Going round the nuclear bomb

By Stanley Seshie

On a clear dark evening, the sky is dotted with “little” twinkling

objects. The brilliance of these heavenly bodies up there amazes

humanity from time immemorial. They have inspired a profusion of

magnificent artistic works, songs, and poetries as well as

philosophical ratiocinations. Also believed as the home of the Gods,

Plato of ancient Greece would intone that, “astronomy is the only

study we require to bring us true piety”. The Psalmist of ancient Jews

would proclaim that, “the heavens declare the glory of God”.

Recently, Immanuel Kant would dramatize it, that, “two things awe me

most, the starry sky above and moral law within”.

Well, as to whether indeed the heavens declare the glory of God as

well astronomy inspires piety or not, the poet and religious are not

so much concerned with facts as creating images to establish mental

connections with their believed Gods of the heavens. Today or at least

starting from the 19th century, a lot had been abstracted and

extracted from the heavens and the objects therein. Per the facts as

accrued in our times, we rightfully think otherwise.

The sun powers all life on Earth with its energy. We now know it

produces its energy through nuclear fusion, using hydrogen atoms. The

same applies to all stars. And just as cosmologists have observed

ancient relics of exploded stars called supernovas, flooding space

with debris and dusts, our sun would someday replicate same. The

unaided eyes of our ancient philosophers, poets and religious insulate

them from ever glimpsing any of such realities of nature. All these

were recent knowledge through the relentless pursuit and clarification

of the ultimate building blocks of matter. Wherein we started with the

atom as indivisible, only to know from the 18th century that it is

divisible through Joseph John Thompson and Ernest Rutherford among

others.

Marie Curie and Henry Becquerel would tell us that not only are they

divisible, but some are even unstable and emit radiation/energy on

their own. As if that is enough, the works of Enrico Fermi and Leo

Szilard would assure Albert Einstein that the nucleus is far richer in

energy than can be imagined. And Albert Einstein’s special relativity

theory would mathematically unveiled how to tap this energy via the

famous equation, E = mc2. The result as the engineers get to work is

the nuclear, atomic and hydrogen bombs with unimaginable destructive

capacities to life and properties of which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were

the two prime unfortunate examples.

The sun and the nightly twinkling “little” stars are rather huge ball

of gases even bigger than the Earth. They are NUCLEAR BOMBS. In other

words, the heaven is collection of nuclear bombs. Every bomb explodes.

We are familiar with explosions. In a generation of industrialism,

militarism and terrorism explosions happen accidentally as well as

intentionally. Terrorism with its use of explosives has increasingly

become the deadly means by which we unleash our viciousness on one

another to the chagrin of Kant’s supposed “moral law within us”.

The energy released by chemical bombs during explosion is

infinitesimal compared to that of a nuclear bomb. Unlike the chemical

bombs that terrorist’s plant at vantage places to detonate within few

seconds to minutes, the rate of detonation of the stars depends on

their fuel content. More fuel more time. Our sun would last for the

next five billions years per the fuel content. It therefore, poses no

immediate threat. Nonetheless, it is an automatic nuclear bomb waiting

to detonate.

Clearly, it is not a starry heaven. It is nuclear bombs heaven. It is

a Chernobyl heaven with an assured nuclear disaster lurking around.

The “starry” heavens never declare the glory of God than is the

rainbow a sign of covenant between God and man. If anything at all,

bombs declare the viciousness of terrorists and the state in

possession of them. The very sun that nurtures life on the planet,

irradiating the forest and surface of water with such aesthetic

beauties to elevate the spirit of the poets and the religious as the

philosophers contemplate the meaning of it all would violently

extinguish it someday. It is said that men have plans for the Gods.

But the Gods, if they exist, had none for men. For this and only this

reason, we invented religion to assure ourselves that they do, just

that we do not understand. We do. They don't.

FB: Stanley Seshie

Whatsapp: 0248412308

Email: seshiehanku@gmail.com