first tests according to Wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_veteran
About 10,000 seems right.
Wouldn’t all of the people watching this from Vegas and LA count?
More disturbingly, around 600,000 people in Japan.
Those bombs are still pointing at the same cities…you may still get to take part!!
At least LA wasn't down wind. Veritasium did an eye opening vid on how fallout blew across the country and was ruining Kodak's film on the East Coast.
And they stayed quiet it about it.
How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pSqk-XV2QM
The Sedan test [1], part of Project Plowshare, was an underground test in Nevada that sent fallout across a large swath of the U.S. Midwaste, sorry, Midwest.
The wife's family lived in Omaha, Nebraska at the time. A lot of cancer in her family. But then a lot of smokers as well. So who knows.
Regardless, that one was a major fuck-up that seems to have kind of put the kibosh on "underground" testing of that sort.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test)
ffs, the crater is a tourist attraction now.
These are neat images, but it's hard to tell how they differ from long exposures taken without any illumination by atomic blast. I've taken long exposures at night that look very similar.
Like recent Northern Lights occurrences where phone cameras capture them much more vibrantly than they appear to the naked eye. But that might be more of the phone sensor being more sensitive to colors in low light than the human eye is.
let me help you, s/phone/camera/
you make it sound like it is something specific to phone cameras, when any digital camera has a chip much more sensitive than your eyes. add in the ability to do long exposure, and your camera will give you much more information to what's out there.
Yeah, phone/camera has become close to the same thing for many people I guess. I meant camera (of the modern digital sensor type).
I'm not aware of phone cameras being able to do long "open shutter" types of exposures, but maybe I'm mistaken. Wouldn't that need a tripod or some other sort of physical stabilization? All the aurora photos I saw a few weeks ago had been taken from a hand-held phone and were fairly sharp and clear. Is image stabilization so good that a modern camera can take a sharp, hand-held multi-second exposure?
my camera phone has been able to do longer exposures for quite some time now. some apps even have astro mode. my phone will do long exposure instead of using the flash, and expects the user to hold the camera steady (ha!) but i'm assuming uses a lot of stacking.
and yes, if you want good long exposure, you don't want to do it hand held. but the "AI" is doing a lot in the post processing to fool you into thinking hand held is an option
In his latest podcast Joe Rogan claimed that John Wayne and others died from cancer caused by radiation from a nuclear test upwind of a movie set for "The Conquerers". Wayne was also a heavy smoker so nobody really knows. Nobody knows how much death and misery the tests caused, or how much war was avoided by nuclear deterence.
By the early 1980s around 40% of the cast and crew had developed cancer, also including Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. And the movie nuclear bombed at the box office.
Reminiscent of the shooting of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, where there was a toxic-waste-producing facility right nearby (and you can supposedly see toxic waste on camera) and some of the cast and crew got ill or died from horrible cancers.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)#Filming
> By the early 1980s around 40% of the cast and crew had developed cancer, also including Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell.
What is the source for that?
https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/144, https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q12594/, https://www.straightdope.com/21341555/did-john-wayne-die-of-...
The HPS site contradicts Rogan's claim (as far as I understand Rogan's claim); it's written by an expert in this field:
I agree that 91 cancers of 220 cast members sounds like a lot. It suggests a cancer rate of 91/200 × 100 = 41.3%. But is that abnormally high? Statistics on cancer occurrence in the United States suggest that the lifetime risk of cancer for males is about 39.7% and 36.7% for females, not greatly different than the rates among the cast. As we mature, the odds of dying of cancer increase from about 25% to 50%. Whenever a cancer survey is made among a small group (say, 100 persons or less), there are variations in the observed cancer rates, either larger or smaller. Moreover, it has also been reported that many cast members were heavy smokers, increasing their risk over the average. I believe that given the available information, there is no compelling evidence that the cancer rate among the cast was higher than national rates.
This is a very well known story, particularly to people living in the Intermountain west. Rogan is just repeating Wikipedia.
>>Between 1951 and 1992, the United States conducted 928 atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas.
Just how nuclear waste polluted is Nevada?
Surely ~1000 tests in one place can't be good. Wouldn't be surprised if people around there do get cancers.
There's nobody around there but the fallout plumes traveled far generally into the north east of the site. Also depends on weather since the particles have to be brought down to ground level e.g. by rain. Places like St George Utah had particularly high amounts but also the area to the north of there through to south west Montana.
