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I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I'm skeptical this would end all life on Earth, or even wipe out humanity. For one, it won't circulate evenl

I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I'm skeptical this would end all life on Earth, or even wipe out humanity. For one, it won't circulate evenly. Some places will be irradiated an order of magnitude more than average, but some places won't be irradiated at all. Simply adding more bombs and bigger bombs doesn't help here: you've got to point them at all the safe spots. Even ignoring those safe spots, some forms of life can probably exist in irradiated areas: Chernobyl's dead zone isn't by any means devoid of life. There are probably shelters that could provide a safe harbor, though I don't trust them functioning for more than a half life or two.

guenthert 6y ago
> Chernobyl's dead zone isn't by any means devoid of life. Is that because of immigration or is it actually capable of sustaining (multi-cellular) life?
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  The latter: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/060418-ch... I also have heard (from "a reliable source") that one of the best nature preserves in the US is not labeled a nature preserve. It's off limits because it's the area around a nuclear plant. With no people around, other life forms tend to thrive. Humans are lousy stewards of planet earth more often than not.
- bottled_poe 6y ago
  Turns out the radiation level is less harmful to life than human presence. Who would have guessed.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  It's absolutely habitable, there were even some people who refused to leave / came back. You are much more likely to get cancer, but it certainly is habitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUNhqnpiOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUNhqnpiOE
  - XorNot 6y ago
    This is why I'm skeptical the cobalt bomb would even do it. We'd have huge cancer rates and a drop in life expectancy, and a massive rise in birth defects, but eliminating the human race? Even substantially wiping out society? I'm kind of doubtful. We've kept having babies in conditions objectively far worse for our entire history.
perl4ever 6y ago
More interesting to me is, given that people (I'm not sure who) say that in principle a thermonuclear bomb can have unlimited stages and size, would it be practical to build a "regular" bomb several orders of magnitude bigger than Tsar Bomba that would essentially blow up the whole planet. Let's say > 10x the dinosaur killing projectile.
- Athas 6y ago
  If you read the article, you'll find that the Earth is extremely hard to blow up. It's an enormous ball of iron, and almost any explosion at the surface is unlikely to affect it much. You'd have to detonate a bomb close to its centre, and that bomb would have to be astronomically large. Remember that the Earth got hit with a presumed Mars-sized object in the past, yet Earth is still around (the debris formed the Moon). Such a collision might eradicate all life, but it wouldn't "blow up the planet".
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    Well, yeah, I would consider making the top mile or two of crust molten "close enough for government work". I didn't mean dispersing a cloud of debris to infinity. After the collision that created the Moon, I believe some research suggests that the Earth was literally as hot as the surface of the Sun, deduced from evidence of the effect of "earthshine" on the Moon. If the Chicxulub impactor resulted in a global rain of molten rock, I'd also consider that scale of explosion to be "enough" even though some living things survived.
- scarmig 6y ago
  It would need to be many, many orders of magnitude bigger. Chicxulub was approximately 10E6 more energetic than Tsar Bomba, and it didn't even manage to kill off all life. And that barely left a dent in the surface of the planet. Also worth noting is that bigger bombs don't scale particularly well in terms of damage. Double a bomb's size, and much of it immediately just goes to outer space. Another large part of it is reflected from the surface of the planet to go, again, to outer space. Damage at radius r ~ E^(1/5).
- 6y ago

guenthert 6y ago

> Chernobyl's dead zone isn't by any means devoid of life. Is that because of immigration or is it actually capable of sustaining (multi-cellular) life?

DoreenMichele 6y ago
The latter: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/060418-ch... I also have heard (from "a reliable source") that one of the best nature preserves in the US is not labeled a nature preserve. It's off limits because it's the area around a nuclear plant. With no people around, other life forms tend to thrive. Humans are lousy stewards of planet earth more often than not.
bottled_poe 6y ago
Turns out the radiation level is less harmful to life than human presence. Who would have guessed.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
It's absolutely habitable, there were even some people who refused to leave / came back. You are much more likely to get cancer, but it certainly is habitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUNhqnpiOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUNhqnpiOE
- XorNot 6y ago
  This is why I'm skeptical the cobalt bomb would even do it. We'd have huge cancer rates and a drop in life expectancy, and a massive rise in birth defects, but eliminating the human race? Even substantially wiping out society? I'm kind of doubtful. We've kept having babies in conditions objectively far worse for our entire history.

perl4ever 6y ago

More interesting to me is, given that people (I'm not sure who) say that in principle a thermonuclear bomb can have unlimited stages and size, would it be practical to build a "regular" bomb several orders of magnitude bigger than Tsar Bomba that would essentially blow up the whole planet. Let's say > 10x the dinosaur killing projectile.

Athas 6y ago
If you read the article, you'll find that the Earth is extremely hard to blow up. It's an enormous ball of iron, and almost any explosion at the surface is unlikely to affect it much. You'd have to detonate a bomb close to its centre, and that bomb would have to be astronomically large. Remember that the Earth got hit with a presumed Mars-sized object in the past, yet Earth is still around (the debris formed the Moon). Such a collision might eradicate all life, but it wouldn't "blow up the planet".
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Well, yeah, I would consider making the top mile or two of crust molten "close enough for government work". I didn't mean dispersing a cloud of debris to infinity. After the collision that created the Moon, I believe some research suggests that the Earth was literally as hot as the surface of the Sun, deduced from evidence of the effect of "earthshine" on the Moon. If the Chicxulub impactor resulted in a global rain of molten rock, I'd also consider that scale of explosion to be "enough" even though some living things survived.
scarmig 6y ago
It would need to be many, many orders of magnitude bigger. Chicxulub was approximately 10E6 more energetic than Tsar Bomba, and it didn't even manage to kill off all life. And that barely left a dent in the surface of the planet. Also worth noting is that bigger bombs don't scale particularly well in terms of damage. Double a bomb's size, and much of it immediately just goes to outer space. Another large part of it is reflected from the surface of the planet to go, again, to outer space. Damage at radius r ~ E^(1/5).
6y ago