HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing

92 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2021–2025 score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

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

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.

“Veritasium did an eye opening vid on how fallout blew across the country and was ruining Kodak's film on the East Coast.” (HN, 2025)

3 recommendations · 1 citations · Explainers

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@ourmandave Nov 2025 Recommends
on HN thread How the Atomic Tests Looked Like from Los Angeles
At least LA wasn't down wind. Veritasium did an eye opening vid on how fallout blew across the country and was ruining Kodak's film on the East Coast. And they stayed quiet it about it. How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing [this video]
Fallout across the country ruined Kodak film, and it was kept quiet.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@sss111 Jul 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Bomb Pulse
It's interesting how powerful these bombs can be. Reminds me of when Kodak was able to detect atomic bomb testing in the US because of fogging on their X-ray films. [link] [this video]
Explains how Kodak film fogging revealed atomic tests.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close