NationStates Jolt Archive

This comes from a discussion with classmates at College.

Can 73 modern day nukes detonated around the world at the same destroy Earth? This is including fallout and a nuclear winter.

This comes from a discussion with classmates at College.

Can 73 modern day nukes detonated around the world at the same destroy Earth? This is including fallout and a nuclear winter.
Any specific sizes? There is a range

Hmmm... Let's see. Now where's that Big Red button?

Unfortunately, we may never know.

Fortunately, we may never know.

;)

What's interesting is this: Though the testing of the first atomic bomb went more or less as theorized, there was a hypothetical chance that the chain reaction might sustain itself in the atmosphere. Though the data didn't seem to support it, the creators couldn't rule out with certainty that the first atomic explosion wouldn't destroy Earth's atmosphere and therefore, Earth.
They detonated it anyway. :confused:

Wrong! It's 74 and a half nukes to wipe out the world.


Why 73?

I think so, because 2 nuclear subs of Russia can destroy this world. But I don't know how many nukes 1 sub carries.

Why in god's name would you need 73?

One nuke can nuke can wipe out the world. . .

What's interesting is this: Though the testing of the first atomic bomb went more or less as theorized, there was a hypothetical chance that the chain reaction might sustain itself in the atmosphere. Though the data didn't seem to support it, the creators couldn't rule out with certainty that the first atomic explosion wouldn't destroy Earth's atmosphere and therefore, Earth.
They detonated it anyway. :confused:

Now if that isn't worrying, nothing is...

I wonder what else they plan on testing?! :eek:

Why in god's name would you need 73?

One nuke can nuke can wipe out the world. . .


Eh no. Unless where you shoot it. Maybe in the north pole it might.

Eh no. Unless where you shoot it. Maybe in the north pole it might.
And what about the north pole would make the impact different?

(and if he is not limiting size … one nuke could do it … if it was like 100000000000 kilotons … but yeah)

Why in god's name would you need 73?

One nuke can nuke can wipe out the world. . .
They've detonated several nukes. We're still kicking. There's a huge gaping hole in your argument there.

And it would destroy life on earth, but not the earth itself. I'm not sure what the immediate effects of a nuke are to the atmosphere, but if it doesn't wipe it ouy (just shower it with radiation), some stuff might actually live and become resistant to radiation. As unlikely as it is.

Eh no. Unless where you shoot it. Maybe in the north pole it might.

Russia launched a nuke that wipe out (yes, wipe out) an entire island at half it's full load. At full load, this thing would have wipe out Russia due to fallout. Three of these things could spread fallout throughout the world. . .

(and if they were to build one bigger version, I'm sure it would be feasible in one, but no one would want to try that)

And what about the north pole would make the impact different?

(and if he is not limiting size … one nuke could do it … if it was like 100000000000 kilotons … but yeah)
Modern nukes arent 100000000000 kilotons. As far as I know.
The north pole has a different atmosphere than closer to the equator. The radiation would probably spread everywhere, as opposed to just with the one- or two-way winds elsewhere.

Er, I don't think 73 nukes could destroy the world. Life would survive, the life that sucks on Geothermal vents in the sea.

Life always survives. It survived the fallout from the dinosaur asteroid, and I'm sure it would evolve to survive a nuclear falllout.

They've detonated several nukes. We're still kicking. There's a huge gaping hole in your argument there.

And it would destroy life on earth, but not the earth itself. I'm not sure what the immediate effects of a nuke are to the atmosphere, but if it doesn't wipe it ouy (just shower it with radiation), some stuff might actually live and become resistant to radiation. As unlikely as it is.
Actually they've detonated hundreds of nukes.

I remember reading that during the cold war the number of warheads they were trying to get down to on each side was 1000 because that was the "theoretical survival limit." Or the point at which large portions of mankind would still be able to survive.

Er, I don't think 73 nukes could destroy the world. Life would survive, the life that sucks on Geothermal vents in the sea.

Life always survives. It survived the fallout from the dinosaur asteroid, and I'm sure it would evolve to survive a nuclear fallout.

dinosaurs died from lack of food not a asteroid

and i think 73 would be enough

Russia launched a nuke that wipe out (yes, wipe out) an entire island at half it's full load. At full load, this thing would have wipe out Russia due to fallout. Three of these things could spread fallout throughout the world. . .

(and if they were to build one bigger version, I'm sure it would be feasible in one, but no one would want to try that)
Ummm...I hate to ruin your day, but dozens of islands were destroyed by nuclear weapons tests. It doesn't take a huge bomb to make an island go away. Just one the size of the Hiroshima device.

The largest bomb ever detonated was a Russian 50 kiloton bomb, and it was detonated in Siberia. It was detonated at "full load" as you call it (not that you an change the "load" with nuclear weapons beside the W-80. But that just switches it between Nuclear and Thermonuclear)

dinosaurs died from lack of food not a asteroid

and i think 73 would be enough

I thought that was part of the theory, Which was a result of the Asteroid impact. A similar effect to Nuclear fallout -blocking out the sun's light, although there is no radioactivity.

Actually, I've seen a paper by a guy using a supercomputer to do aerosol modelling of large groundfires (or some such euphenism) and his conclusion was no, a man-made fire such that the global climate would change is not feasible. You really would need something with the energy of a large asteroid impact to do it, our nukes are pretty pitiful in comparison.

I missed something. Are there exactly 73 nukes in the world now? Anyways, it doesn't matter to me, because I'm going to live on the moon! *sings merrily* "Ground control to Major Tom"...lalala...um, sorry guys, I didn't get much sleep. :)

Nuclea winter is theoretically impossible (if i remember correctly)

If you carefully placed 73 high-yield nuclear weapons at significant places on the globe you could destroy the planet completely, without question. Even if you didn't actually obliterate the planet itself, 73 would be sufficient to devastate the surface sufficiently that human life would cease to exist.

If I remember correctly, I read in the late 80s/early 90s that detonating just 4 warheads at sea level on the European coastline would make the entire continent a no-go area for thousands of years due to fallout and radioactive steam from the seas. Imagine that replicated around the world? Scary.

And only last night I saw a documentary on Discovery about mega-tsunamis, the apparent worst of which is yet to come - possibly with dire consequences for North America's east coast and Africa's west coast, both where I have family. One bomb. At the base of one volcano... whoosh... no more East Coast. No more Gambia. It doesn't bear thinking about.

If you don't think 73 bombs could destroy civilization and the world, you obviously don't remember the Cold War that well. ;)

Absolutely they can.
73 nuclear device detonated around the globe with an average yield of 6.9 Megatons.(That is the yield of the EC14 warhead system) we would destroy all human life.

AS I recall the Soviets had developed a one gigaton nuke, which they had sitting somewhere in the arctic ocean, just in case the Soviet Union was blown up.
Basicaly they would detonate it, and the massive cloud of radioactive steam (And resultant tsunami) would wipe out everything (or most everything) on the planet.

So, its a sort of 'How many (whatevers) does it take to unscrew a lightbulb' arguement...With the same pointlessness of a 'How many angles can dance on the head of a pin' arguement.

I don't think It could take that many depending on the size and location of the detonation

A Big boom................

AS I recall the Soviets had developed a one gigaton nuke, which they had sitting somewhere in the arctic ocean, just in case the Soviet Union was blown up.
Basicaly they would detonate it, and the massive cloud of radioactive steam (And resultant tsunami) would wipe out everything (or most everything) on the planet.

So, its a sort of 'How many (whatevers) does it take to unscrew a lightbulb' arguement...With the same pointlessness of a 'How many angles can dance on the head of a pin' arguement.

No, they were planning on building a weapon like that. The Soviets Leader decided to not do it. Thank God.

They've detonated several nukes. We're still kicking. There's a huge gaping hole in your argument there.
Not really...those WWII nukes had a tiny fraction of the strength of the ones we have now.

Nuclea winter is theoretically impossible (if i remember correctly)
I don't think you do. It's just the result of all that dust blocking the sun, an effect we see with volcanoes and pollution all the time (though to a much lesser extent, fortunately!)

Of course, that would stop global warming in its tracks :-p

There is a practical limit on thermonuclear weapon size. Much more than 100 megatons, and the majority of the blast exits the atmosphere without really increasing the blast radius. Wasted energy into space.

Even 73 detonations like this wouldn't destroy the planet, or even most of the life on it.

Now, you could salt the warheads (even fairly small ones) with appropriate isotopes, and you could probably kill off most life on Earth (well, most of the humans anyway).

It is reputed that 73 is equal to the number of missiles in the nuclear arsenal of Britain.

With the same pointlessness of a 'How many angles can dance on the head of a pin' arguement.
Aha! The answer is none. Angels have no sense of rhythm. It must be true because it's in Good Omens (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0441003257/102-7818265-5705723?v=glance) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. So it must be true!

