4 ms·

There are a lot more trucks than there are nuclear warheads. If there were as many warheads, and they went as many miles as trucks, I expect that accidental det

There are a lot more trucks than there are nuclear warheads. If there were as many warheads, and they went as many miles as trucks, I expect that accidental detonations would be a lot more common.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Firstly, has there ever been an accidental detonation of a live nuclear warhead? A lot more common than zero is still fairly infrequent. Secondly, is that a fair comparison? There are approximately as many trucks, and as many nuclear warheads, as the market demands.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Detonation? No. Compromise of the physics package so that the whole mess is radioactive?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    This would only present a minor annoyance as far as chemical cleanup operations go.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I'd love some citations for that claim.
    - RugnirViking 10y ago
      I suggest you read about the cleanup of polonium around london after the alexander litvinenko incident. That is only for enough radioactive material to poision one person. Scale this up to a nuclear weapon and I imagine it would be a nightmare
- jonknee 10y ago
  > Firstly, has there ever been an accidental detonation of a live nuclear warhead? A lot more common than zero is still fairly infrequent. No, but there have been plenty of accidents with live nuclear warheads (including losing them in the ocean!). The fact one hasn't gone off is more a matter of there not being a ton of them in the first place.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    The fact one hasn't gone off is more a matter of there not being a ton of them in the first place. There doesn't appear to be a consistent theory as to why we aren't all dead from nukes. Your claiming there aren't enough of them to be dangerous, while elsewhere in the thread someone is trying to scare us with a very large number. I'm willing to bet $1000 neither of us dies from a injuries sustained due to proximity to an accidental nuclear detonation of the warhead variety.
    - charles-salvia 10y ago
      > There doesn't appear to be a consistent theory as to why we aren't all dead from nukes. Probably because launching a nuclear attack doesn't benefit nation states, if other nation states also have nuclear weapons. Also, all large high GDP nation states currently have intertwined economic dependencies, which also makes it less likely they would be inclined to launch nukes at each other. Obviously, at the moment, North Korea stands out as a potential exception here, but they have nowhere near the number of warheads or industrial capacity to even play on the MAD doctrine level - they're certainly far from becoming anything like the next USSR. So the only really remaining scenarios that could lead to a nuclear attack (barring massive changes in the current geopolitical order) would be that some non-nation-state actor, perhaps with fanatical motivations, gains access to a nuclear weapon. Although, in this case, without the state infrastructure to actually launch multiple warheads at the same time, it's unlikely that such an attack would be in any sense civilization-ending (even though it would certainly be very devastating, of course).
      - jacquesm 10y ago

There are a lot more trucks than there are nuclear warheads. If there were as many warheads, and they went as many miles as trucks, I expect that accidental detonations would be a lot more common.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

Firstly, has there ever been an accidental detonation of a live nuclear warhead? A lot more common than zero is still fairly infrequent. Secondly, is that a fair comparison? There are approximately as many trucks, and as many nuclear warheads, as the market demands.

M_Grey 10y ago
Detonation? No. Compromise of the physics package so that the whole mess is radioactive?
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  This would only present a minor annoyance as far as chemical cleanup operations go.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I'd love some citations for that claim.
  - RugnirViking 10y ago
    I suggest you read about the cleanup of polonium around london after the alexander litvinenko incident. That is only for enough radioactive material to poision one person. Scale this up to a nuclear weapon and I imagine it would be a nightmare
jonknee 10y ago
> Firstly, has there ever been an accidental detonation of a live nuclear warhead? A lot more common than zero is still fairly infrequent. No, but there have been plenty of accidents with live nuclear warheads (including losing them in the ocean!). The fact one hasn't gone off is more a matter of there not being a ton of them in the first place.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  The fact one hasn't gone off is more a matter of there not being a ton of them in the first place. There doesn't appear to be a consistent theory as to why we aren't all dead from nukes. Your claiming there aren't enough of them to be dangerous, while elsewhere in the thread someone is trying to scare us with a very large number. I'm willing to bet $1000 neither of us dies from a injuries sustained due to proximity to an accidental nuclear detonation of the warhead variety.
  - charles-salvia 10y ago
    > There doesn't appear to be a consistent theory as to why we aren't all dead from nukes. Probably because launching a nuclear attack doesn't benefit nation states, if other nation states also have nuclear weapons. Also, all large high GDP nation states currently have intertwined economic dependencies, which also makes it less likely they would be inclined to launch nukes at each other. Obviously, at the moment, North Korea stands out as a potential exception here, but they have nowhere near the number of warheads or industrial capacity to even play on the MAD doctrine level - they're certainly far from becoming anything like the next USSR. So the only really remaining scenarios that could lead to a nuclear attack (barring massive changes in the current geopolitical order) would be that some non-nation-state actor, perhaps with fanatical motivations, gains access to a nuclear weapon. Although, in this case, without the state infrastructure to actually launch multiple warheads at the same time, it's unlikely that such an attack would be in any sense civilization-ending (even though it would certainly be very devastating, of course).
    - jacquesm 10y ago