3 ms·

How many nukes equivalent?

• contravariant 7y ago
  The estimates in the article are on the order of 10^61 erg (not sure why they used this unit), which is around 10^54 Joule, or 10^42 kilotons. Even the biggest nukes are below 10^5 kiloton, so this would be about 10^37 of them. Not that you'd ever get that many because 10^61 is about 10^7 solar masses worth of energy.
  • arethuza 7y ago
    Edward Teller did apparently try and push for a 10 gigaton (!) bomb to be produced: https://www.rbth.com/opinion/2016/01/05/nuclear-overkill-the-quest-for-the-10-gigaton-bomb_556351 https://www.rbth.com/opinion/2016/01/05/nuclear-overkill-the... Edit: Apparently this monster was the infamous "Backyard" bomb - "since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere."
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    CGS is still commonly used in astrophysics, for some reason.