Unless you really meant "angles"... ;)

I thought that was part of the theory, Which was a result of the Asteroid impact. A similar effect to Nuclear fallout -blocking out the sun's light, although there is no radioactivity.
Why would the dinosaurs die from lack of sunlight? They weren't cold blooded- they were 'dinosaur blooded'.
There WAS an asteroid impact around the time of the extinction (monday the 22nd of November--(joke). But it is doubtful that it alone caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It could have been a supervolcano eruption which poisoned them, could have been lack of food (already suggested here, and the one which I agree with) or you can choose from a whole host of crazy theories- aliens killed them etc...

Why would the dinosaurs die from lack of sunlight? They weren't cold blooded- they were 'dinosaur blooded'.
There WAS an asteroid impact around the time of the extinction (monday the 22nd of November--(joke). But it is doubtful that it alone caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It could have been a supervolcano eruption which poisoned them, could have been lack of food (already suggested here, and the one which I agree with) or you can choose from a whole host of crazy theories- aliens killed them etc...

Without the sun, plants die. Dinosaurs who eat plants die. Dinosaurs who eat dinosaurs who eat plants die.

How about if we pile them all up on one side of the moon and propell the moon into the earth?

AS I recall the Soviets had developed a one gigaton nuke, which they had sitting somewhere in the arctic ocean, just in case the Soviet Union was blown up.
Basicaly they would detonate it, and the massive cloud of radioactive steam (And resultant tsunami) would wipe out everything (or most everything) on the planet.

So, its a sort of 'How many (whatevers) does it take to unscrew a lightbulb' arguement...With the same pointlessness of a 'How many angles can dance on the head of a pin' arguement.

Actually they never actually built the bomb itself. The bomb was only theoretical. They built the ship to carry the bomb, but never got around to building the warhead. There were several reasons.

Thanks for the insight y'all, I'm off to put the finishing touches on my Doomsday Device.

But back to that "they weren't sure if the chain reaction would stop" line, does anybody remember the old Bradbury short story about the first nuke test? Basically, it's just this old lady, mother of one of the Los Alamos scientists, sitting on her porch waiting to see if the sky was going to catch fire. You look at it now and it's like "What's the big?" but that must have been some pretty heavy stuff.

Here's a list of some videos of some American nuclear tests. Other American nuclear tests occured, but they're videos aren't available. This site also doesn't have records of Soviet nuclear weapons tests, which were more prolific than American nuclear weapons tests.

http://www.osti.gov/historicalfilms/filmlist.html

And according to Greenpeace there have been 2044 nuclear weapons tests ever, so the number 73 seems a bit low...

And according to Greenpeace there have been 2044 nuclear weapons tests ever, so the number 73 seems a bit low...

But they were only detonated one at a time and they were of varying strengths.

Well if you droped a few on the north pole and a few on the south pole you would flood all lowland places making them unlivable. Then you'd just have to pick off the other places with the remaining 65-70 nukes.

But they were only detonated one at a time and they were of varying strengths.
Ahh, yes, but one of the key arguments is that nuclear fallout would play a role in this 73 bomb scenario, BUT, it is typically the larger hydrogen bombs that are "cleaner" than the pure fission bombs.

Well if you droped a few on the north pole and a few on the south pole you would flood all lowland places making them unlivable. Then you'd just have to pick off the other places with the remaining 65-70 nukes.

Even the largest thermonuclear device ever detonated (by the Soviets) would not have made a thermal dent in either icecap.

Check the heat energy required to melt a cubic meter of ice, and then find out how much energy is available in 100 megatons.

Then figure out how much ice is at the Poles. There's a big, big gap you'll have to make up.

Ahh, yes, but one of the key arguments is that nuclear fallout would play a role in this 73 bomb scenario, BUT, it is typically the larger hydrogen bombs that are "cleaner" than the pure fission bombs.
What if you load the H-bombs up with a bunch of strontium to absorb stray neutrons and produce strontium 90? Won't that boost fallout?

What's interesting is this: Though the testing of the first atomic bomb went more or less as theorized, there was a hypothetical chance that the chain reaction might sustain itself in the atmosphere. Though the data didn't seem to support it, the creators couldn't rule out with certainty that the first atomic explosion wouldn't destroy Earth's atmosphere and therefore, Earth.
They detonated it anyway. :confused:
The military is playing around(researching) with new virus (bio-weapons) that could wipe out a Continent populations(and eventually the world)

Well if you droped a few on the north pole and a few on the south pole you would flood all lowland places making them unlivable. Then you'd just have to pick off the other places with the remaining 65-70 nukes.

Eh eh eh, now all I have to do is become Primeminister...

(Evil Laugh)

The military is playing around(researching) with new virus (bio-weapons) that could wipe out a Continent populations(and eventually the world)
Who's military?

Who's military?
that of Liechtenstein!

Whose military?

Not sure about these days.. but apparently during the Cold War Russia (USSR) had quite a chem lab going.

Ahh, yes, but one of the key arguments is that nuclear fallout would play a role in this 73 bomb scenario, BUT, it is typically the larger hydrogen bombs that are "cleaner" than the pure fission bombs.

Yeah, fallout would in fact do most of the killing, even if the nukes were detonated in the high population areas of the world.

What if you load the H-bombs up with a bunch of strontium to absorb stray neutrons and produce strontium 90? Won't that boost fallout?

You can boost fallout, but that isn't the isotope you want to use.

Some are much better than others, in terms of intensity of radiation and retention by biological creatures.

It was a matter of some interest to the US and Soviet Union for some time. Rumor has it that you can tailor an appropriate isotope, detonate a fairly small bomb in the upper atmosphere (no initial ground casualties or damage), and yet everyone in the fallout pattern would die in a matter of days. The fallout, so tailored, would become unradioactive within a year, and the area could be occupied.

With no insurgents.

that of Liechtenstein!

Bastards...

You can boost fallout, but that isn't the isotope you want to use.

Some are much better than others, in terms of intensity of radiation and retention by biological creatures.

It was a matter of some interest to the US and Soviet Union for some time. Rumor has it that you can tailor an appropriate isotope, detonate a fairly small bomb in the upper atmosphere (no initial ground casualties or damage), and yet everyone in the fallout pattern would die in a matter of days. The fallout, so tailored, would become unradioactive within a year, and the area could be occupied.

With no insurgents.
Which element would you use?

73 nukes could NEVER destroy the world.
It is a fact.
The main factor here isn't the size of the bomb, it is the size of... the world.

See, just like the United States are not America (does anyone forget Canada, Mexico, etc?) Earth is not "the world", the Universe is.

So it would take a lot more nukes to destroy the world.
Our scientists have come up with a very complicated number here:
in simple words, the antimatter inverse of the Big Bang should do it.

So rest assured even Totenland has not that much nuclear power (yet).

Herenreich Von Toten
überKommandant of
Totenland's nuclear industry

They could wipe out humanity easily the fallout. probably all of the nukes in americas arsenal if used propaly could wipe out bacteria but destroy the earth never. The earth is huge you could set off a 100,000,000 megaton bomb and it would be like a dent in the earth. Basically the earth is trillons of millions of tons of rock try getting rid of that. The earth is not 70% water the surface of the earth is 70% water the earth is only 0.05% water or something like that.

Which element would you use?

There are several that spring to mind, but I bet that discussing them online is probably a violation of the Patriot Act.

There are several that spring to mind, but I bet that discussing them online is probably a violation of the Patriot Act.
We'll just say we're planning to dirty bomb Mecca. That's not a patriot act violation is it?

earth is huge you could set off a 100,000,000 megaton bomb and it would be like a dent in the earth. Basically the earth is trillons of millions of tons of rock try getting rid of that. The earth is not 70% water the surface of the earth is 70% water the earth is only 0.05% water or something like that.

I was referring to taking out all human life. There would probably some small numbers of amoebas hiding in some cavern that would survive.

Actually it would take far fewer than 73 Nukes to destroy life on the world. It all depends on where they are detonated. If your talking strategically, against enemy cities and military forces then the number would have to be far greater than 73. But if your aim is to destroy the world I believe the number is around 10, all placed along at the junction of active fault lines, all detonated at once and all in the 1000 mega ton range.

This would cause massive tetonic plate movement that theoretically could cause the crust to splinter like safety glass on automobile windshields. The resulting splintering would destablize the crust allowing the magma from below to rise causing massive volcanos and lava flows. The possibilty of massive chunks of crust actully falling into the layer below exists.

Again this is all theory and all this would accomplish is the possible destruction of life as we know it. The Earth would still be here and thru the years the surface would cool again and form a new crust with the possibility of life returning.

I really don't believe that "man" has the power to actually destroy the planet ala "Alderan" in Star Wars.

Actually it would take far fewer than 73 Nukes to destroy life on the world. It all depends on where they are detonated. If your talking strategically, against enemy cities and military forces then the number would have to be far greater than 73. But if your aim is to destroy the world I believe the number is around 10, all placed along at the junction of active fault lines, all detonated at once and all in the 1000 mega ton range.

This would cause massive tetonic plate movement that theoretically could cause the crust to splinter like safety glass on automobile windshields. The resulting splintering would destablize the crust allowing the magma from below to rise causing massive volcanos and lava flows. The possibilty of massive chunks of crust actully falling into the layer below exists.

