Map of the world's 2053 nuclear explosions since 1945

Major King Kong rides The Bomb in "Dr. Strangelove"
(Photo: themoviewizard.com)

With the possible exception of the late Air Force General Curtis “Bomb ‘em back into the Stone Age” LeMay, it’s hard to find anyone who will admit to being a big fan of nuclear warfare. Fictional B-52 pilot Major T. J. "King" Kong—played excellently by Slim Pickens in Stanley Kubrick’s wonderful 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove”—could hardly conceal his glee when he told his crew, “Well, boys, I reckon this is it – nuc’ler combat toe to toe with the Roosskies!” For the rest of us—particularly those of us who came of age during the Cold War—the ever-present threat of thermonuclear annihilation was the stuff of nightmares.

Our own views on “the bomb” were colored in large part by an opportunity we had back in 1965 to have an extended conversation with Mr. Akira Mitsui, a survivor of the WW-II atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Mitsui, who was then an editor for the Asahi Shimbum newspaper, was touring the U.S. giving speeches prior to the 20th anniversary of the first belligerent use of nuclear weaponry. We were tasked with driving Mr. Mitsui around Louisville, as he gave talks at local colleges.

(Animation: coolchaser.com)

Mitsui was a 15 year-old defense plant worker, riding a trolley car on his way to the factory on the outskirts of Hiroshima City, when the 13 kiloton “Little Boy” bomb exploded at 8:15 a.m., 1,900 feet above the city. He was blown several yards from the trolley, and his clothes were all burned off, but he survived with only minor burns. More than 150,000 of his neighbors were not so lucky.

Now, 65 years after the last nuclear weapon was used against men, women, and children, there are many strategists who argue that our policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (with the unfortunate acronym, “MAD”) has somewhat kept the peace between the major powers, by making the specter of nuclear war too horrible to contemplate. Others passionately argue that the proliferation of nuclear weapons—particularly in the Middle East—portends the inevitability of nuclear war.

Atomic bomb devistation at Hiroshima (Photo:  WordPress)

It is difficult to put this continuing debate into any rational perspective; given the strong emotional content of the competing arguments. But a Japanese artist named Isao Hashimoto has created a graphic animation, titled "1945-1998," which maps out a history of the world's nuclear explosions. Over the course of fourteen and a half minutes, every single one of the 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are is plotted on a map.

He began the piece in 2003, with the aim of showing, in his own words, "the fear and folly of nuclear weapons". Hashimoto says: " I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world." Even though the timescale on the animation only reaches 1998, and doesn't include North Korea's two nuclear tests in October 2006 and May 2009, it speaks louder than words about the folly of the path our civilization has taken toward destruction.

Watch the video. And then say a prayer.