Rapatronic photographs

Can it be possible to find visual aesthetics, and organic living - like existence, even in such horrifying substance as atomic bomb?

Developed by Dr. Harold Edgerton in the 1940s, the Rapatronic photographic technique allowed very early times in a nuclear explosion's fireball growth to be recorded on film. The exposures were often as short as 10 nanoseconds, and each Rapatronic camera would take exactly one photograph. A bank of four to ten or more such cameras were arranged at tests to record different moments of early fireball growth.

The peculiar spikes are extensions of the fireball surface along ropes or cables that stretch from the shot cab (the housing for the test device at the top of the tower) to the ground. This novel phenomenon was named a "rope trick" by Dr. John Malik who investigated it. The photos are by Harold Edgerton aka “Papa Flash” who is famed for using Stroboscopic photography to photograph discrete instances of the everyday - balloons bursting, divers diving into pools, milk drops. These photos were taken using another of Edgerton’s inventions, the Rapatronic camera - capable of taking photographs with exposure times of 10 nanoseconds and are far from everday occurences.

additional images

Atomic Photos and Movies at the VCE website.