"It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined. It was that beauty the great poets dream about but describe most poorly and inadequately."

--Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, eulogising over the Trinity atom bomb test at Alamogordo, a few weeks before the citizens of two Japanese cities were annihilated by similar explosions.