I think the John Wayne movie was filmed in an area outside St George called Snow Canyon. It's a state park so if you're inclined you can go there with a Geiger counter.
It wasn’t just from that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory] had 4 of their 10 experimental nuclear reactors melt down (including a big one in ‘59), and was notorious for not disposing of nuclear and chemical waste correctly. Including burn pits.
They had fires in their plutonium ‘hot lab’ at least once we know about.
They regularly burned radioactive waste in open pits.
It’s right next door to Hollywood and many common film shooting locations. John Wayne regularly worked in Simi valley which is right next door.
Also, smoking like a chimney. Also, the whole nuclear bomb test/downwinder stuff too of course.
It’s not just direct exposure either - thyroid issues are common in the generation that grew up when this was happening, and many of them drank milk, ate cheese, etc. from cows grazing on grass that got this contamination on it. Including from Simi valley, where it was a big industry.
Nobody likes to talk about it because good luck quantifying it at this point - and the gov’t does a lot to avoid blowback succeeding. National Security and all.
It doesn’t help that the governments own radiation death models put the population wide cost at several hundred thousand lives lost population wide. But LNT doesn’t really work. But also, clearly there are issues.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downwinders]
Like the 9/11 first responder funds, it’s a nightmare trying to get a pay out, and unlike 9/11 this isn’t from one single event.
Lots of interesting rocket history at SSFL too https://flickr.com/photos/heads-up/14531361085/in/dateposted... . Fascinating place
Yes it is, all back in the day of anything goes engineering. For better or worse.
Nevada tests, done north of Las Vegas, were all pretty small, and they produced flashes visible from LA. Imagine a big one.
Did some research on the yields of the nuclear weapons placed in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis which apparently are now well-known, largely due to information released by Soviet officials and military historians in the decades following the Cold War (specifically in the early 1990s).
While the United States was unaware of the sheer number of warheads at the time (estimating far fewer or none operational), it is now confirmed that approximately 158 nuclear warheads were on the island.
The yields for these specific weapon systems were as follows:
1. Strategic Ballistic Missiles These were the weapons that triggered the crisis—long-range missiles capable of striking deep into the continental United States.
a) SS-4 Sandal (R-12) Missiles
Yield: ~1 Megaton (1,000 kT)
Status: There were roughly 36 to 40 of these missiles in Cuba. The warheads were present and could have been mated to the missiles within hours. A 1 MT explosion is roughly 60–70 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
b) SS-5 Skean (R-14) Missiles
Yield: ~1 to 2.3 Megatons (1,000–2,300 kT)
Status: The nuclear warheads for these missiles did arrive in Cuba, but the missiles themselves were blocked by the quarantine (blockade) and never reached the island.
2. Tactical (Battlefield) Nuclear Weapons This is the category that most alarmed historians and officials when it was revealed in the 1990s. The U.S. did not know these were present or operational. If the U.S. had invaded (as was being debated), local Soviet commanders had pre-delegated authority (later rescinded) to use these against American landing forces.
a) FKR-1 (Meteor) Cruise Missiles
Yield: 5 to 14 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were approximately 80 of these warheads. These were ground-launched cruise missiles intended for coastal defense and could have been used to strike the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay or incoming amphibious fleets.
b) Luna (FROG) Artillery Rockets
Yield: 2 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were 12 of these warheads. These were short-range battlefield rockets intended to destroy troop concentrations on the beachheads.
c) IL-28 "Beagle" Bombers
Yield: ~28–30 Kilotons (kT)
Status: There were 6 nuclear bombs (likely the RDS-4 type) specifically for these light bombers. The aircraft were capable of striking targets in Florida or regionally.
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1177/009634021246436...
[2] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10...
[3] https://www.atomicarchive.com/history/cuban-missile-crisis/m...
[4] http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/background/frequently-aske...
[5] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book-special-exhibit/cuba...
[6] https://www.cfr.org/blog/twe-remembers-secret-soviet-tactica...
[7] https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB449/
[8] http://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-...
Apparently the largest atmospheric test done in Nevada was 74kT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbbob_Hood)
It's kinda hard to imagine why on earth you'd ever build a warhead larger than 100kT. At that point it's just destruction for the sake of destruction, not to win a war, but to ensure that everyone loses... Well, that is the point of MAD, but it just seems reckless and inhuman.