Again this is all theory and all this would accomplish is the possible destruction of life as we know it. The Earth would still be here and thru the years the surface would cool again and form a new crust with the possibility of life returning.

I really don't believe that "man" has the power to actually destroy the planet ala "Alderan" in Star Wars.

Someone's been watching a Superman movie...

We'll just say we're planning to dirty bomb Mecca. That's not a patriot act violation is it?

There are several restricted military forums that I participate on, and the people there are careful not to discuss classified material. They are also careful not to discuss any information that may be "potentially useful" to a hostile enemy.

This means things like the actual workings of weapons, how they are actually built or work, or how the US employs them in combat.

If the isotopes I was thinking of were discussed in a public source already on the Internet, I would give you a link. But I search quite regularly, and I've never seen the information out there. So I'm erring on the side of "I don't want a rubber glove up my ass".

There are several restricted military forums that I participate on, and the people there are careful not to discuss classified material. They are also careful not to discuss any information that may be "potentially useful" to a hostile enemy.

This means things like the actual workings of weapons, how they are actually built or work, or how the US employs them in combat.

If the isotopes I was thinking of were discussed in a public source already on the Internet, I would give you a link. But I search quite regularly, and I've never seen the information out there. So I'm erring on the side of "I don't want a rubber glove up my ass".
Fair enough. Damn my scientific curiosity. I'll just assume it's cobalt.

Not really...those WWII nukes had a tiny fraction of the strength of the ones we have now.
What about the ones they were detoncating up until the comprehensive test ban treaty in '92?

What about the ones they were detoncating up until the comprehensive test ban treaty in '92?
They've already said those don't count because only their points of view matter...

If I remember right, the average nuke has a damage radius of about 30 miles.

No.

I'll explain. (Not sure if this has been said but i'm too lazy to read the whole thread :p)

Modern weapons aren't as messy as the Hiroshima bomb, which used a very inefficient uranium-235 reaction and as a result there was a *lot* of waste and fallout. The plutonium based Nagasaki weapon had considerably less radiation because of the more efficient reaction. The fusion reaction in modern thermonuclear weapons produces still less radiation.

Furthermore, many of the isotopes released in a nuclear blast have short half-lives (Iodine-131 for example) and would deplete before they had time to be carried to the other side of the world in significant quantities.

Maybe, if those 73 weapons were Russian 20MT SS-18 "Satan" (think that's the right designation) strategic warheads, then you could feasibly annihilate the civilized world (though I doubt all life, and even the human race would be made extinct). The problem is, I think they only had a small number of those.

73 weapons is too little to kill off the world. Maybe if they were detonated under the arctic ice shelf or something...

Actually it would take far fewer than 73 Nukes to destroy life on the world. It all depends on where they are detonated. If your talking strategically, against enemy cities and military forces then the number would have to be far greater than 73. But if your aim is to destroy the world I believe the number is around 10, all placed along at the junction of active fault lines, all detonated at once and all in the 1000 mega ton range.

This would cause massive tetonic plate movement that theoretically could cause the crust to splinter like safety glass on automobile windshields. The resulting splintering would destablize the crust allowing the magma from below to rise causing massive volcanos and lava flows. The possibilty of massive chunks of crust actully falling into the layer below exists.

Again this is all theory and all this would accomplish is the possible destruction of life as we know it. The Earth would still be here and thru the years the surface would cool again and form a new crust with the possibility of life returning.

I really don't believe that "man" has the power to actually destroy the planet ala "Alderan" in Star Wars.


Accept no body has ever built a 1000 megaaton bomb (1 gigaton) i actualy added it up yet, and the total yield of the worlds nuclear arsenel (unclassifed, a few years ago) was something like 36 gigatons. thats from tens of thousands of warheads.

The fall out of many less than 73 could do it. Plus the drastic effect it cause to our climate.

The fall out of many less than 73 could do it. Plus the drastic effect it cause to our climate.

No, because much of the fallout is gone in a month.

Life always survives. It survived the fallout from the dinosaur asteroid.
"Dinosaur asteroid"? I missed that one, what was it? A big dinosaur dropping from the heavens?

Yeah, funny. But anyway. The answer is, no. The claim is preposterous. Ridiculous. I don't think Xenonier knew how right he was. Life always survives (within reason). And I'm not just talking about microscopic life. Humanity would in all probable outcomes also pull through. Along with the majority of earths wildlife. Life in general is adaptable to the extreme.

Anyone here ever play Fallout? Well, that would probably be just about the reality. Give or take a few details. Ecosystems will be destroyed, oceancurrents will change. Hell, with that many nukes, we just might knock loose a few tectonic plates, with diasterous results. Not just earhtquakes, but motion in the crust would cause massive erruptions of molten rock and volatile gasses and fumes. All this would be added to the general mayhem of fallout and radiation. We would still pull through.

All we need is... oh, say a thousand survivors. In about a few thousand years, give or take a century or two, we'll have populated the entire planet to bursting at the seams again. And it'll be the whole thing over again.

However, having just a thousand survivors is an unlikely scenario, if I ever saw one. There's a lot of people on this wet ball of ours. 200 nukes might do the trick. I think you severly overestimate the average modern-day nuke.

what would happen if a nuke was detonated say one mile away from where a person is standing? would it just fry them right there or what goes on?

The only way a nuke could actually destroy the earth is if we sent an elite drilling team to the centre of the earth to detonate a few. In fact, you could make a film out of it. With a title like Core or something. Might even become a Holywood blockbuster.

I have to change my answer.. even thought I read the question.. I was thinking along the lines of life on earth.. not The earth. I think 73 nukes would be devistating to life on earth, the domino effect of many things they would cause. But as someone corrected me to the fall out being gone in a month, possibly it wouldnt be That devistating. I'd need to read up on nuclear bombs.

As for it destroying the Earth itself.. no way.

what would happen if a nuke was detonated say one mile away from where a person is standing? would it just fry them right there or what goes on?

I have a program that tells you all that :D

If it was the same size as the Hiroshima bomb, 2% of people standing there will be dead in a month from radiation.

You will be battered by winds going at 196 mph.

Anyone within 2 miles will have second degree burns. So your chances would be pretty bad, unless you were inside, but any building up to about 4 miles away would be pretty much destroyed, so it'd take some luck to survive that.

You might want to move a bit further away before it hits :p

"The world". Referring to the a)current dominant consensus; b) global (dis)organised structures (aka "civilisation") c) the biosphere.

About a dozen high yield thermo-nuclear weapons would be adequate, if they were detonated in near space, over the dominant economic areas (e.g. Tokyo-Osaka, Benelux, New York-Washington conurbation, Moscow etc). The EMP would disable a large portion of the sensitive elctronic circuits which our extremely mechanised "world" depends on.

The ensuing chaos from disruptions to communications, food and services delivery etc would yield the destruction, particularly in areas with cultures prone to violent destructive behaviour patterns (U.S., Russia....). The "world" would be quite fucked, and the shakedown would yield something very other.

To eliminate a substantial portion of the human race, and therefore precipitate political/economic/organisational collapse that only self-sufficient agrarian societies would survive, would require all 73 to be high yield and specifically tailored to produce maximum short and medium term fallout. Possible I think.

To functionally sterilise the biosphere is beyond the capacity of the entire armoury of all the crazy fuckers that actually possess nukes, even if they are wrapped in the nastiest isotope generators. Consider the resistance to radioactivity of the cockroach, and it's resistance to cold. Something like the Permian ELE could be approached, though.

Come to think of it, in reference to scenarion A) ONE good EMP over the U.S. east coast would probably precipitate a galvanic, spastic reaction from the the American death machine, and Americans in general, that should accomplish a) quite thoroughly. Think of the ending of John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up".

"The world". Referring to the a)current dominant consensus; b) global (dis)organised structures (aka "civilisation") c) the biosphere.

About a dozen high yield thermo-nuclear weapons would be adequate, if they were detonated in near space, over the dominant economic areas (e.g. Tokyo-Osaka, Benelux, New York-Washington conurbation, Moscow etc). The EMP would disable a large portion of the sensitive electronic circuits which our extremely mechanised "world" depends on.

The ensuing chaos from disruptions to communications, food and services delivery etc would yield the destruction, particularly in areas with cultures prone to violent destructive behaviour patterns (U.S., Russia....). The "world" would be quite fucked, and the shakedown would yield something very other.

To eliminate a substantial portion of the human race, and therefore precipitate political/economic/organisational collapse that only self-sufficient agrarian societies would survive, b, would require all 73 to be high yield and specifically tailored to produce maximum short and medium term fallout. Possible I think.

To achieve c, and functionally sterilise the biosphere is beyond the capacity of the entire armoury of all the crazy fuckers that actually possess nukes, even if they are wrapped in the nastiest isotope generators. Consider the resistance to radioactivity of the cockroach, and it's resistance to cold. Something like the Permian ELE could be approached, though.

