One of my favorite stories about Enrico Fermi, of which there are many to choose from,

is what he did during the test of the first nuclear weapon, the Trinity test, the culmination

of the Manhattan Project on July 16th,

1945. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, would later say that during the

test and the witnessing of the fireball, that, quote, a few people laughed, a few people cried,

most people were silent.

Well, he left out what Enrico Fermi was up to.

Enrico Fermi had a bunch of bits of paper, some confetti in his hand.

And when the fireball came and as the shockwave was approaching their position, their observation position, Fermi let the confetti drop from his hand.

And he watched as the blast wave came by, the wind blew and blew the confetti down some distance away before I hit the ground.

Now, why was he doing this? He was not throwing a party.

He was making a measurement. He was estimating the energy released during the first nuclear test explosion by calculating how far the shockwave miles away would displace some bits of paper.

Remember, at the time, it was all theoretical.

We didn't know exactly how well the weapon would work. We didn't know exactly how powerful it would be.

Fermi estimated that it was roughly equivalent to around 10,000 tons of TNT.

The actual number is somewhat higher, 18 or so, kilotons of TNT.

But that's not far off for a calculation involving tiny bits of paper.

And this is just how Fermi worked.

He just was able to come up with ingenious solutions, think through things, a brilliant

theorist and experimentalist all-around awesome guy.

He's kind of a big deal.

He certainly deserves a biopod episode all of his own.

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