Blake Hall
This stunning capture of what a nuclear explosion looks like less than one millisecond after it detonation was taken by a rapatronic camera — which was invented by Harold Edgerton for this precise purpose (document, visually, the “rapidly changing matter” in fission) back in the 1940s. He, along with two other MIT professors, founded EG&G (Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier), an organization that was heavily involved with the Manhattan Project.
In the 1950s, EG&G became a government contractor for the Atomic Energy Commission. They primarily ran tests that costs billions of dollars at the Nevada National Security Site.
Where this took place (and where the U.S. has tested — get this — 928 nuclear weapons since its inception):
It strangely resembles some kind of living organism, doesn’t it? It’s simultaneously creepy and awesome.