Come to think of it, in reference to scenario a) ONE good EMP over the U.S. east coast would probably precipitate a galvanic, spastic reaction from the the American death machine, and Americans in general, that should accomplish a) quite thoroughly. Think of the ending of John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up".

How about if we pile them all up on one side of the moon and propell the moon into the earth?
It will make a really big BOOM and a really dissapointing nothing.

"The world". Referring to the a)current dominant consensus; b) global (dis)organised structures (aka "civilisation") c) the biosphere.

About a dozen high yield thermo-nuclear weapons would be adequate, if they were detonated in near space, over the dominant economic areas (e.g. Tokyo-Osaka, Benelux, New York-Washington conurbation, Moscow etc). The EMP would disable a large portion of the sensitive electronic circuits which our extremely mechanised "world" depends on.

The ensuing chaos from disruptions to communications, food and services delivery etc would yield the destruction, particularly in areas with cultures prone to violent destructive behaviour patterns (U.S., Russia....). The "world" would be quite fucked, and the shakedown would yield something very other.

To eliminate a substantial portion of the human race, and therefore precipitate political/economic/organisational collapse that only self-sufficient agrarian societies would survive, b, would require all 73 to be high yield and specifically tailored to produce maximum short and medium term fallout. Possible I think.

To achieve c, and functionally sterilise the biosphere is beyond the capacity of the entire armoury of all the crazy fuckers that actually possess nukes, even if they are wrapped in the nastiest isotope generators. Consider the resistance to radioactivity of the cockroach, and it's resistance to cold. Something like the Permian ELE could be approached, though.

Come to think of it, in reference to scenario a) ONE good EMP over the U.S. east coast would probably precipitate a galvanic, spastic reaction from the the American death machine, and Americans in general, that should accomplish a) quite thoroughly. Think of the ending of John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up".


we're approaching a permian extinction event simply from human expansion(well maybe not permian that was 90%(i think) of species but we're looking at a drastic reduction in species in the next century 75% wouldn't be out of the question)

It will make a really big BOOM and a really dissapointing nothing.
yeah pushing the moon out of orbit would take far more energy than crapping the pond scum off the green marble. they say the dec26 earth quake had the power of a million nuclear bombs and it only effected the earth's rotation by a couple of miloseconds.

If you shoot them at verious powerplants and nulear weapons dumps, yes.

if you wrapped even 5 nukes in something like, mmm Cobalt, you could finish off 99.9999% of life within a month or so.

Who's military?
mine (USA)...

Likely Israel and China too...
Soviets used to be Big...Now they cant afford much research.

Fair enough. Damn my scientific curiosity. I'll just assume it's cobalt.

Nope. It's not something that your body wants. Think of minerals that your body wants, and can't live without.

Nope. It's not something that your body wants. Think of minerals that your body wants, and can't live without.
Potassium?

What about that whole core thing?

76 nukes in the center of the earth would have to do significant damage to the plant, a destabalization of the earth would encue abd like in the end with the massive "super quake" the plates could be rippede to shreds. Then you get the eruptions that could poor gasses, dust, rock and who knows what in to the air, the resulting cloud cover would kill the plants, wich kills the animals, ect. Not to mention the extrem cold that would alter weather and mix up all the climates.

That is if the earth did not explode like with the death star.

Seventy-three SS-18 Modular 6 missiles would probably kill all life on Earth.

Wrong! It's 74 and a half nukes to wipe out the world.


Why 73?

LOL I belive about 450 nukes can wipe out everything on the planet including Nuclear Fallout.

By the way the Nuclear Clock is currently set at 7 minutes till "Doomsday" about the same time as when the U.S. and former U.S.S.R. started building shit loads of nukes around the late 40's and early 50's.

The following figures all come out of the Finnish Defense Forces NBC-weapons guide. It is available on the internet, though only in Finnish, as a 26Mb .PDF here (http://www.mil.fi/reservilainen/pdf/suojelunkasikirja.pdf). It includes dozens of pages of university level physics examination of the effects of nuclear weapons, and luckily also a few more simple tables and explanations so that even I understand what they're saying.

1) Overpressure
The overpressure criterion for Complete Destruction (will destroy even the hardiest reinforced concrete buildings, only very strong underground shelters survive) is 500+ kPa. At around 100 kPa, only the strongest structures survive -- anything up to around 30cm/1 foot of reinforced concrete will be torn apart. At 30 kPa, brick and non-reinforced concrete buildings collapse, strurdy reinforced concrete structures are likely to stay (somewhat) intact.

Direct exposure to 300+ kPa static overpressure will kill most humans, 100+ kPa can cause severe lung damage, and 30-50 kPa can fuck up your ears. The dynamic pressure wave, however, can cause much more damage through shrapnel, slamming people into obstacles, or collapsing things on people.

The Russian SS-18 "Satan" Mod 6 - R-36M2 "Voivode" ICBM (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/r-36m.htm) mentioned several times in this thread carries a single 20 megaton-yield warhead. The most likely method of deployment is air bursting at around 4-5 kilometers above ground level, so that the (slightly below 4km radius fireball) doesn't hit the ground. Table of Overpressure vs. Distance from Ground Zero (assuming level, flat ground, no obstacles):
kPa........Kilometers
500.........1.6km
200.........2.9km
100..........4.4km
30............8.4km
Forests will be almost completely felled up to 5.6km away. Damage from the pressure wave will be mild more than 20km away, even in completely open, flat ground. Using 20km as the limit for serious damage for this nuke, the area which is seriously damaged is about 1,260 km^2. 73 of these, optimally employed, will cause serious damage through overpressure alone in a 91,732 km^2 area. This is slightly smaller than the state of Ohio.

Most of the high-capacity ICBMs these days have Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles, i.e. several warheads of smaller size. For example, the SS-18 Mod 5 has 10 warheads of 550kt-1Mt each. A 1Mt warhead has about 0.38x the overpressure radii of the 20Mt warhead above, so do your own math if you're so inclined.

Also note that 20Mt is massive in terms of single warhead yield, and 1Mt is quite rare for multiple-warhead missiles. The W-78 warheads that the US Minuteman III ICBM can carry 3 of has a 375kt yield, and the W-87 that the US Peacekeeper ICBM can carry 10 of has a 300kt yield.

2) Heat radiation
The effect radius depends heavily on visibility, cloud coverage, existence of snow, etc. Likewise obstacles, such as thick forests, can reduce the actual amount of heat radiation received by ground-level objects by 50-80% or more. The following assumes no clouds, no snow, no obstacles.

Also, the math is much more complicated, because more powerful warheads release their heat radiation over a greater period of time, so the actual required heat radiation per area (Joules per square centimeter, J/cm^2) for a certain effect (burns in humans, ignition of flammable objects) increases with the warhead yield. Because I don't understand the math, I will avail myself of the tables and the easy explanations provided in the document.

With a 1 megaton airburst, most fabrics, flammable plastics and untreated wood surfaces will catch flame only with about 150 J/cm^2 of heat radiation, which in 50km visibility (completely clear) reaches to about a 7km radius from ground zero. Some fabrics, plastics and untreated wood surfaces will catch flame with as little as 40-80 J/cm^2, which means a 10-14km radius from ground zero. This would be well outside of the serious damage radius from overpressure for a 1Mt airburst (approx 7.5-8km radius) calculated above, so in many conditions fires will cause destruction of property much further away than the overpressure.

With a 20Mt (SS-18 Mod 6) airburst, the required heat radiation/area levels are as much as 70% higher than with the 1Mt airburst, while the same amount of J/cm^2 will extend nearly 4.2x as far. This means some fires will start with around 70-140 J/cm^2, which means a 29-46km radius from the ground zero. This is, again, significantly greater than the serious damage radius from overpressure for the same warhead.

In 20km visibility, 3rd degree burns require slightly over 50 J/cm^2 for fully exposed humans with a 1Mt warhead (about a 13km radius), 85-90 J/cm^2 with a 20Mt warhead (about a 40km radius). Thus it is obviously a very bad idea to look directly at the fireball -- at a distance where the overpressure might only smash the window and damage light structures (wooden doors, light roofs, etc.), you might still get 3rd degree burns all over your face and burn out your eyes.

Again in 20km visibility and when warm, dry coniferous forests will ignite up to 17km away with a 1Mt airburst, up to or even further than 55km away with a 20Mt airburst.

With this in mind, the "serious damage radius" of a 20Mt warhead airburst can be increased to 40km from ground zero -- in good visibility in flat terrain, there will be several fires that far away from ground zero. That means a 5,026 km^2 area covered by each warhead, or 366,898 km^2 with 73 such warheads. Still not that much, an area only 3.5 times that of Ohio.

Damage to humans from immediate electromagnetic radiation, fallout, EMP: Too bloody complicated for me to calculate. Suffice it to say that these may, in some circumstances, make areas as far as 350-600km downwind from the 20Mt airburst lethal for humans in the following 96 hours -- based on the 15Mt Bikini atoll explosion.

