Jack Aeby
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mechanical engineer most famous for having taken the only well-exposed color photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
on July 16, 1945 at the Trinity site, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. While color motion pictures of the Trinity test were made, most were badly overexposed or damaged due to the fireball's tendency to blister and solarize the film. Aeby was a civilian assigned to the Health Physics Group with Emilio Segrè
Emilio G. Segrè
Emilio Gino Segrè was an Italian-born, naturalized American, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics, who with Owen Chamberlain, discovered antiprotons, a sub-atomic antiparticle.-Biography:...
at the time his snapshot was taken.
Aeby is a source for a story about a notable estimate made by Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
at that test:
Fermi's strips-of paper estimate was ten kilotons of TNT; the actual yield was about 19 kilotons.
Aeby pronounces his surname ˈæbi, like "Abby".