It's kind of mindblowing to me that airborne radar (on the Pe-2) and nuclear fission reactions (in the Chicago Pile-1) happened at basically the same time
the mid century was a time of black magic bullshit
by the way, guess who was involved in both fields?
that's right, Luis fucking Alvarez, the most ridiculous scientist to ever live, a physicist who also made meaningful contributions to paleontology, archaeology, forensic ballistics, and entertainment film techniques
look at this plot. this guy was just like "hmm i wonder if a meteor killed all the dinosaurs" and went and looked and he was *right*
no iridium and lots of dinosaurs before
lots of iridium and no dinosaurs after
🤯
@noracodes in one of my classes in college we watched a short documentary on the various discoveries that eventually forced the conclusion of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs and i will never get over the fact that the idea was just from some physicist going “huh… but what if?”