Similarly, many of the freaky things said on this thread about high-yield nuclear explosions in high-athmosphere and the following EMP may well be true -- the area of effect would certainly be enormous, with a 400km altitude explosion covering the whole of Europe with its EMP. The actual effect, though, depends on a huge amount of variables which I cannot claim to adequately understand.

Oh, right, forgot to answer the actual question: Hell no, not by any definition. 73 nukes might wreck our economy and seriously cripple civilization, employed in almost any way, but they would not "wipe out the world" by any stretch.

With 7300 20Mt warheads you could almost manage it, immediately causing serious damage to almost 1/4th of earth's land area (7,300 x 5,000 km^2 / 148,300,000 km^2 x 100% ~= 24.6%) with the ensuing fallout making the majority of earth's surface a significant health risk. However, we (the humanity) do not have 7300 such warheads. Yet. Unfortunately.

AS I recall the Soviets had developed a one gigaton nuke, which they had sitting somewhere in the arctic ocean, just in case the Soviet Union was blown up.
Basicaly they would detonate it, and the massive cloud of radioactive steam (And resultant tsunami) would wipe out everything (or most everything) on the planet.

So, its a sort of 'How many (whatevers) does it take to unscrew a lightbulb' arguement...With the same pointlessness of a 'How many angles can dance on the head of a pin' arguement.
No, that's the plot of Dr Strangelove.

Actually they've detonated hundreds of nukes.
But not at the same time.

The following figures all come out of the Finnish Defense Forces NBC-weapons guide. It is available on the internet, though only in Finnish, as a 26Mb .PDF here. It includes dozens of pages of university level physics examination of the effects of nuclear weapons, and luckily also a few more simple tables and explanations so that even I understand what they're saying.

1) Overpressure
The overpressure criterion for Complete Destruction (will destroy even the hardiest reinforced concrete buildings, only very strong underground shelters survive) is 500+ kPa. At around 100 kPa, only the strongest structures survive -- anything up to around 30cm/1 foot of reinforced concrete will be torn apart. At 30 kPa, brick and non-reinforced concrete buildings collapse, strurdy reinforced concrete structures are likely to stay (somewhat) intact.

Direct exposure to 300+ kPa static overpressure will kill most humans, 100+ kPa can cause severe lung damage, and 30-50 kPa can fuck up your ears. The dynamic pressure wave, however, can cause much more damage through shrapnel, slamming people into obstacles, or collapsing things on people.

The Russian SS-18 "Satan" Mod 6 - R-36M2 "Voivode" ICBM mentioned several times in this thread carries a single 20 megaton-yield warhead. The most likely method of deployment is air bursting at around 4-5 kilometers above ground level, so that the (slightly below 4km radius fireball) doesn't hit the ground. Table of Overpressure vs. Distance from Ground Zero (assuming level, flat ground, no obstacles):
kPa........Kilometers
500.........1.6km
200.........2.9km
100..........4.4km
30............8.4km
Forests will be almost completely felled up to 5.6km away. Damage from the pressure wave will be mild more than 20km away, even in completely open, flat ground. Using 20km as the limit for serious damage for this nuke, the area which is seriously damaged is about 1,260 km^2. 73 of these, optimally employed, will cause serious damage through overpressure alone in a 91,732 km^2 area. This is slightly smaller than the state of Ohio.

Most of the high-capacity ICBMs these days have Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles, i.e. several warheads of smaller size. For example, the SS-18 Mod 5 has 10 warheads of 550kt-1Mt each. A 1Mt warhead has about 0.38x the overpressure radii of the 20Mt warhead above, so do your own math if you're so inclined.

Also note that 20Mt is massive in terms of single warhead yield, and 1Mt is quite rare for multiple-warhead missiles. The W-78 warheads that the US Minuteman III ICBM can carry 3 of has a 375kt yield, and the W-87 that the US Peacekeeper ICBM can carry 10 of has a 300kt yield.

2) Heat radiation
The effect radius depends heavily on visibility, cloud coverage, existence of snow, etc. Likewise obstacles, such as thick forests, can reduce the actual amount of heat radiation received by ground-level objects by 50-80% or more. The following assumes no clouds, no snow, no obstacles.

Also, the math is much more complicated, because more powerful warheads release their heat radiation over a greater period of time, so the actual required heat radiation per area (Joules per square centimeter, J/cm^2) for a certain effect (burns in humans, ignition of flammable objects) increases with the warhead yield. Because I don't understand the math, I will avail myself of the tables and the easy explanations provided in the document.

With a 1 megaton airburst, most fabrics, flammable plastics and untreated wood surfaces will catch flame only with about 150 J/cm^2 of heat radiation, which in 50km visibility (completely clear) reaches to about a 7km radius from ground zero. Some fabrics, plastics and untreated wood surfaces will catch flame with as little as 40-80 J/cm^2, which means a 10-14km radius from ground zero. This would be well outside of the serious damage radius from overpressure for a 1Mt airburst (approx 7.5-8km radius) calculated above, so in many conditions fires will cause destruction of property much further away than the overpressure.

With a 20Mt (SS-18 Mod 6) airburst, the required heat radiation/area levels are as much as 70% higher than with the 1Mt airburst, while the same amount of J/cm^2 will extend nearly 4.2x as far. This means some fires will start with around 70-140 J/cm^2, which means a 29-46km radius from the ground zero. This is, again, significantly greater than the serious damage radius from overpressure for the same warhead.

In 20km visibility, 3rd degree burns require slightly over 50 J/cm^2 for fully exposed humans with a 1Mt warhead (about a 13km radius), 85-90 J/cm^2 with a 20Mt warhead (about a 40km radius). Thus it is obviously a very bad idea to look directly at the fireball -- at a distance where the overpressure might only smash the window and damage light structures (wooden doors, light roofs, etc.), you might still get 3rd degree burns all over your face and burn out your eyes.

Again in 20km visibility and when warm, dry coniferous forests will ignite up to 17km away with a 1Mt airburst, up to or even further than 55km away with a 20Mt airburst.

With this in mind, the "serious damage radius" of a 20Mt warhead airburst can be increased to 40km from ground zero -- in good visibility in flat terrain, there will be several fires that far away from ground zero. That means a 5,026 km^2 area covered by each warhead, or 366,898 km^2 with 73 such warheads. Still not that much, an area only 3.5 times that of Ohio.

Damage to humans from immediate electromagnetic radiation, fallout, EMP: Too bloody complicated for me to calculate. Suffice it to say that these may, in some circumstances, make areas as far as 350-600km downwind from the 20Mt airburst lethal for humans in the following 96 hours -- based on the 15Mt Bikini atoll explosion.

Similarly, many of the freaky things said on this thread about high-yield nuclear explosions in high-athmosphere and the following EMP may well be true -- the area of effect would certainly be enormous, with a 400km altitude explosion covering the whole of Europe with its EMP. The actual effect, though, depends on a huge amount of variables which I cannot claim to adequately understand.

Oh, right, forgot to answer the actual question: Hell no, not by any definition. 73 nukes might wreck our economy and seriously cripple civilization, employed in almost any way, but they would not "wipe out the world" by any stretch.

With 7300 20Mt warheads you could almost manage it, immediately causing serious damage to almost 1/4th of earth's land area (7,300 x 5,000 km^2 / 148,300,000 km^2 x 100% ~= 24.6%) with the ensuing fallout making the majority of earth's surface a significant health risk. However, we (the humanity) do not have 7300 such warheads. Yet. Unfortunately.


Thats all well and good, but what of the placement of the weones?
are the spaceed like this in one area?
OOOO
OOOO
OOOO
or are they placed stratigicly to evenly spread the blastes and fall out
like this:
O O O

O O O

O O O

sry I can'y come up with better art.

The military is playing around(researching) with new virus (bio-weapons) that could wipe out a Continent populations(and eventually the world)

Bioweapons are ridiculously ineffective and overrated. Just VX a target population, it's a lot quicker and more cost effective.

Actually it would take far fewer than 73 Nukes to destroy life on the world. It all depends on where they are detonated. If your talking strategically, against enemy cities and military forces then the number would have to be far greater than 73. But if your aim is to destroy the world I believe the number is around 10, all placed along at the junction of active fault lines, all detonated at once and all in the 1000 megaton range.


Well then, you can't do it. The largest bomb ever produced was around 50 megatons, and no military has any use for anything larger. They simply don't exist, and probably never will.

What about that whole core thing?

76 nukes in the center of the earth would have to do significant damage to the plant, a destabalization of the earth would encue abd like in the end with the massive "super quake" the plates could be rippede to shreds. Then you get the eruptions that could poor gasses, dust, rock and who knows what in to the air, the resulting cloud cover would kill the plants, wich kills the animals, ect. Not to mention the extrem cold that would alter weather and mix up all the climates.

That is if the earth did not explode like with the death star.

You've made me laugh.

No, it wouldn't do a damn thing. You're simply massively underestimating the sheer amount of force it would take to cause that amount of damage, not to mention the complete impossibility of actually delivering those weapons to the core, and then detonating them. It can't happen.

