Isao hashimoto biography of albert

By Andrew Quist

The scale of destruction a nuclear war would bring is beyond emotional comprehension.

Due to the psychological phenomenon “psychic numbing,” millions of deaths does not feel the same as multiplying the emotional impact of one death by 1 million. In fact, because they are an abstraction, we feel even less when contemplating the deaths of 1 million than we do the death of one identified person.

As the scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi noted, “Having been adapted to live within a small clan, I am still touched by any individual suffering and would even risk my life for a fellow man in trouble, but I cannot multiply individual suffering by a hundred million, and so I talk with a smile about the ‘pulverization’ of our big cities.”

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created two works of art that cut through this numbing and allow the viewer to feel the scale of the world’s nuclear stockpiles, and thus rec