Talk:William L. Laurence

message: "Hiroshima is contaminated with radiation. It will be barren of life and nothing will grow for 75 years.  Hiroshima will be barren of human and animal life for 75 years. Any scientists who go there to survey the damage will be committing suicide." - false claim made by Dr. Harold Jacobsen (a Manhattan Project health physicist who knew nothing about the fallout particle size distribution in the air burst over Hiroshima), published in the Washington Post on August 8, 1945. Both Groves and Laurence were attacking this lie that caused panic in the survivors []. Most of the casualties in both cities were due to blast and thermal radiation, with infected wounds made worse by the synergism of initial radiation exposure (which lowers the white blood cell count).  There was no local fallout because the fireball did not touch the ground. The neutron induced activity in Hiroshima was (as intended) too low even at ground zero to cause radiation sickness, owing to the height of the detonation.  The "black rain" in Hiroshima originated from the firestorm which began 30 minutes after the explosion, by which time the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown many miles downwind by the wind.  The actual radioactive fallout around Hiroshima was not lethal and was due not to the firestorm "black rain" or fallout but to the "cloud seeding" rainout effect from hydroscopic salt crystals in sea level coastal air being entrained unto the mushroom cloud by the afterwinds [].  Groves and Laurence were quite correct to debunk the false claims about radiation that were causing panic.  The recent "controversy" is contrived propaganda by people who have no idea of the situation in 1945. 82.21.58.162 (talk) 20:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Laurence correctly denied fallout at Hiroshima after Burchett quoted a lie from Dr. Harold Jacobsen that people were dying from fallout radiation which would make Hiroshima uninhabitible for 75 years and that everyone living in the city after the bomb was doomed

message: There is no mention of what action was taken.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.229.151.139 (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was his Pulitzer Prize revoked? 

message: On my mother's side...anyone who can help me with contact info
for Mr. Laurence's family members, who might have or know of 
someone with info on his family tree, I'd appreciate
them contacting me.
Tom Leland
tomleland@sbcglobal.net  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.36.216 (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm related to William Laurence, but don't know how. 

message: :Laurence denied that the black rain fallout in Hiroshima was significantly radioactive because it originated from the firestorm that began 30 minutes after explosion, when the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown many miles downwind. Most survivors were injured mainly by blast and heat. Laurence was proved right: Hiroshima was not made barren of human and animal life for 75 years. [May not be relevant]
This seems to be an OR addition since it is unsourced. Parts of it are confusing and also don't seem particularly relevant. For example the claim 'Laurence was proved right: Hiroshima was not made barren of human and animal life for 75 years' appears to be about someone else's statements at the time but while it may be true he was right about this, it doesn't appear to be what he's been criticised for (and it's definitely not responding to anything in the article just offering a confusing statement about him being right and about something that didn't happen). Nor does the fact others went too far in the other direction somehow negate the criticism of Laurence. Note that I'm not saying the criticism of Laurence is valid, simply pointing out this apparent OR response doesn't really appear to address the criticism very well and instead seems to go off on a tangent. Nil Einne (talk) 08:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur; I removed the last sentence, and added a CN tag to the first part.  Qwyrxian (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but let's be clear on one thing.  The inclusion of this "controversy" section in the article was agenda-driven at the onset, both by the wiki editor and the sources he cites. The addition to it discussed here needs to be sourced to be sure, but its context is clearly given above in the first section on this page, which the author appears to have placed on the page on or about the same time as the edit.  I seriously doubt that it's OR, given the above, but was clearly POV.--Reedmalloy (talk) 07:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing and probably OR addition