Thats all well and good, but what of the placement of the weones?
are the spaceed like this in one area?
OOOO
OOOO
OOOO
or are they placed stratigicly to evenly spread the blastes and fall out
like this:
O O O

O O O

O O O

sry I can'y come up with better art.The "serious damage radius" calculations that take both heat radiation and overpressure into account were done assuming that there would be no overlap. Obviously you could spread the 73 5,000km^2 "serious damage areas" all over the globe in critical locations (major urban and industrial areas), but that would still be a rather small fraction of the total land area, population, economic power and civilization of the earth, even after fallout is considered.

The latter estimate of 7300 20 megaton warheads assumed that they were strategically placed for maximum effect after considering fallout -- so that there is minimal overlap of heat/overpressure damage areas and fallout.

if they were detonated in near space, over the dominant economic areas (e.g. Tokyo-Osaka, Benelux, New York-Washington conurbation, Moscow etc). The EMP would disable a large portion of the sensitive elctronic circuits which our extremely mechanised "world" depends on.

The ensuing chaos from disruptions to communications, food and services delivery etc would yield the destruction, particularly in areas with cultures prone to violent destructive behaviour patterns (U.S., Russia....). The "world" would be quite fucked, and the shakedown would yield something very other.


Wasn't it Goldeneye where they threatened the EMPing?

I think so, because 2 nuclear subs of Russia can destroy this world. But I don't know how many nukes 1 sub carries.
A US sub has 24 missiles and 12 warheads per missile (total of 288 nukes per sub) I have no clue about russian numbers

This comes from a discussion with classmates at College.

Can 73 modern day nukes detonated around the world at the same destroy Earth? This is including fallout and a nuclear winter.
If they have a half-life of 93 years (I LOVE Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb!)

A US sub has 24 missiles and 12 warheads per missile (total of 288 nukes per sub) I have no clue about russian numbersWhere do you get the "12 warheads per missile" figure? Both the Trident I C-4 (http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/c-4-specs.htm)s and the Trident II D-5 (http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/d-5-specs.htm)s carry 8 independent re-entry vehicles -- one 100kt (W76) warhead each in Trident I, one 300-475kt (W88) warhead each in Trident II.

The 24 Trident II D-5s carried by a US Ohio-class SSBN (http://globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/ssgn-726-specs.htm) are obviously nowhere near enough to "wipe out the world", at 192 warheads of max 475kt each. They could kill a high 8-digit or perhaps even a low 9-digit number of people if not defended or prepared against in any way, not to mention all the indirect problems, but that's hardly "destroying the world".

The Russian 941 Typhoon "Akula" (http://fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/941.htm) ballistic submarine can carry 20 SS-N-20 "Sturgeon" / R39 (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/r39.htm)s, which each have 10 MIRVed warheads with a 100kt yield each. This adds up to 200 warheads of 100kt each, much less than what the Ohio-class SSBN is capable of.

The 667BDRM Dolphin "Delta IV" (http://fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/667BDRM.htm) ballistic submarine can carry 16 SS-N-23 "Skiff" / R-29RM (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/r29rm.htm)s, the deployed version of which carries 4 MIRVed warheads of no greater than 500kt yield each. That adds up to 64 500kt warheads, which is still much less than what the Ohio-class SSBNs carry.

Maybe by dentonating one nuke really far below the earth's surface would do something, but until I find my button, we may never know...

dinosaurs died from lack of food not a asteroid

just out of interest do you have a source on that?

The biggest nuke ever was the russian Czar bomb clocking in at 500 megatons. The hiroshama was only 50 kilotons.

The biggest nuke ever was the russian Czar bomb clocking in at 500 megatons. The hiroshama was only 50 kilotons.Seeing as how the generally accepted yield for Little Boy was about 20kt, and certainly it was between 15kt and 25kt, do you have some source for the 500Mt "czar bomb"? The only few quotes on the internet I could find with Google were from forums, of very dubious value, and stated somewhere between 50Mt and 100Mt -- in one forum the person who talked about the Czar bomb claimed that a 100Mt nuclear warhead would level an area the size of Germany except for major concrete foundations, which is bullshit.

I voted YES, but in retorspect, it should've been NO. Those damn cockraoches would probably survive, just as they do ever mass-extinction such as the asteroids that struck 65 and 250 million years ago. And turtles. They ca survive HUGE amounts of radiation when they hide in their shells for some reason.

I don't get it, how can people still be voting "Yes"? I thought I already went into enough detail about why the right answer is "No". (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7880849#post7880849)

Seeing as how the generally accepted yield for Little Boy was about 20kt, and certainly it was between 15kt and 20kt, do you have some source for the 500Mt "czar bomb"? The only few quotes on the internet I could find with Google were from forums, of very dubious value, and stated somewhere between 50Mt and 100Mt -- in one forum the person who talked about the Czar bomb claimed that a 100Mt nuclear warhead would level an area the size of Germany except for major concrete foundations, which is bullshit.

You are right about 100MT, he is wrong with his fantasy about a 500MT.

Seeing as how the generally accepted yield for Little Boy was about 20kt, and certainly it was between 15kt and 25kt, do you have some source for the 500Mt "czar bomb"? The only few quotes on the internet I could find with Google were from forums, of very dubious value, and stated somewhere between 50Mt and 100Mt -- in one forum the person who talked about the Czar bomb claimed that a 100Mt nuclear warhead would level an area the size of Germany except for major concrete foundations, which is bullshit.

I remember seeing a documentary on it once, a 50 megaton versions , that was tested,with a non working model on display somewhere, and a 100 Mt version dreamed of. sorry i don't have any thing more concrete...

just did a teoma search for Tsars Bomba (what i recall it being called) came up with : no idea how relible they are though
http://www.vce.com/tsar.html
http://quantum.uos.ac.kr/etc/nw.htm
and acording to websters, there are 9 searches a day made for it...
http://www.websters-dictionary-online.net/definition/english/Ts/Tsar.html

I don't get it, how can people still be voting "Yes"? I thought I already went into enough detail about why the right answer is "No". (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7880849#post7880849)

lol, don't worry. You're right.

I don't get it, how can people still be voting "Yes"? I thought I already went into enough detail about why the right answer is "No". (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7880849#post7880849)
I am sorry I misunderstood, I thought we were speaking about strictly the end of man, not the actual destruction of the planet.
I do contend that with the resulting catastrophic failure if global infrastructure--nuclear winter, resulting disease, water and food supply contamination--that would be the end of man, but yes hardly the end of the planet.

I'm betting they could, if they were detonated high enough the fallout would be really bad

See, just like the United States are not America (does anyone forget Canada, Mexico, etc?) Earth is not "the world", the Universe is.

Man the General forum never ceases to amaze me with the amount of bile that gets spewed. But this one is just a golden nugget of bile.

Anyway..Tsar Bomba was 50 Megatons, they thought about detonating a 100 megaton device but they didnt want to explode such a powerful bomb on Soviet soil so they broke it down.

As for seventy three nukes destroying the planet..its a stretch really...you could wipe out vast amounts of the population..but the seventy three nukes probably wouldnt be enough to kill off the entire human population. Maybe just lighten the load of the planet by a couple of billion...with more dying after the fact due to the radiation..I'm not even sure though if 73 would be enough to cause a nuclear winter though..Depends. Oh well.

I am sorry I misunderstood, I thought we were speaking about strictly the end of man, not the actual destruction of the planet.
I do contend that with the resulting catastrophic failure if global infrastructure--nuclear winter, resulting disease, water and food supply contamination--that would be the end of man, but yes hardly the end of the planet.I assume by "the end of man" you mean that the human race would die as a result? I just don't get how that could happen. Most civilized Western countries have plans for such contingencies and the resources to protect the majority of the population from the fallout and the disease -- not to mention that the fallout would only touch a very small part of the whole world.

Contamination of water supplies would be a real problem, and would require some major shuffling around of pure water. With 73 nukes, though, you could only contaminate a very small part of humanity's food supply -- starvation would not be that bad, all things considered. So maybe with 73 20Mt warheads you could drop the human population of earth from above 6 billion to somewhere around 4 billion in, say, the following 50 years, if you're lucky and employ the nukes in an extremely effective manner.

After you've got a few billion, killing more people gets more and more difficult. Major urbanations are obvious targets, but rural populations are very difficult to get at with nukes. In undeveloped countries the disease and loss of many services would cause a lot of death, but in developed countries with plans for nuclear disasters the effects would be nowhere near as widespread.

So even though killing those 2 billion people and ruining the majority of the world's infrastructure would be a catastrophy unequaled (AFAIK) in the history of Homo sapiens sapiens, it would not "wipe out the world". It would not, in fact, even come close.

I'm betting they could, if they were detonated high enough the fallout would be really bad.The problem with that approach is that you'd only get the EMP effect and less effective but more widespread fallout. Because direct physical damage would be minimal (apart from the fried electric circuits), humanity would be left much better equipped to deal with the fallout. A significant part of the populations of developed countries would survive, and actual deaths might be well below those caused with other employment methods, although radiation diseases could still easily kill hundreds of millions and cause horrible problems for a very long time.

