A Deeply Unsettling Time Lapse Of Every Nuclear Explosion On Earth

*Stocks up on canned foods, heads to bunker*

Broadly speaking, most people know very little about the usage and testing of nuclear weapons. Sure, you're probably vaguely aware that nuclear tests occured throughout the twentieth century by some of the world's most powerful nations (mainly the United States) but chances are you'd be surprised by the frequency.

This time lapse, created by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto, goes a long way in highlighting that frequency. The result is a fairly unsettling look at our collective fascination with destruction between 1945 and 1998, where the world managed to set off 2053 nuclear explosions. Here's a rather sober explanation of the project in Hashimoto's own words:

This piece of work is a bird's eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second. No letter is used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier. The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted. I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world.

Anyway, here you go:

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