Nuclear weapon effect question, plus something similar

[His Divine Shadow]

Doing a debate as of now, I'd like some more concrete figures on this what a 12.5GT bomb would do, if it say hit the center of Los Angeles.

Same question except now it's not a bomb but a laser beam from orbit.

[Darth Wong]

It would kill a lot of actors and actresses.

[Mr Bean]

Oh 12.5 Gigaton?

Lemme haul out "Ol Betsy" and see what a punny 12.5 Laser would do BHWHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

Nuke, hmm find the Nuke your House site its somewhere online, little Java Applet that Cacluates via Map-quest what a 1 Megaton Nuke would do then just scale it from there 1,000 Fold

The Laser However would depending on where its shot from(Assuming the Moon because everyone puts Lasers on the moon, its in the Evil Guy Rules)

Anyway no being able to avoid the Thermal Blooming and the various scatterings you would get basicly Vaporization of the Target and a good six hundred feet under that plus crisping of everyone within six miles plus blindness for thirty

[His Divine Shadow]

It would kill a lot of actors and actresses.

Well do you know how to calculate the damage it would do over a large radius?
Would it level all of Los Angeles or could there be any survivors?

[Darth Wong]

It would kill a lot of actors and actresses.

Well do you know how to calculate the damage it would do over a large radius? Would it level all of Los Angeles or could there be any survivors?

See the Nuclear Weapons FAQ for the appropriate scaling laws. You would also have to define the borders of LA, and figure out its dimensions.

[His Divine Shadow]

Oh yeah the appropriate scaling laws, yeah, they make me fry eggs on my head, if I remembered them correctly there where all kinds of equations and such, looked like a long version of E=mc^2 or something.
Atleast thats what I remember the last time I was there, some year ago trying to figure something like this out.

I am asking cause I suck at formulas, I can't for the love of me figure them out.

[Illuminatus Primus]

A 100 MG nuke (Tsar Bomba) could irradiate the better of New Jersey and flatten any city. Later conceptions for that weapon took its enormous collateral damage into consideration for FOBOS weapon system proposals within the 60's Soviet Union. They couldn't target well with orbital trajectories, so they planned to use bombs so big it wouldn't matter as much.

[Darth Wong]

The scaling laws are not that complicated. From the aforementioned source, the destructive radii for a 2.5 kT bomb are:

1. Thermal: 1km
2. Blast: 1km
3. Radiation: 1km

They scale at the following rates:

1. Thermal: Y^0.41
2. Blast: Y^0.33
3. Radiation: Y^0.19

Therefore, the destructive radius of a 12.5 gigaton bomb would be roughly:

1. Thermal: 550 km
2. Blast:160 km
3. Radiation: 19km

Note that these figures are for effects which are not actually 100% lethal, ie- you will have survivors. But for a larger blast, survival is essentially impossible in the radiation radius, so you can assume that anyone within 20km of the blast will be dead, with heavy casualties out to more than 500 km. Not bad, eh?

Other trivia: The thermal pulse (blinding flash) of a nuclear blast will last 0.75s for a 20kT bomb and 4.5s for a 1 MT bomb (from the Nuclear Weapons FAQ again, defined as time to drop to 10% of peak luminosity). The scaling law for pulse duration is Y^0.45, so a 12.5 gigaton bomb would create a blinding flash which lasts for roughly 5 minutes in atmosphere.

In short, gigaton-yield weaponry on surface targets would be almost unthinkably destructive. An asteroid impact of this size would create global effects (see my Planet-killer page).

[Frank Hipper]

Just a guess, but bye-bye western U.S.

[His Divine Shadow]

If it was a laser weapon, would it have similar effects?

[Stormbringer]

If it was a laser weapon, would it have similar effects?

No, you wouldn't get the enourmous spread of damage as a laser is a ray rather than an expanding sphere. You'd get a tremendous amount of debris spread all over as thermal effects would cause expansion of the material around the strike. Essentially it would pentrate deeper into the earth and have less of a spread.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

It would kill a lot of actors and actresses.

But would the silcone implant survive?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The scaling laws are not that complicated. From the aforementioned source, the destructive radii for a 2.5 kT bomb are:

1. Thermal: 1km
2. Blast: 1km
3. Radiation: 1km

They scale at the following rates:

1. Thermal: Y^0.41
2. Blast: Y^0.33
3. Radiation: Y^0.19

Therefore, the destructive radius of a 12.5 gigaton bomb would be roughly:

1. Thermal: 550 km
2. Blast:160 km
3. Radiation: 19km

Note that these figures are for effects which are not actually 100% lethal, ie- you will have survivors. But for a larger blast, survival is essentially impossible in the radiation radius, so you can assume that anyone within 20km of the blast will be dead, with heavy casualties out to more than 500 km. Not bad, eh?

