[walthamstow]

I visited the Hiroshima museum last year. They've got a set of stone steps, a person was sat there when the bomb went off and they were simply vaporised. The stone steps bear the residue of the person, almost like a shadow.

[matsemann]

Visited Hiroshima over a decade ago during a school trip, and had a local guide that was a survivor. Very powerful.

As a teenager we also visited concentration camps on a school trip, and a survivor joined the trip from Norway to Germany. We got to know him a bit during the week long trip, and there was a session where he told his story. I'll never forget this, and I think it affects me to this day.

Soon we will have no Time Witnesses left.

Edit: I remembered a very specific anecdote he told, about how him randomly having learned to knit helped when in a concentration camp, as some officer wanted something to be made, and he then could sit inside and do that instead of working himself to death in the quarry. Based on this I managed to find his name again now.

Haakon Sørbye, thanks for telling us your story.

[kachapopopow]

The atomic bombs weren't close enough to vaporize anyone since they were detonated in the air, what you see is disintegration which is a little bit different and instead of turning the human body into what could be considered "nothing" the materials are torn apart and get embedded into the surrounding environment. Some vaporization did occur, but only on plants and the skin tissue of humans.

[krisoft]

> instead of turning the human body into what could be considered "nothing"

You can't turn material into "nothing". At best you can turn it into equivalent amount of energy if you collide it with antimatter.

That being said I don't really feel the difference between "vaporisation" and "disintegration". In both cases you stop being biology and start being physics in a subjective instant. (at least from the perspective of your own central nervous system, which has not enough time to even detect that something has happened)

In both cases you go from a living, breathing, laughing, thinking human being into contaminants in the air or surfaces around you.

What do you feel is the difference between "vaporisation" and "disintegration"? Is it about how big your largest continuous chunk is? Where do you draw the line?

[fragmede]

the specific definition is that vaporization turns solids and liquids into gas or plasma, while disintegration means being broken into pieces. the difference between a gas and a solid, and also fine solids suspended in a gas, is fairly well defined.

[krisoft]

That makes sense! Thank you. Gas or plasma vs solids is indeed a well defined difference.

[kachapopopow]

By "nothing" is that there isn't a piece of you that is still you. Disintegration means that we can still find pieces of "you" in the environment. Not sure if there's any recoverable DNA left thought, that was most likely destroyed by the other waves of the atomic bomb.

[tomp]

Are you sure that's the explanation?

It could be (and I think it's more likely) that the rest of the stone was lightened, and the part in the shadow, wasn't.

No "residue of a person", just literally "shadow".

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone

[LeonM]

At that distance you wouldn't be vaporized, but burned. What you see on the steps is not vapor deposits, but rather they are shadows.

The immense heat and light from the detonation burned/discolored the stones, but not in the shadow of the person sitting on the steps. Hence why you can see these 'permanent shadows' in various places in the city. Some caused by humans, but most are just shadows of structures. For example bridge railings: https://www.atomicarchive.com/media/photographs/hiroshima/im...

[belter]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone