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Fahreneit451(Ray Bradbury) - I See the A-Bomb
His main character is Guy Montag. And when he run away from the city. He uses the words "I see the bomb falling in the city and burning down the ashes." The bomb is A-bomb and you have to be away at least 5 miles from the place it explodes.
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Rated 2.7/10 (274 ratings) Your opinion?
Special Requirements: Just the written version of Fahreneit451
Contributed By: crazy_millenium on 01-04-2000 and Reviewed By: Webmaster
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Comments:
Chris writes:
200 miles? 50? I'm afraid not. Don't get me wrong, an atom bomb produces a tremendous explosion, but the Heroshima and Nagasaki bombs didn't do much major blast damage beyond 5 miles. Both bombs were capable of inflicting burns at a much greater radius than the blast radius, but neither could do much damage of any kind instantaneously beyond 20 miles. Even the most powerful bombs ever devised (some 1,000 times more powerful than Heroshima) could only inflict minor blast damage at 50 miles. But, any way you look at it, being 5 miles from ground zero can't be healthy, and watching the explosion would probably cause blindness.
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Ex-Gaijin writes:
I've been to Hiroshima and visited the memorial museums there. Some people who were in the city of Hiroshima and its immediate surroundings did survive the A-bomb blast. Many later died of conditions brought on by massive radiation exposure, but some did live for decades later. Some people did see the A-bomb blast and lived to tell the tale. The manga "Barefoot Gen" is a good example of this; it's a semi-autobiographical story told by a survivor. I think the more relevant issue here is a feature of much Golden Age science fiction: a fascination with atomic power, coupled with a near-total ignorance of its true effects. The short story "Nerves" by Lester Del Ray demonstrates this duality perfectly, with its excellent story and shockingly bad (to modern eyes) physics and medicine. In other words, I think that Guy Montag's observation is less a slip-up than a feature of that era's SF. If we were to list all the atomic-related slip-ups of Golden Age SF books, we would be here a very long time...
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Misery Guts writes:
At the time the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, my mother and her family were living in Kure, approximately 20 miles from Hiroshima. None of her family were affected in any way. My Mum says that they felt a very strong gust of wind from the blast, but that was all.
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Tuco writes:
OK, wait a minute. When in the book does it ever say that it's an A-bomb anyway? I looked, and it's many bombs that they dropped not just one nuke. And, if it was an a-bomb, the fallout would kill the book people once they get to the city, wouldn't it?
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes
SlipUpSpecialist writes:
I am with Tuco. I have read F451 (I HATED it) but I do not remember it specifically saying it was an A-bomb.
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes
spacecadet writes:
I don't see why it really matters how big of a radius an a bomb has. The author was trying to give a visual image of how close Guy really was. You also have to remember this book is fairly old and pin point accuracy didn't matter much.
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes
Quoz writes:
Fahrenheit 451 is a fantastic book, and i have read it several times. The bomb was never mentioned as an a-bomb. I also have a very hard time believing the Ray Bradbury would make such a careless mistake as such, and mar his gorgeously poetic writing.
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes
chode writes:
I read farenheit451 and the book has no reference to the time period. Bradbury was just making predictions that might happen. When Bradbury wrote the novel they didn't even have the a-bomb yet!
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes
Jessy writes:
A bombs were around when Farenheit 451 was written. It was written in the fifties and a bombs were used during WWII.
15 of 6576 found this helpful. Did you? Yes

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