Few events have had a more profound impact on our world than the development and use of the atomic bomb. Yet nuclear weapons often seem distant and complex. The Day after Trinity tells the story of the development and explosion of the first atomic bomb (at the Trinity test site) through the life of its designer, the physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer was, as one Nobel laureate is quoted in the film, a tremendous intellect. Yet he was also ultimately a man with the frailties of all men, an individual whose last years were marked by defeat as he was excluded from further work on atomic energy during the McCarthy period, in part due to his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb. Through his story, nuclear weapons-at once so abstract yet so terribly real in their effects-are made more accessible.
The CD-ROM is built around the complete 1980 public television documentary. In addition to containing this film, the CD-ROM holds working transcripts for some of its many original interviews, historical photographs, and supporting documentation, including excerpts from FBI files and additional film clips regarding the film's creation. These supporting materials are accessible from on-screen icons. The film runs 90 minutes and is presented in a linear manner. (Its utility would be enhanced if the CD-ROM allowed users to return directly to a spot in the film after consulting the ancillary materials on the disc.)
The Day after Trinity runs on both Windows and the Mac, and installed easily under Windows 3.1. The video is displayed in a default three-by-four inch window. Although it is possible to expand the video display to a six-by-eight inch window, the video quality is superior with the smaller size (though even there the video and audio are not perfectly synchronized).
The screen contains intuitive controls for pausing the video and moving it backward and forward. It is also possible to jump to locations in the video using a table of contents or the find feature (the addition of a bookmark feature would make finding your place even easier!). There were times I wished that I could print some of the text items.
The Day after Trinity tells an important story and raises serious questions for us all to consider.
