Common misconceptions about nukes

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-09-15 11:52am

I was talking on the phone with a friend yesterday, and she'd been reading over one of those "how to survive disasters" articles. One that really worried her was a terrorist nuke, and this is how that went:

Me: I don't think you have to worry, you don't live near a target.
Friend: Yeah, but its a nuclear bomb, it'll still get me.
Me: ... How big do you think a nuclear explosion is?
Friend: Like a hundred miles, right?
Me: No. The immediate "dead zone" for a terrorist nuke, a ground-burst, is probably less than a half-mile. There's still fallout, but you could probably get away.

Anyone else run into any other really odd nuke misconceptions?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-15 12:02pm

A lot of people have their units seriously fucked up. They've heard "megatons" so many times in movies that they think it's a base unit and that a megaton isn't very much. That's why you see so many people writing fiction set in the modern era where 20, 50, or even 100 megaton devices are routinely deployed. Most people are shocked when you tell them that Hiroshima was "only" 0.015 megatons.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-15 12:06pm

I had to explain this twice in my education years, once at secondary school and once at college (no one at uni actually asked, thankfully).

Both instances dealt with the effects and yield of the nuke. As you say, Chewie, it seems some people have bought into the Cold War propaganda too well. I was in a computing class and trying to explain why a nuke wouldn't be a few hundred klicks in diameter for blast damage or fireball (to get that kind of bang, you're talking at least one teratonne). I also had to then say that a nuke going off would mean the bright flash we all expect, and then a faster version of events you see in Independence Day since the schism laser weapon effects there were pretty much slow-mo nukes. Of course, I should've just said go and watch T2, specifically Sarah's nightmare, but ID4 had just come out.

It's usually the radiation that confuses people, since "dirty bombs" have been touted as doomsday weapons, when they'd do shit (and aren't even nuclear weapons anyway). Maybe this is a good thing, since more paranoia over nukes means less people for them being used. Course, you then get the common misconceptions applied to nuclear power...

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-15 12:10pm

Darth Wong wrote:A lot of people have their units seriously fucked up. They've heard "megatons" so many times in movies that they think it's a base unit and that a megaton isn't very much. That's why you see so many people writing fiction set in the modern era where 20, 50, or even 100 megaton devices are routinely deployed. Most people are shocked when you tell them that Hiroshima was "only" 0.015 megatons.

One instance where I find it even funnier is the beginning narration to Armageddon by Charlton Heston. He states the Chicxulub impact that wiped out the dinos "exploded with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons". Even assuming they were all Tsar Bomba devices at max yield (100 megatonnes), that's still way off. They actually underestimate the boom by several orders of magnitude, yet it still impresses friends I know.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-09-15 12:16pm

In clarifying the whole "nukes are big" thing, I explained to her that in the Cold War it wasn't the worry of a single nuke, but thousands, and that's what people would see in movies and images is several thousand explosions, not just one.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2006-09-15 01:08pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:In clarifying the whole "nukes are big" thing, I explained to her that in the Cold War it wasn't the worry of a single nuke, but thousands, and that's what people would see in movies and images is several thousand explosions, not just one.

Good point. Also, concern over the fallout impact, contamination of the environment, and a nuclear winter from all of the particles thrown into the atmosphere were big issues that made a full scale nuclear war a "bad thing" in anyone's books. Fortunately we never had to find out how much these concerns were real or just reasoned speculation.

SVPD · Post by **SVPD** » 2006-09-15 01:14pm

A lot of people also think that nukes (or for that matter a lot of other explosives) will explode if they get accidentally dropped while being moved around, maintained, etc.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-09-15 01:55pm

Being a Old fuck.. I do miss the the Cold War and hearing about Russia's 100meg city buster..

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-09-15 02:53pm

theski wrote:Being a Old fuck.. I do miss the the Cold War and hearing about Russia's 100meg city buster..

I didn't even know that was a RUMOR. The Tsar Bomba was supposed to be ~10-15, IIRC.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-09-15 02:59pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
theski wrote:Being a Old fuck.. I do miss the the Cold War and hearing about Russia's 100meg city buster..
I didn't even know that was a RUMOR. The Tsar Bomba was supposed to be ~10-15, IIRC.

Ha..

Tsar Bomba

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Tsar Bomba casing on display at Chelyabinsk-70
Site of detonationTsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба, literally "Emperor-bomb") is the Western name for the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Developed by the Soviet Union, the ~50 megaton bomb was codenamed Ivan (Russian: Иван) by its developers.

