The effects of nuclear weaponsSamuel Glasstone
The effects of nuclear weapons
by Samuel Glasstone · first published 1977
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…attacking with nuclear weapons in the early 1960s was 600 million dead - a lot in Western Europe and elsewhere. This was known to be an underestimate as US planning did not take into effect the thermal effects of nuclear weapons due to a degree of variability from cloud cover etc. So probably about a billion would have died - then there is the effect of Soviet weapons... I can recommend Daniel Ellsberg's book on the topic: https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war...
on “Why did the atomic spy do it?” ↗Yeah for those who wish to go deeper Stumpf’s Minuteman and Titan histories are good resources as well. There is also the Effects of Nuclear Weapons.
on “Richard Rhodes wrote a classic book about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb” ↗Thought this would be "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" by Samuel Glasstone, 1964, a full 768-pg textbook on the topic, available here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822013222641&se...
on “Effects of Nuclear Explosions” ↗Hiroshima and Nagasaki were August 6+9, 1945. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons was published in 1950. Bikini Atoll was March 1, 1954. We already had a really good understanding of the consequences of nuclear weapons without needing to tow the Independence back to SF, sandblast it…
on “Radioactive Hulk of Carrier USS Independence Found Off San Francisco (2015)” ↗https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads was in July 1947, so chances are fairly good its data was used to write “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” (couldn’t find a first edition online to verify that) March 1, 1954 was 3 years after this ship was scuttled, so mentioning it is irrelevant. Also, dumping waste in sea may be stupid, but it was the…
on “Radioactive Hulk of Carrier USS Independence Found Off San Francisco (2015)” ↗…blast shelter with wood and earth that'll handle 15 PSI. And most warheads are less powerful (see my other comments); using my handy "RAND" nuclear effects calculator from the back of my copy of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 15 PSI for the following weapon air bursts (targeting cities, not ground bursts against ICBMs etc.): 500 Kt: 1.8 miles 300 Kt: 1.5 miles 100 Kt: a bit over 1 mile 50 Kt: 0.85 miles So we're…
on “The Weirdness of 50s Bomb Shelters” ↗That's somewhat semantics. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1964) for example lists types of Radiological weapons.
on “What are you banned from? Why?” ↗All the equations used to calculate blast, radiation and heat are public domain and can be found in the AEC/DOE publication "Effects of Nuclear Weapons". The effects, thanks to the glory of physics, are mostly simple polynomials with kilotonnage and distance (math.h pow()). It could easily be implemented by a high school programmer (at least of my…
on “Nukemap Is Down” ↗This is pure brilliance. The depth of reasearch they went to for some of the units is mind-boggling --- start quote --- /* From Department of the Army's authoritative study: "Effects of Nuclear Weapons", footnote 3 to section 1.45, available at: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/ "The majority of the experimental and theoretical values of the explosive energy released…
on “Ask HN: What's the best source code you've read?” ↗…evidence?" I was telling a story about my early life! Get a grip! It was a lead-in to a)the Soviet doomsday device which may have been real and may still be around and b)to my early fright at the nasty side-effects of nuclear weapons. ben_wL "The former easily wipes out a city; the latter messes up a building." Indeed an understatement! The Chernobyl reactor is an accidental "dirty bomb". It FUed quite a large area: people don't…
on “IRGC Claims It Destroyed Amazon's Bahrain Data Center” ↗…article "M. V. Ramana" is long-time opponent of nuclear energy , mostly because of nuclear weapon proliferation concerns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._V._Ramana See for example: "Bombing Bombay? Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion", 1999 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) https://www.ippnw.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Bombing-Bom... "Costing plutonium:…
on “Forgotten History of Small Nuclear Reactors (2015)” ↗