Other trivia: The thermal pulse (blinding flash) of a nuclear blast will last 0.75s for a 20kT bomb and 4.5s for a 1 MT bomb (from the Nuclear Weapons FAQ again, defined as time to drop to 10% of peak luminosity). The scaling law for pulse duration is Y^0.45, so a 12.5 gigaton bomb would create a blinding flash which lasts for roughly 5 minutes in atmosphere.

In short, gigaton-yield weaponry on surface targets would be almost unthinkably destructive. An asteroid impact of this size would create global effects (see my Planet-killer page).

For the record, the blast would approach the outskirts of San Diego and Santa Barbra, though not reach them (and the combination of terrain and atmospheric factors might further reduce the range), and the lethal radius would include essentially all of LA proper, but probably not the Anaheim-Santa Ana area, and definitely not the San Bernardino area. The thermal effects would reach Santa Cruz, on the northern end of the Monterrey Bay, and well into Mexico. However, atmospherics/terrain could again modify that. San Franciscans would escape except for eye damage, assuming it was an air burst.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Fallout from that monster would be horrific.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fallout from that monster would be horrific.

Not as bad as you'd expect, an airburst jacketed in lead wouldn't produce a partcaully massive amount, and the wind would dump the vast majority of it on sparely populated destert and former nuclear testing ranges.

The biggest problume would be what gets in the Colorado river. That could fuck over several states, several huge reservoirs would have to be drained and California and Nevada put on strict water rationing for months.

[His Divine Shadow]

Fallout from that monster would be horrific.

Not as bad as you'd expect, an airburst jacketed in lead wouldn't produce a partcaully massive amount, and the wind would dump the vast majority of it on sparely populated destert and former nuclear testing ranges.

The biggest problume would be what gets in the Colorado river. That could fuck over several states, several huge reservoirs would have to be drained and California and Nevada put on strict water rationing for months.

Now imagine a bomb lined with cobalt-60

[Stormbringer]

Fallout from that monster would be horrific.

Not as bad as you'd expect, an airburst jacketed in lead wouldn't produce a partcaully massive amount, and the wind would dump the vast majority of it on sparely populated destert and former nuclear testing ranges.

The biggest problume would be what gets in the Colorado river. That could fuck over several states, several huge reservoirs would have to be drained and California and Nevada put on strict water rationing for months.

Now imagine a bomb lined with cobalt-60

The southwest is gonna be a quiet neighborhood for about the next ten thousand years- Major Deakins

[Raptor 597]

Just out of Curiousty what does the Isotope Colbalt 60 do?

[Stormbringer]

Just out of Curiousty what does the Isotope Colbalt 60 do?

It's supposed to produce a nasty and very radioactive fallout.

[His Divine Shadow]

Just out of Curiousty what does the Isotope Colbalt 60 do?

Love you to death.

[Raptor 597]

Thanks, and it won't love me unless their are some winds heading a thousand miles this way

[Sea Skimmer]

Fallout from that monster would be horrific.

Not as bad as you'd expect, an airburst jacketed in lead wouldn't produce a partcaully massive amount, and the wind would dump the vast majority of it on sparely populated destert and former nuclear testing ranges.

The biggest problume would be what gets in the Colorado river. That could fuck over several states, several huge reservoirs would have to be drained and California and Nevada put on strict water rationing for months.

Now imagine a bomb lined with cobalt-60

A good chunk of North America is fucked, though the hundreds of miles of desert will do much to soak up the fallout.

[Sea Skimmer]

Thanks, and it won't love me unless their are some winds heading a thousand miles this way

Your not safe, not from a blast of this size. A good chunk of the fallout plume is going to get you. Not enough to kill outright I'd expect, the rocky mountains and distance will eat up most of it, but your going to be looking at a severely reduce life expectancy due to contaminated food and water.

[kojikun]

The bigger question is: with all the freaks and mutants in LA as it is, would the post-apocalyptic waste be distinguishable from the present city?

[The Dark]

Thanks, and it won't love me unless their are some winds heading a thousand miles this way

Your not safe, not from a blast of this size. A good chunk of the fallout plume is going to get you. Not enough to kill outright I'd expect, the rocky mountains and distance will eat up most of it, but your going to be looking at a severely reduce life expectancy due to contaminated food and water.

IIRC, even Chernobyl had effects in the US with (very minor) fallout. A 12.5GT bomb would likely produce at least minor fallout worldwide unless it was heavily jacketed due to some fallout being blasted up into the upper atmosphere, from which high level air streams like the Jet Stream would carry them. All I really know is I hope it never happens.