Video: Animated Map of Nuclear Explosions (1945-1998)

This animated time-lapse map by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto unsettlingly plots visually and audibly 2,053 nuclear explosions happening in succession around the world from 1945 to 1998, encompassing real detonations for warfare and tests from various superpowers. According to Pink Tentacle (via), it omits the two known North Korea tests and the dozens of tests performed by the US, UK and Russia that didn’t create a “chain reaction.” Don’t Blink tells us, “As the video starts out detonations are few and far between. The first three detonations represent the Manhattan Project and the two bombs that ended World War II. After a few representative minutes the USSR and Britain enter the nuclear club and the testing really starts to heat up. The video was cleaned up, re-sized and edited [ed: from its full 14 minutes] to fit YouTube’s 10 min. limit by the folks at Bit of Fun.”

I’d like someday to see a complete animation of everything, maybe because I like my doom and gloom to be completely gloomy, but it’s sobering enough as a data visualization of articulated nuclear poison. Retards.

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