A reason, at least for a period of time, was accuracy of the delivery systems. You can’t attack a hardened target with a 100kt weapon and a delivery system with a 1km CEP, for example.
Not the only reason of course.
Standard current US ICBM is 800kt I think. They found the sweet spot. Biggest one ever tested was 50MT
300kt.
> "There are also pictures of people enjoying the spectacle that demonstrate the morbid fascination that many Americans had with nuclear weapons at the time."
This is, in my opinion, a stupid statement; people today, with today's sensibilities, writing about people decades, almost a century ago. The was nothing "morbid" about it. It was a new, and extremely powerful technology. Those people were not watching while licking their lips thinking about the people that can be killed with this technology. They were thinking about the "clean and limitless" energy that was supposed to have come from this new technology. Stop trying to foist your "modern" ideals on people many years ago.
>>They were thinking about the "clean and limitless" energy that was supposed to have come from this new technology.
There is plenty of articles, books and every other media from that period of time with people expressing horror at the sheer power of these weapons, not to mention the pervasive belief that a nuclear war is just a matter of time, with kids in schools being taught how to hide under their desks and face away from a nuclear blast should one happen. There definitely was a "morbid" fascination in the sense that people wanted to see the blasts that could obliterate their cities without a warning. There was hope and belief that we'll have nuclear powered everything within couple decades at most, but people weren't building and buying nuclear shelters out of hope for the better nuclear future.
>>Stop trying to foist your "modern" ideals on people many years ago.
I think that's an unnecessary remark, especially given that you are also attributing a certain belief to everyone of that era when it very clearly wasn't universal.
The people involved at the beginning were very concerned about just reactors, e.g. Fermi. That's why Hanford was built where it is/was. And the Idaho National Lab.
This is Twin Peaks season 3
Haunting images. Plenty of blind spots today that might be looked back on similarly.
I wish someone would colorize these.
Amazing images. I cannot wait to see how the next wave of tests will look on modern cameras.
No, I'd rather not we test more nuclear weapons.
Lets hope they'll be tests.
From the atomic test annals: The DIXIE Showgirl (1953)
JPG: https://i0.wp.com/blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads...From Restricted Data nuclear history blog: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/05/18/friday-image-the-...
Is that one of the girls at the nearby dancing camp that played in the ash fallout and died?
If you're curious the linked article has pretty much all the infomation available.
It was written by Alex Wellerstein,
who has likely looked over almost all the unclassified US bomb test material, read a substantial amount of it, and at various time has had access to classified portions.The article has three addendum, updates as more information came to light about the name of dancer, the photographer, the article series that was published, etc.
It's bound to more informative than anything I could tell you given I'm in AU not the US and know somewhat more about Emu Field and the Montebello's than I do about Yucca Flat.
Humans are weird.
>There are also pictures of people enjoying the spectacle that demonstrate the morbid fascination that many Americans had with nuclear weapons at the time.
Was this written with ai? No person in any time period wouldn't be interested. Big explosions are never boring.
The article doesn't generally read like AI to me, though I can't discount the possibility that I have been fooled by a new and more advanced slop machine.
I think HN is probably biased towards a subset of the population that is perennially interested in nuclear explosions. They surely occupied a much greater part of the public consciousness in the 50s than they do today (and certainly much greater than a few years ago, before a nuclear power invaded Europe).
There is also very high overlap with engineers and guns.
Also jet engines.
But yes, things going boom too.
I don’t think “fascination” is what you’d get if you started detonating atomic bombs on the regular near any major city today.
Nuking yourselves is fine.
Now if some other country was to, well that’s end of the world.
Of course the British nuked Australia and we don’t hold that against them so maybe ….
The UK also nuked the US 24 times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nuclear_testing_in_the...
Then there was that thing where RAF bombers pretended to bomb US cities... which had to be hushed up as it made it clear that US air defence systems weren't nearly as good as the public had been told.
It’s all good. It’s ok to nuke yourself and your allies. What’s not ok is to nuke your adversaries - that is frowned upon strongly.
Well, mostly only if they have nukes. Or someone with nukes is downwind of it. Or someone with nukes might get nervous you’re nuking people.
Or if you have a meeting to practise talking about nuking people, the people who you are talking about nuking might think you are actually going to nuke them and nuke you before you nuke them.
Well, nuking someone with nukes already is of course silly.
