the.com/bomb
a tantrum of physics that ends arguments and, occasionally, the people having them
means A device that releases destructive energy in a sudden explosion, or by extension anything that arrives with dramatic force — from a flopped show to a stunning success.
from From French 'bombe', borrowed from Italian 'bomba', which traces back to Latin 'bombus' meaning a booming or buzzing sound — itself an echo of Greek 'bombos', a deep hollow noise. So at its root the word is pure onomatopoeia: it simply means the sound a thing makes when it goes off. The slang senses came later — 'the bomb' for something excellent, and 'to bomb' for failing spectacularly, two opposite meanings somehow living in the same explosive word.
- slang flip
- means both total disaster and total triumph
- defusing
- cut the wrong wire, lose the debate forever
- first one
- black powder bombs date back to medieval China
- ticking clock
- loud countdowns are a movie myth, not standard
- smell test
- some explosives are scented to deter eating
hiroshima atomic bomb — august 6, 1945: us dropped little boy on hiroshima, instantly killing ~70,000 people
tsar bomba — october 30, 1961: soviet union detonated the largest nuclear weapon ever, 50 megatons over novaya zemlya
manchester bombing — june 15, 1996: ira truck bomb in manchester city center killed 0 but injured 212