On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that developed the bomb, would later recall that, on witnessing the explosion, he found himself thinking of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This ancient phrase is fitting when applied to the subject of nuclear weapons, a technology with the potential to end life on earth. When discussing such a terrible possibility, it makes sense that we should use only our most carefully considered words.
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