You’ve got to nuke them before they have a chance to nuke you back! (/s, but that is the thinking)
On the topic of atomic bombs I have some rhetorical questions
I have a feeling the point made by these rhetorical questions is not the one you intended. These all have obvious, verifiable, and plain/boring answers.
People even detected the radioactivity before nukes were public, and you can still measure the differences in steel today.
I'll answer because some people are probably genuinely curious to some of these.
> 1. What happened to the deadly radioactivity?
It mostly decayed out. Generally speaking, 8 half-lives mean that it's essentially decayed to "gone". High-level atmospheric tests usually cause it to spread out and depending on wind patterns can dissipate enough to be essentially harmless - though with precision instruments you can measure the differences throughout the whole world. Steel from shipwrecks from before the first explosion can be desirable for some of this equipment.
With explosions closer to or below ground level, there can be longer-lasting elements baked into the ground, like Trinitite (a green glass like material) that can have trace amounts of cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, which going by the 8 times rule means that it'll be "dangerous" for ~240 years.
Also the type of bomb matters to what is left behind. A uranium bomb will leave different radioactive byproducts than a plutonium bomb.
To break it down to layman terms, nuclear explosions are also designed to emit energy extremely fast, meaning the radioactive chain reaction "burns" through elements very fast. This is different that the fuel in a nuclear reactor, which is designed to burn hot and slow, meaning there are more longer-lasting byproducts left over and why Chernobyl is a no go zone for thousands of years, but we can live in Hiroshima.
Most of the cancers that happened were from people downwind from the explosion. Most of these elements that caused the cancers and sicknesses decayed away within a couple of years.
> 2. Would exploding the equivalent amount of TNT look exactly the same?
No. It wouldn't produce anywhere near the amount of heat/light. The TNT equivalent is usually used to measure the destructive force equivalent of the explosion.
> 3. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
The US may "fake" having a number operating bombs ready, etc. But obviously there's no need to fake it as the US destroyed 2 cities at the end of world war 2 and exploded hundreds of test bombs since.
> 4. What happened to the deadly radioactivity in Japan?
The bombs dropped were exploded high in the atmosphere to spread the explosive force of the bombs. Most of the radioactive material was carried away by the winds and/or had a short half-life. Most radioactive material from the bombs decayed away and there is no longer a statistically significant higher risk of cancer in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
> 5. What is carpet bombing?
It's when you have a fleet of bombers drop massive amounts of traditional bombs on a city, as was done to Germany and Japan during world war 2 (and by the Germans to a few cities like Rotterdam).
> 6. Would USA fake having a single bomb that destroys an entire city?
Same as question 3.
There are other unpopular opinions
You seem to not be operating in good faith, but that one is interesting:
> Then perhaps a larger amount of TNT
You can replicate something on the size of the WWII bombs with TNT, but you can't get anything much larger. A TNT explosion is relatively slow, and if you blow too much of it, it will disperse before blowing.
Or other types of explosives that mushroom with lights and colors. We've seen real life examples of those. I'm just trying to have a controversial discussion while following HN rules and vibes. No politics, just facts. I didn't provide references hoping some curious mind would go searching for the truth themselves. Compelling evidence is out there. For example
> No politics, just facts.
Not a lot of facts, as most of your comment is trivial to disprove.
> Image comparisons between Tokyo and Hiroshima/Nagasaki destructions are extremely identical
The destruction in Tokyo is completely different from Hiroshima/Nagasaki. It's not centralized, and there's no mark of the extreme high temperatures the nuclear weapons create.
> Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima are harbor cities, which explains implanting the large amounts of TNT.
The place where the explosions happened is completely clear from the remains you can find there today. You can just get some satellite images and look.
You are clearly going for a "wake up sheep!" comment, so go and wake up.
I'm open to discussion. If I see compelling evidence I could change my mind. Unfortunately I don't believe there is anything called "nuclear weapons". Just nuclear energy. Anyway that's old news. The new race is AI. Soon there is going to be a major event claiming to be AI superiority that will seem like magic. If that happens, I hope you remember my comment.
You believe we sustain controlled nuclear energy near cities but needed to falsfify runaway reactions in the desert?
Huh? That’s not what rhetorical means and those silly questions aren’t confusing anyone here. What are you on about, mate?
I believe he's implying the atom bomb doesn't exist - that it was all faked by the US. Maybe?