First of all destruction of humanity, in practice it won't happen since in a nuclear war, those weapons will probably be not pointed at the best possible ways to destroy humanity, but more to the best possible way to destroy the other guys military and save your own ass, the missiles will be pointed at military installations, and these aren't usually in the middle of huge cities.

A nuclear winter has been basicly used as a argument to scare the general population from nukes however isn't really true. The maximal effect is a decrease of 10 degrees celcius for a couple of weeks.

I guess that if you detonate around 70 nukes you would wipe out a significant number of people and would probably crush humanity for a couple of years, I think that we would enter a dark age however that within a century we would be back on our feet (since we have loads of technology everywhere)

We will see a return to more small-based country communities, live will be still pretty good in the country, however due to a general break down of order the distribution of food will be down. Live in the cities won't be good, on the country it will stay the same. Within 50 to 200 years we would be out of the dark age, we will have had a major hit in civilization, technology. However it will be overcome.

it only takes 3 nukes to blow uop the world it just depends on where they hit

if you find a few weak points in the earths crust and fire the nukes at three dif points the world will explode

Yes, but when in practice is that going to happen? First of all you need a nuclear war to happen, you need a government full with suicidal crazy generals (and suicidal crazy people don't become general that often) that actually have those 3 nukes, you need those suicidal crazy generals to take power and to know where those things are....It just won't happen.

Yes, but when in practice is that going to happen? First of all you need a nuclear war to happen, you need a government full with suicidal crazy generals (and suicidal crazy people don't become general that often) that actually have those 3 nukes, you need those suicidal crazy generals to take power and to know where those things are....It just won't happen.

Hope to hell it won't happen.

Was purely metaphysical speculation.

Probably, in the worst of circumstances (and some luck) you'll be able to destroy the world. However I don't think a nuclear war will destroy the world, that's dooms day thinking and pacifist propaganda.

Can I change my answer? I just guessed, and ended up reading the thread. Now I want to say "no".

And someone spelled "Alderaan" wrong.

it only takes 3 nukes to blow uop the world it just depends on where they hit

if you find a few weak points in the earths crust and fire the nukes at three dif points the world will explode

And your proof of this is....?

I'm betting they could, if they were detonated high enough the fallout would be really bad

Actually, ground bursts are the worst, since they throw up contaminated dirt particles into the atmosphere.

its simple. 73 is far to small. A nuke has the range of around 10 miles so it'd take alot more then 73, but it only takes 2 10 megaton nukes on the exact opposite side of the earth to take it off orbit dooming us.

all *I* know is that we have way more than 73 in new mexico alone
who cares if the threshold is 73, 730 or even 7300? we got 'em

its simple. 73 is far to small. A nuke has the range of around 10 miles so it'd take alot more then 73, but it only takes 2 10 megaton nukes on the exact opposite side of the earth to take it off orbit dooming us.

Not true, not in the least.

73 well placed nukes can create can make create 73 mega-tsunamis larger then any sky scrapers in the world.... or 35 at the north pole and 36 in antartica.... but that would be cutting it close

This comes from a discussion with classmates at College.

Can 73 modern day nukes detonated around the world at the same destroy Earth? This is including fallout and a nuclear winter.

No, not even close

Would they cause untold death and suffering? Yes.

Would the death toll be in the billions? Maybe depends on where they exploded. But try finding 73 cities with a population over 10 million, that would total only 730 Million, not quite a billion.

Fall out is nasty shit but its hardly an instant death sentence

But mankind would survive along with almost every other species on the planet. Some species with small habitats ( say the NorthWest Floridian Sand mouse ) might be wiped out but its hardly an extinction level event.

Last figure I saw for the Yucitan penisila asteriod stike was something like 100,000 1 megaton weapons.

Here is a link that gives you some ideas on the scales of energy needed to produce massive extinction events

http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/essay.html

If EVERY nuclear warhead was to be used we would seriously damaged the biosphere, we might even manage to kill off the human race, but even thats doubtfull,

The Earth however would continue its way unpreturbed and the cockroaches would have a feild day.

73 well placed nukes can create can make create 73 mega-tsunamis larger then any sky scrapers in the world.... or 35 at the north pole and 36 in antartica.... but that would be cutting it close

*blinks*

What are they teaching in school these days?

Its obviously not science or math...

73 well placed nukes can create can make create 73 mega-tsunamis larger then any sky scrapers in the world.... or 35 at the north pole and 36 in antartica.... but that would be cutting it close

I don't know the exact number, but I thought the earthquake that caused the Asian Tsunami had the equivalent energy of hundreds (or more) nuclear bombs...

ok, this may not work but why not put all 73 in the center of the earth and boom, a huge explosion pushing outwards. i'm not sure though..... :confused:

ok, this may not work but why not put all 73 in the center of the earth and boom, a huge explosion pushing outwards. i'm not sure though..... :confused:

How would you get them to the centre of the Earth first of all?

Second of all, think of how heavy the Earth is above all of that... the crust alone is hundreds of Km thick. I don't think it would do much except maybe increase volcanic activity slightly.

Ummm...I hate to ruin your day, but dozens of islands were destroyed by nuclear weapons tests. It doesn't take a huge bomb to make an island go away. Just one the size of the Hiroshima device.

The largest bomb ever detonated was a Russian 50 kiloton bomb, and it was detonated in Siberia. It was detonated at "full load" as you call it (not that you an change the "load" with nuclear weapons beside the W-80. But that just switches it between Nuclear and Thermonuclear)


Not an island that size, and the full yield of that bomb, the Tsar something, I can't remember it's name, was 100 mega tons, meaning the 50 mega ton one was at half load.

Edit : Found the name, Tsar Bomba. Yes, it was a 100 MEGA ton bomb, not kiloton.

Fall out is nasty shit but its hardly an instant death sentence

There are people in Chernobyl who are having huge adverse side effects, and that was from the fallout of a power station, not a specially designed weapon that is meant to kill huge numbers of people.

The fallout from Chernobyl effected parts of Britain. If placed correctly, the fallout can be taken by the weather to cover the world, contaminating humans, plants and animals, cancer would become rife, as the flora and fauna slowly died around us.

A large percentage of the worlds population would be taken out by the resulting detonations, but far more would die as vital services would not be there. Then the survivors would gradually die, any new borns would be highly likely to be deformed, and some of them would be more of a hindrance than a a help in a society that would consist of farmers and hunters attempting to eke out a living in a radiation contaminated landscape.

The point is, most would die in the long-term, it would be by no means a quick death.

The Tsunami idea wouldn't work, only coastal regions would be affected.

There are people in Chernobyl who are having huge adverse side effects, and that was from the fallout of a power station, not a specially designed weapon that is meant to kill huge numbers of people.


I don't think they're designed to kill huge numbers of people, just to destroy the most hardened of buildings. You can kill a lot of people but still lose a war, if you don't target the right places.

As it has already been stated, military bases aren't usually found in the middle of bustling cities.

But still, that's a technicality. I think Chernobyl was such a disaster was because the radioactive coolant leaked, am I right? :confused:

Humanity is too dispersed. You'd have to conquer every square inch of the earth, and there'd still be some random family of eskimos stuck out there.

i am not scared of no 73 nukes!i shall destroy them! :mp5: :mp5:

I think the miles and miles of underground earth would still survive... :)

If you want to see some good hypothesis about it get "The Day After" (NOT the day after tomorrow, i'm talking about a much older movie), you'll find it quite interesting.

The average five megaton nuclear weapon pretty much destroys everything about to 10 miles, with light to moderate damage out to 20-30 miles. You can survive quite easily in the latter radius by taking cover in a basement or a shelter of some sort.

A 15 megaton bomb has a lethal fallout range of 300 miles downwind of the blast. The width of the fallout zone at it's max is only 60 miles, so it is quite easy to get out of the fallout areas. You could also survive in this fallout by taking cover in a shelter or a basement. Since most bombs are smaller then this, the fallout range would be shorter and not as intense. Fallout isn't even an issue if the blast is an airburst.

http://www.ki4u.com/survive/doomsday.htm#effects
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/index.html

73 nukes cannot destroy human civilization. Hell, a full on nuclear war between Russia and China will only destroy Russia, America, and Europe. Africa, South Asia, South America, and Australia will be relatively safe.

There are people in Chernobyl who are having huge adverse side effects, and that was from the fallout of a power station, not a specially designed weapon that is meant to kill huge numbers of people.


The fallout from Chernobyl effected parts of Britain. If placed correctly, the fallout can be taken by the weather to cover the world, contaminating humans, plants and animals, cancer would become rife, as the flora and fauna slowly died around us.

Yeap, the fallout can travel all the way around the world, you do have that right.

However, how many English citizens have died due to Chernobyl related radiation?

10,000? 100,000 A million? Oh? Not that many?

How many deformed babies were born in the years following?

10 million? 50 Million? Really? Not that many?

Perhaps the radiation threat from fall out isnt as horrific as you believe.

