Now you see it... Now you don't

500 feet tall-- a monument to man's ability to accomplish anything he sets out to do. Or a reminder of what some would call a fatally flawed technology. The Trojan Nuclear cooling tower has long been a prominent landmark along the Columbia River.

Until today.

At precisely 7 o'clock this morning, a series of charges blasted two rings around the massive hyperbolic tower. Its center suddenly gone, the open top leaned toward me then collapsed. In less than 10 seconds, all that was left was a pile of rubble and a cloud of yellow dust. 3 seconds after that, the sound of the blast reached my ears.

For Entropy's video interpretation of the event, click here.

The atom, the basic building block of the universe, has proven harder to tame than we ever imagined. So many images are evoked when we consider the triumphs and problems of utilizing power without a full understanding of it.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Trinity and Alamagordo.

Cold War.

Chernoble.

Three Mile Island.

To be fair, the stories we hear are often the bad ones. There are facilities around the world that run clean plants and create energy for countless people. One in particular, Hanford, has provided for parts of my family for years.

If an atom, the smallest piece of substance God created, holds such power, I can't even imagine what other power he has packed into this amazing universe of his.

I have a feeling we ain't seen nothin' yet.