The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961 in Novaya Zemlya, an island in the Arctic Sea. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to minimize nuclear fallout.
Due to its enormous size, the bomb was not practical for warfare purposes, and was created primarily for propaganda use in the intense rivalry of the Cold War. There is no evidence that any other bomb of similar power was ever made.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-15 03:00pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote: I didn't even know that was a RUMOR. The Tsar Bomba was supposed to be ~10-15, IIRC.

Pfft, please. The US and any other nation could make those. The Soviets had the ability to lob 100 megatonnes with the Tsar Bomba, but only ever tested it up to 50 (concerns over igniting the atmosphere with such a big bomb, blah, blah). Too bad it was a colossal beast outdone by many smaller more precise warheads; would've made quite a point to any capitalist pigdog.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2006-09-15 04:30pm

Speaking of common misconceptions...

Jalinth wrote:Good point. Also, concern over the fallout impact, contamination of the environment, and a nuclear winter from all of the particles thrown into the atmosphere were big issues that made a full scale nuclear war a "bad thing" in anyone's books. Fortunately we never had to find out how much these concerns were real or just reasoned speculation.

This thread in Devine Salamis covers it pretty well. Specifically, the posts by Sea Skimmer and Stuart.

Ariphaos · Post by **Ariphaos** » 2006-09-16 12:04am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:In clarifying the whole "nukes are big" thing, I explained to her that in the Cold War it wasn't the worry of a single nuke, but thousands, and that's what people would see in movies and images is several thousand explosions, not just one.

It's important to note that:

1: Nukes require about 6 pounds per kiloton of yeild, as a rule of thumb. We can make nukes use less fissile material, but this requires more materials to be used to cheat. For example, the United States once detonated 1 kg of plutonium... using a thousand pounds of equipment.

2: The above point is by American standards. The Russians never had the process so streamlined. To say nothing about what a bunch of yakjob terrorists are going to be capable of.

3: This means they'll be lucky to build something half of Hiroshima's size.

4: Note that, despite being the perfect target for civilian loss, and a very radiologically dirty bomb, most of Hiroshima still survived (its people. The bomb certainly wrecked the city, granted).

defanatic · Post by **defanatic** » 2006-09-16 12:30am

Xeriar wrote: 1: Nukes require about 6 pounds per kiloton of yeild, as a rule of thumb. We can make nukes use less fissile material, but this requires more materials to be used to cheat. For example, the United States once detonated 1 kg of plutonium... using a thousand pounds of equipment.

This confused me. You use kilograms first, and then have pounds. Is that the measure of weight (so you're inconsistent), or money (which is ridiculous).

defanatic · Post by **defanatic** » 2006-09-16 12:31am

Where's the edit button?

One misconception I heard of is that cockroaches can survive a nuclear bomb blast. Wait... What?

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-09-16 03:21am

defanatic wrote:
Xeriar wrote: 1: Nukes require about 6 pounds per kiloton of yeild, as a rule of thumb. We can make nukes use less fissile material, but this requires more materials to be used to cheat. For example, the United States once detonated 1 kg of plutonium... using a thousand pounds of equipment.
This confused me. You use kilograms first, and then have pounds. Is that the measure of weight (so you're inconsistent), or money (which is ridiculous).

If there's two possibilities and one is ridiculous, what's to be confused about?

defanatic wrote:Where's the edit button?

One misconception I heard of is that cockroaches can survive a nuclear bomb blast. Wait... What?

It's supposed to be the radiation rather than the blast itself. AFAIK the fact that they can repair their DNA better is mainly because, like all [?] insects, they've simply got less of it to damage in the first place.

Cockroaches and radiation wrote:As a result, we discovered that we humans are much more susceptible to radiation than insects, and will die after a dose of some 400 - 1,000 rads. For example, some people as far as 21 kilometres from Ground Zero at Hiroshima received doses of 1,200 rads - and suffered slow and agonising deaths. But insects turned out to be much more radiation resistant. Wood-boring insects and their eggs were able to survive doses of 48,000 to 68,000 rads with no apparent ill effect. In 1959, Drs. Wharton and Wharton found that it took 64,000 rads to kill the fruit fly, and a colossal 180,000 rads to be sure of killing the parasitoid wasp, Habrobracon.

As a result of all this testing, it gradually emerged that the cockroach is, at least in terms of nuclear survivability, a wimp. The two Drs. Wharton had found in 1957 that it took only 1,000 rads to interfere with cockroach fertility. In 1963, Drs. Ross and Cochran found that a dose as low as 6.400 rads would kill 93% of immature German cockroaches - making cockroaches only six to fifteen times tougher than we frail humans. Sure, cockroaches survive radiation better than we do - but they curl up and die at doses than don't even bother other insects.

[...]

