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William L. Laurence
(7 Mar 1888 - 19 Mar 1977)
American journalist who co-founded the National Association of Science Writers (1934). In Apr 1945, he was appointed official journalist of the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico to report on the Manhattan Project. He wrote many of the first official press releases about nuclear weapons, and was the only journalist to attend the Trinity atomic bomb test in Jul 1945.
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Science Quotes by William L. Laurence (2 quotes)
A great ball of fire about a mile in diameter, changing colors as it kept shooting upward, from deep purple to orange, expanding, growing bigger, rising as it was expanding, an elemental force freed from its bonds after being chained for billions of years.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
— William L. Laurence
From 'Drama of the Atomic Bomb Found Climax in July 16 Test', in New York Times (26 Sep 1945). This was the first of a series of articles by Laurence, who was the only civilian witness of the first bomb test. He was on a flight to see the dropping of a bomb on Nagasaki. Laurence, science writer for the NYT, had been requested for service to the War Department to explain the atomic bomb to the lay public.
The Atomic Age began at exactly 5.30 Mountain War Time on the morning of July 15, 1945, on a stretch of semi-desert land about 50 airline miles from Alamogordo, New Mexico. And just at that instance there rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of this world, the light of many suns in one. ... At first it was a giant column that soon took the shape of a supramundane mushroom.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
— William L. Laurence
From 'Drama of the Atomic Bomb Found Climax in July 16 Test', in New York Times (26 Sep 1945), 1.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
