Holy Cow. First episode was insanely good and horrifying. The beginning of the end. Anybody else watching?
Two thumbs up from me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_involvement_in_the_Chernobyl_disaster It spoils some stuff, but I used the page above to keep people's names and jobs straight. And hopefuly you already know how this one ends, generally. If not... Spoiler A whole lot of people are about to die horribly.
Looking forward to future episodes. They did a great job in that first episode of capturing the fear and intimidation that was systemic at the time.
That's how I'll watch it as well, but I really want to see it already. How many episodes will there be?
I am reading a great but terrifying book called Midnight in Chernobyl. The research is top notch and the author tells the story step by step. Honestly, it's two things intertwined: big government gone hopelessly, stupidly wrong plus a band of incredibly brave people who, believe it or not, saved the disaster from being even worse. Lots of people sacrificed themselves for the greater good of not just the Ukraine region but the broader world.
I just saw it last night from recommendations in the movie thread by @Ottomaton and @Buck Turgidson like most others, I really like Jared Harris from Mad Men and The Crown. Help me out. Can you explain why the nuclear physicists were saying an explosion of the core was impossible. Obviously they believe it's theoretically impossible, that only a meltdown would occur, not an explosion. "You did not see graphite. That's impossible." The bit of reading from various sources I did last night doesn't seem to address the theoretical impossibility of the explosion, that is, I want to know why the engineers were so dumbfounded and disbelieving.
They had real audio recordings of emergency phone calls to the fire department and calls to the higher ups of the plant facility. Like daywalker said, it really is a disgusting story, in the sense of what people in power can control.
Well, I can help a little but not thoroughly. Can't emphasize enough how much these things are engineering projects versus physics projects. The physics stops at the very earliest stages of design, from what I can tell, especially in the case of these mega-reactors the USSR was rolling out in the 1980's. The hubris involved is staggering in retrospect. The crisis happened, as many technological ones do, during a test that everyone thought would be super simple and safe (e.g. Apollo 1 pad test). They were actually testing the shut down of a big reactor. The control rods were lowered too slowly basically and create a perfect storm of run-away heat (because their tips were actually coated with material that would further stoke the reaction). Anyway, I think the engineers thought the explosion was impossible for two main reasons (just based on reading this book, which is not written by a physicist or engineer, so this is getting pretty distorted, most probably, especially in my retelling): 1. They didn't think that much of the water in the reactor could possibly vaporize that quickly. There were, from what I can tell, projections for what could lead to that, but it was like a 1 in trillion or something chance, they thought. 2. There was an incredibly heavy and thick LID on the damned thing. Nobody but nobody thought anything that happened in the reactor could knock that lid off, but that's what happened. Everyone who saw that lid hanging ajar was just slack-jawed, as if they were seeing a being from another dimension or something.
I watched the first episode Monday night, it was damn good but really chilling....looking forward to watching the rest of the series. I'm kind of surprised HBO didn't give this it's prime Sunday night spot once GOT was done....
The scene where the local committee is meeting with the power plant operators: the old Soviet commissar (or whatever his position is) gets up and gives an amazing and horrifying 1 minute synopsis of the ****ed up Soviet socio-political philosophy, after 1 of the locals has the gall to suggest that they evacuate the town: [after a bunch of Glorious Lenin would be so proud of you all blah blah blah] "...especially you, young man (points to the pro-evacuate guy), for the passion that you have for the people. For is that not the sole purpose of the apparatus of the state? Sometimes we forget, sometimes we fall prey to fear, but our faith in Soviet Socialism will always be rewarded. Now the State tells us the situation here is not dangerous. Have faith comrades. The State tells us it wants to prevent a panic. Listen well. It's true, when the people see the police they will be afraid, but it is in my experience, that when the people ask questions that are not in their own best interest, they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labor, and leave matters of the State to the State. We will seal off the city. No one leaves. And cut the phone lines, to stop the spread of misinformation. That is how we keep the people from undermining the fruits of their own labor. Yes, comrades, we will all be rewarded for what we do here tonight." [Standing ovation] An ex of mine was 8 years old at the time, living in Poland, and all of her and her sister's hair just fell out one day and they were both feverish and vomiting a bit. This was fairly common, since the Soviets decided to wait 3 days to announce that the accident had happened, so people were just going about their lives normally. I wish I had asked her mom more about it.
