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How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing

Veritasium · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Military history & warfareWorld historyScientific method & science communication

What it is

Veritasium tells how Kodak film was fogged by radioactive fallout from the first atomic tests, letting the company detect nuclear testing before anyone announced it. The video also covers the deal to keep it quiet and how fallout contaminated packaging.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters bring it up as a good related watch in any thread about fallout, nuclear tests or detecting hidden events through indirect evidence.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “Pretty good video from Veritasium o related to this, about how Kodak detected the presence of nuclear weapons tests.”

    How Kodak detected nuclear weapons tests.

    jcims, 2021-09 · Recommendation · in “Why the U.S. once set off a nuclear bomb in space”

  2. “Veritasium has a cool video about a related topic”

    Related story of Kodak and atomic bomb fallout.

    29athrowaway, 2022-01 · Recommendation · in “Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades after bomb tests”

  3. “Veritasium did an eye opening vid on how fallout blew across the country and was ruining Kodak's film on the East Coast.”

    Fallout across the country ruined Kodak film, and it was kept quiet.

    ourmandave, 2025-11 · Recommendation · in “How the Atomic Tests Looked Like from Los Angeles”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: kodak, radioactive fallout, atomic bomb, film fogging, cold war

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