Know your nukes -- Just how big is a city-killer nowadays?

[Tesha]

In another thread, someone was wondering about Iran buying
250 warheads from Ukraine; I got the impression that they
thought it would be hard to move them.

Here's an interesting chart from Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design):



As you can see, a 475 kiloton warhead (about 40 times the
yield of the device that destroyed Hirsohima) is now small
enough to fit in a largish car trunk or any station wagon
or SUV.

One of the more interesting devices is our own "Davy Crocket"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29):



This is a sub-kiloton device, so the blast will only destroy
a few city blocks, but my, isn't it portable? A guy on a motor
scooter could deliver this one!

Well, "better living through science", isn't that what they
say?

Tesha

[atreides1]

1. I think it was the Ukraine not Georgia

You know, the Orange Revolution Ukraine, the revolution that has fizzled!!!!!

[Tesha]

5. Thanks -- corrected!

[DUHandle]

2. I begun reading Oppenheimer’s biography

Fascinating man.

[psychopomp]

4. Does it go into detail

about his being a Soviet mole?

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Wasn't that just McCarthyite slander, because he changed to

openly oppose the development of fusion weapons?

[DUHandle]

10. Conditionally, yes

There’s details leading up to his blacklisting so I’ll say yes.

The biography fills in quite a few holes left after reading Junqj’s Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists.

While it’s not quite related, I enjoyed McPhee’s The Curve of Binding Energy , which I’ll say captured the “hopes and dreams” of that brilliant and tormented generation of physicists.

[psychopomp]

3. Interesting, thanks

[SOS]

6. See how this would affect your neighborhood here

http://www.nuclearterror.org/blastmaps.html

Enter your zip code to see what a small nuke can do.

On edit: the maps represent a 10kt bomb. Imagine 475kt! Say goodbye to life as we knew it forever.

[bananas]

8. I just googled "nuclear blast maps" and found one for higher yields

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html

[JStuart]

9. that...

is some scary-ass sh*t.