Truthfully Chernobyl was about as bad as it gets, bombs are not built by countries with the idea "Lets make this as dirty as we can" The designers realize that fallout is dangerous and try to reduce it as much as possible. Thats why so many warheads are designed to Airburst. Airburst reduces the amount of fallout produced becuase the explosion and fireball do not suck up tons of irradiated dirt and cast it to the winds.

Chernobyl was an uncontrolled meltdown of a nuclear reactor. It produced radioactive plumes of steam, iodine, and vaporized metals for DAYS.

A large percentage of the worlds population would be taken out by the resulting detonations, but far more would die as vital services would not be there. Then the survivors would gradually die, any new borns would be highly likely to be deformed, and some of them would be more of a hindrance than a a help in a society that would consist of farmers and hunters attempting to eke out a living in a radiation contaminated landscape.

How many South Americans died from the radiation released during Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Those were extreemly Dirty bombs by todays standards.

And since fallout is produced by every nuclear explosion ( at least a small amount ) How many billions of humans died due to the fallout produced the 2000 some nuclear test blasts during the past 50+ years ?

And speaking of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, look up the population of those cities. The lingering affects of being leveled by some of the dirtiest bombs ever produced does not seem to be slowing those cities down much are they?

And yes the carnage would be truely devistating, but not anywhere near an "End of Humanity" level event. Probably not even an end of civilization event either.

Humans would move people out of the effected areas and press on with thier lives. The rest of humanity would send aid to help and start the massive clean up required to proceed on with the work of civilization.

Your fears are just that, fears. The reality is just simply not as horrific (though the actual detonation of 73 nuclear warheads anywhere near population centers would be horrific enough ) as your imagning leads you to believe.

The point is, most would die in the long-term, it would be by no means a quick death.

I believe your incorrect,

The Tsunami idea wouldn't work, only coastal regions would be affected.

The earthquake that caused the tsunami in Southeast Asia released energy on the scale of Thousands of nuclear warheads. A single warhead just does not have the energy to lift that much water very high.

"Wipe out the world as in 'kill 95% of all life' or wipe out the world as in 'Death Star the planet?'" ~ my girlfriend, one minute ago.

=)

Would it be possible to unbalance the ecosystem enough and kill enough people for the species to never recover and have the human race slowly die out over many generations? I really have no idea, I've never researched anything like this.

Why does everyone say a nuclear winter or anything of the sort would destroy humanity. Humans have lived through numerous ice ages using only a fur coat, fire, and a spear. We can certainly do it today and maintain some sort of civilization with modern technology.

By "the world" do you mean humanity? Beacause i doubt there are enough nuclear weapons in existance to destroy the earth. I remember hearing something about a submarine-based nuclear weapons platform that could launch upwards of 200 nuclear weapons.That may have been theoretical though...

I remember hearing something about a submarine-based nuclear weapons platform that could launch upwards of 200 nuclear weapons.That may have been theoretical though...Well, at least 192 (separate warheads) anyway. (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7881486#post7881486)

Anyway, my estimate of 7300 20Mt warheads maybe being enough to kill just about all humans, or at least making life hell for the few that survive (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7880849#post7880849), was still too low. As Johnistan and others have said since, fallout would be much less severe than with the Bikini atoll nuke if airbursts were used.

This means either around half-1/3rd the direct physical damage from blast and flash and full fallout, or the physical damage that I mentioned before but around half-1/3rd the fallout. Either way, 7300 x 20 megatons would be survivable.

Ah, i remember now. Saw a show about that on the history channel. I love the history channel..... :)

Like I said earlier in this thread, a Nuclear Winter also isn't bound to happen. It was basicly a theory what could happen after a nuclear war which was proven to be untrue (or at least not at all as worse as all the apocalypse/end of times scenario's claim it to be) but was used by many people to create apocalypse scenario's. The worst thing (in decrease of temperature) that could happen is a decrease of 10 degrees celsius (for a couple of weeks or 1 month.) that's about how bad this "nuclear winter" is.

"It's Christmas at Ground Zero...." ;)

How the hell can people actually think 73 nukes could "destroy the world"? I'd be impressed if they could kill 40% of the human race. Yes, we would be screwed. Yes, areas would be uninhabitable. Yes, life would suck. Yes, 30-40 years down the road human civilization would be relatively stable again.

I would say one well-placed and timed nuclear warhead could wipe out the world.

Okay, AAhhz, you have a very strong argument there.

Looking at it now, perhaps somehow throwing the eco-system off balance might work, in a way accelerating Global Warming to the point of reaching a Positive Feedback Mechanism.

The earthquake that caused the tsunami in Southeast Asia released energy on the scale of Thousands of nuclear warheads. A single warhead just does not have the energy to lift that much water very high.

In full awareness of that, and even if the Ice Caps could be melted by nuking them, as I said Only Coastal Areas Would Be Affected.

73 could definetly wipe out the everyone in the world...one on russia one on the us one on germany and a few other places and then blame it on everyone else and BOOM everyone dies. Enourmus war.

73 could definetly wipe out the everyone in the world...one on russia one on the us one on germany and a few other places and then blame it on everyone else and BOOM everyone dies. Enourmus war.The missiles fired into Russia would have to actually be fired from the US and vice versa for this to be effective. The governments of these nations aren't quite suicidal enough to engage in M.A.D. unless there's some proof it wasn't e.g. a terrorist attack.

The severe physical destruction of the average 5 megaton nuclear weapon reaches for 10 miles and moderate destruction out to 20 miles. After this you will be blistered by the flash and windows will be smashed in, but you won't die and no buildings will be knocked down.

The fallout from a 15 megaton nuclear weapon is lethal for about 300 miles downwind at max. Since all you'd have to do to avoid this is drive out of the fallout path. Since most nuclear weapons aren't as large as 15 megatons the fallout would not be as severe. And you can survive in this area by taking shelter. Plusdon't even have to worry about fallout in the case of airburst. And you can survive in this are

So a 15 megaton nuclear weapon irradiates an area of 7000 square miles, 73x7000 is 511000 (added a extra zero) square miles. This is nowhere near the square mileage of the land on Earth, something like 57 million square miles. Some of the fallout will be taken out to sea by the wind, some will go nowhere with no wind, some will be taken farther by the wind. The bottom line is 73 nukes CANNOT destroy the human race.

Destroy the planet? Nope.
Kill off all H. sapiens? Highly unlikely.
Set H. sapiens back to the stone age a la Planet of the Apes? Unlikely.
Set H. sapiens back several hundred years? Probably.
Kill me? Most likely.



"It's Christmas at Ground Zero...." ;)

The button has been pressed
The radio just let us know
That this is not a test

:D

Okay, AAhhz, you have a very strong argument there.

Looking at it now, perhaps somehow throwing the eco-system off balance might work, in a way accelerating Global Warming to the point of reaching a Positive Feedback Mechanism.

*blinks*

Almost sounds like your trying to figure out how to cause that much damage, :eek:

*blinks*

Almost sounds like your trying to figure out how to cause that much damage, :eek:

Was worried I may sound like that. I'm not trying to destroy the world.
Lol.

Methinx all nukes should be put in the dustbin.

Can 73 modern day nukes detonated around the world at the same destroy Earth?

i hope so - thats all i've got. saddam told me they would work. damn his eyes

It all depends on whether or not I die! If I die, the world is doomed.

Was worried I may sound like that. I'm not trying to destroy the world.
Lol.

Methinx all nukes should be put in the dustbin.

I wish they could be, I hope I will live to see the last of them dismantled.

But given nations distrust for other nations motives and integrety I doubt it

Truthfully if its a nuke exchange we all know that no one wins, its just a tragidy on a scale that can only be described as Biblical.

The Genie is out of the bottle, how do you put him back in?

Respectfully

AAhhzz

spread around the world it might bury them together somewhere and blow them then yes they most likely could

(disrupt gravity pull from sun fall into gravity well massive volcanic eruption ash and soot blocks out sun all that good stuff

(disrupt gravity pull from sun fall into gravity well massive volcanic eruption ash and soot blocks out sun all that good stuffNo.

(disrupt gravity pull from sun fall into gravity well massive volcanic eruption ash and soot blocks out sun all that good stuff

Maybe if you had 730,000 nukes, all of a 20MT yield, all detonated in the same spot.

Yes, if only we were more cunning. As it is a nuke releases about 1% of the energy contained in the radioactive material. Were we cunning enough to liberate all of this energy then your 73 nukes would be as powerful as 7 300 modern nukes. Or at least this is how I understand it, I could always be wrong...

:eek: What a crazy fluke. :eek:
:headbang: were gona' get niked :headbang:
:fluffle: on this jolly holiday. :fluffle:

Yes, if only we were more cunning. As it is a nuke releases about 1% of the energy contained in the radioactive material. Were we cunning enough to liberate all of this energy then your 73 nukes would be as powerful as 7 300 modern nukes. Or at least this is how I understand it, I could always be wrong...

Thermonuclear, minus the inefficiencies, is around 4 percent mass conversion to energy.