Technologist-Historian: Data Visualization Meets the Archive

Abstract

NukeMap is an interactive data-visualization website that allows visitors to detonate virtual nuclear bombs on global targets of their choice.1 It is the creation of Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and technology who launched the site in early 2012. In NukeMap, the visitor selects a type of nuclear device, defining its size, or chooses from a menu of predefined options that model the effects that an actual historical bomb would have on a present-day target. Interactive-display options allow visitors to explore map layers and datasets such as blast radius, fallout pattern, and number of casualties. Hyperlinks connect to additional historical resources. He or she may, for example, see how much damage “Little Boy,” the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, would do if dropped on modern Mumbai, or “Gadget,” the bomb detonated over the New Mexican desert in the Trinity test, would do if dropped on Manhattan today.