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Yes they did. See the linked article below. Note I said minuscule chance. That would be at the moment of detonating the bomb. If the assessment was earlier, th

• eesmith 5y ago
  Your source disproves it. That is, the BBC article links to https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf which says: > It is shown that, whatever the temperature to which a section of the atmosphere may be heated, no self-propogating chain of nuclear reactions is likely to be started. The energy losses to radiation always overcompensate the gains due to the reactions. It then goes on to point out that if considerably more powerful bombs (over 1,000 cubic meters in size) were exploded, then the energy losses to radiation isn't enough .. but that's okay because: > energy transfer from electrons to light quanta by Compton scattering will provide a further safety factor and will make a chain reaction in air impossible. That's about as definite as you can be that there would not be a possibility. Note also the comment "the policy should be adopted of exaggerating the dangers at any point which appears at all questionable." In the BBC article, "the scientist who freaked out" is the President of Harvard, right? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Conant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Conant he was a noted PhD chemist who was the chair of the National Defense Research Committee and present as a dignitary. He does not appear to be someone who understood the physics involved. Additional, the BBC article quotes philosopher Toby Ord as saying "we were creating temperatures unprecedented in Earth's entire history". This is bunk. Meteor Crater in Arizona had an impact energy of ~10 megatons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater . The Chicxulub meteor was about a billion times greater - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Impact_specifics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Impact_specif... . Now, this is total heat, and the quote says "temperature". (Earthquakes release a lot of energy but over a large area, so the temperature isn't hot.) Cosmic rays regularly hit the earth with much higher temperatures, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle . > there also was no evidence that any elected representative was told about the risk Conant clearly had heard about this risk consideration. Why didn't he tell Roosevelt? Perhaps because no one thought it had even a minuscule chance of being possible?
  • mint2 5y ago
    Compton supposedly thought the odds were less than 1 in 3 million, see the addendum to this article. Aka minuscule but nonzero. Aka what I said if just one other of the hundreds of scientists thought that too. Now go exhume those hundred their graves and do voodoo witchery go commune with the dead and get every other scientist involved to swear they didn’t entertain that belief. That’s the only way my statement could be shown to be wrong. Sure the other main guys decided it was impossible but only after running calculations and later bomb tests proved it was not possible but neither of those things are what my comment said so please stop telling me those things. I didn’t say all scientists or most scientists, I said “scientists” and it’s clear at least one involved scientists considered it a minuscule possibility. If commenters are so adamant at proving me wrong, they’ll have to prove no other scientists involved in the project, of the hundreds, considered it could happen. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/bethe-teller-trinity-and-the-end-of-earth/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/bethe-telle...
    • eesmith 5y ago
      This is from Perl S. Buck's interview with Compton. That's second-hand reporting from a non-scientist. In your source, two sentences after the "less than 1 in 3 million" line, is: > Dudley’s article provoked an exchange of letters in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a response from Bethe, who said that Buck had “completely misunderstood” Compton and that there was “no chance whatever” that an atomic blast would “ignite the atmosphere.” and ends with: > Fear of atmospheric and oceanic ignition is a nightmare with "no relation to reality," he wrote. Still, let's look at the stated facts. Here's a copy of Buck's publication - http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/docs/buck.pdf http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/docs/buc... . It says the 1 in 3 million calculation was done two years before the test. Teller and Konopinski's report "Ignition of the Atmosphere With Nuclear Bombs" study, which concluded there was zero possibility, was written "before the first nuclear test at Alamogordo" - http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/ . Again, this report gives multiple reasons why an atmosphere chain reaction could not happen. Based on the documents you've identified, it appears there was an early estimate that there might be a problem, but it was low enough for the project to continue. Later, a more detailed analysis shows there was no risk, and the tests occurred. Recall that pfdietz's comment earlier was "They did calculations showing it was impossible. They would not have done the test if there was any chance that could have happened.". You strongly asserted this was incorrect, and pointed to document in support of your view. However, as I've pointed out, the documents appear to strongly support pfdietz's interpretation. I want to know which involved scientist considered it a non-zero possibility in the last month or so before the Trinity test, after the Teller and Konopinski report had been circulated. So far you haven't shown any. Conant wasn't involved in the science. Compton certainly was, but the evidence you've presented was from two years previous. You can't disprove that some of those dead researchers were worried that setting off the bomb would wake dormant kaiju from the seabed. ;)