At the moment, the real King of Radiation is a foul-smellingreddish bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans, or Conan the Bacterium by its admiring researchers. It was discovered growing happily in canned meat that had gone bad, even though the meat had been sprayed with radiation to preserve it - a nice example of evolution. This bacterium frolics happily in background levels of 1,500,000 rads of radiation - and seems to be able to survive twice as much again, when frozen.

Aasharu · Post by **Aasharu** » 2006-09-16 03:26am

defanatic wrote:
Xeriar wrote: 1: Nukes require about 6 pounds per kiloton of yeild, as a rule of thumb. We can make nukes use less fissile material, but this requires more materials to be used to cheat. For example, the United States once detonated 1 kg of plutonium... using a thousand pounds of equipment.
This confused me. You use kilograms first, and then have pounds. Is that the measure of weight (so you're inconsistent), or money (which is ridiculous).

I think he meant that you need six pounds of material, (uranium, plutonium, etc.) to get the same effect as one kiloton of dynamite. A kiloton is the common measurement of the yield of a nuclear device.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2006-09-16 03:30am

I've heard people talk about nukes large enough to destroy Utah. I've heard people in the Air Force claim that one B-52 could devastate the entire world, and I've heard my share of nuclear holocaust claims, but those two I mentioned are my favorite.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-09-16 03:49am

Aasharu wrote:
defanatic wrote:This confused me. You use kilograms first, and then have pounds. Is that the measure of weight (so you're inconsistent), or money (which is ridiculous).
I think he meant that you need six pounds of material, (uranium, plutonium, etc.) to get the same effect as one kiloton of dynamite. A kiloton is the common measurement of the yield of a nuclear device.

Nitpick: TNT, not dynamite. Anyway that definition's not so precise, so at some point they just fixed the energy of a ton at a value around that of TNT. Now it's just another energy unit.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-09-16 04:53am

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote: I didn't even know that was a RUMOR. The Tsar Bomba was supposed to be ~10-15, IIRC.
Pfft, please. The US and any other nation could make those. The Soviets had the ability to lob 100 megatonnes with the Tsar Bomba, but only ever tested it up to 50 (concerns over igniting the atmosphere with such a big bomb, blah, blah). Too bad it was a colossal beast outdone by many smaller more precise warheads; would've made quite a point to any capitalist pigdog.

It was 50MT for fear of killing the bomber crew if it was greater, so they took out the third stage.

The US had something like a 15-24mt thermonuclear bomb in service during the 60's anyway. So a 10-15MT 'biggest bomb ever' is a bit silly.

defanatic · Post by **defanatic** » 2006-09-16 08:34am

Winston Blake wrote:
defanatic wrote:Where's the edit button?

One misconception I heard of is that cockroaches can survive a nuclear bomb blast. Wait... What?
It's supposed to be the radiation rather than the blast itself. AFAIK the fact that they can repair their DNA better is mainly because, like all [?] insects, they've simply got less of it to damage in the first place.

I know that, but I've heard people quote it as the actual blast. :S Confusion for the youngins.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-09-16 09:17am

I read most of the thread that Adrian Laguna provided the link for and it seems like the "Nuclear Winter" theory is greatly over exaggerated and the Earth following a full scale nuclear war would instead go through a "Nuclear Autumn". And it was stated in the thread that even with a huge nuclear exchange, there would be many nukes that would be successfully neutralised before deployment, many countries would be relatively untouched and "only" 1.2 billion people would die in the conflict.

Hmmm, those facts make sense if the Soviet Union and the United States were expecting most of their military infrastructure to survive WWIII (with their extensive bunker complexes, air fleets and submarine navies built to withstand nuclear war).

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-09-16 09:22am

Winston Blake wrote:Nitpick: TNT, not dynamite. Anyway that definition's not so precise, so at some point they just fixed the energy of a ton at a value around that of TNT. Now it's just another energy unit.

The modern definition of a megaton is that it is equivlent to 10e15 calories, I believe.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-09-16 09:27am

That'd be 1E16 calories if anything and actually, it's 4.18E15 joules.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-09-16 08:55pm

The biggest popular misconceptions are about having enough nukes to "blow up the world ten times over" and of course killing everyone and destroying everything.

Of course, it's amusing to review what the public thought of nukes years ago. In The Atomic Cafe one of the newsreel clips featured in the movie is one of Adm. W.P. Blandy, the commander of the Operation Crossroads test, having to respond to a whole pile of wrong ideas of what the Bomb would do:

"The bomb will not cause a chain reaction in the atmosphere and burn up all the oxygen. It will not blow a hole in the bottom of the ocean, causing all the water to run down and all the ships on the seas to settle on the bottom. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, setting off these bombs to satisfy my personal whim."