4 ms·

> irreversibly poisoned Is this the case? While nuclear weapons are, obviously, beyond horrific… I’m not sure that the radioactive fallout is a permanent probl

> irreversibly poisoned Is this the case? While nuclear weapons are, obviously, beyond horrific… I’m not sure that the radioactive fallout is a permanent problem. As a rule of thumb, the more intense the radiation, the shorter the half-life. In the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only a small portion of the deaths were due to radiation poisoning, and the cities were thriving on their former sites within decades. (I don’t mean to minimize the magnitude of the death and destruction; I’m just focusing on the “irreversible poisoning” aspect) Of course, there are a myriad of other potentially civilization-destroying outcomes of any nuclear exchange.

mbg721 5y ago
The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also very rudimentary compared to a modern nuclear arsenal.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Correct. But - modern bombs are more powerful, but is there greater residual radioactivity?
  - ars 5y ago
    If anything there is less. Residual radioactivity is unused explosive potential, they try to minimize that. Modern bombs are also fusion bombs which have even less radioactivity.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      I wonder if there are bombs that leave more radioactivity as goodbye gift, to delay the rebuilding.
      - mrguyorama 5y ago
        The term you are looking for is "Neutron bomb"
  - philipkglass 5y ago
    The residual radioactivity decays at the same rate, but there's also more of it (roughly proportional to weapon yield). Since modern weapons yield much more energy than the bombs of 1945 they also yield much more radioactivity. Further, surface or ground-penetrating attacks against military targets would tend to rain out much more of the radioactive material locally than the relatively high altitude airburst strikes of 1945. The Japanese targets would have probably suffered fewer casualties but would have had a more persistent radioactive contamination problem if the 1945 bombs had been configured to explode on hitting the ground instead of in the air. You might expect that modern weapons would have lower yields of radioactive fission products since they all incorporate fusion and don't rely on fission alone. And it's true that the US and USSR (and perhaps other nations) successfully developed thermonuclear weapons that produced over 95% of their energy from fusion, which doesn't create radioactive fission products. This was in the late 1950s/early 1960s. This is an amazing recently published article about the cleanest American device ever tested: "Ripple: An Investigation of the World’s Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design" https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://watermark.silverchair.com/jcws_a_01011.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAApswggKXBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKIMIIChAIBADCCAn0GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMmc-7HyKXSo00LzxRAgEQgIICTuqPscBoVjjWh_tKunObkLoN7FSdkh2PxeEJkp5mj_2CyMuZfLOqJrnpFFDJ29xVftGe9Xdjk66F1Leqe2AR1kKiIBFz2eJlpEp1JXGY6oINk_FTzAIOHd9J52kAAWf2LJ99vkY5rlgXynp7hs714ez7JMc_6PnRTP_BVDIwSxwo3KvlxHzgHmRRNxCLgeO2Pt5bAqFmyuXlRUgRcBdkFTep5wLY3jTg7P7Cmp99O0JJZREL-76AiV2TbEOJghNNwM0k5UTQ_IMAUXs6M7Lqkcav7VJGfmE5aXLMYahqzpKEqTKGE7gew6aQm32Hl5NKH9XdZpSMw1SV4kpZcg4LC-QSxfSKjzaf07lseLF0vgrmps1-UR__G5t9P6ZyobUfNPB-Uvzpqz4Ky9vvDnVLAHGg6vCG1ASikXYVTeWnLPxX7AjNQAfNDZiHfYi9CqomPyD5G4zAydAZaDonXie6xtd7T_LiHN1iArBMHEiowHpMv6jC6A9JP4sWbf4ehJ1bunDNIgdo0u4NhogNpqcePs2f9jlTrIqy24stdAeRksyNOYpKQW54JRK7Ube2y22UjwU0VtgA3HnpGdvVrFLn-JpzAuo0Lzgu8DVYFlrsE_ZYJzKJVqx3c1DJMI-9HpKu9zHTqeK0j2tXKD5QujUWaZ6NisOTEtLkK7OpvuJgjWPopAnJySVN6r6Iciyy2d-OEh8JRDoDF_BDjCI1KiMXPeH22ARgOtlWIIKV8YkjHvaV-O4uAgyCLFRcFFDoY5tclLvZKf9P57W2l-5I97YS https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://waterm... However, devices like that described above were too large for submarine launched missiles. The most effective way to make small, light, efficient warheads for submarine launched missiles is to use the fusion reaction's fast neutrons to fission additional uranium in the tamper around the fusion fuel. So modern submarine launched thermonuclear weapons develop about half of their explosive yield from fission, with corresponding generation of radioactive fission products. https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-warhead-energy-output-comes-from-fusion-and-how-much-from-fission https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-...

mbg721 5y ago

The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also very rudimentary compared to a modern nuclear arsenal.

JohnBooty 5y ago
Correct. But - modern bombs are more powerful, but is there greater residual radioactivity?
- ars 5y ago
  If anything there is less. Residual radioactivity is unused explosive potential, they try to minimize that. Modern bombs are also fusion bombs which have even less radioactivity.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    I wonder if there are bombs that leave more radioactivity as goodbye gift, to delay the rebuilding.
    - mrguyorama 5y ago
      The term you are looking for is "Neutron bomb"
- philipkglass 5y ago
  The residual radioactivity decays at the same rate, but there's also more of it (roughly proportional to weapon yield). Since modern weapons yield much more energy than the bombs of 1945 they also yield much more radioactivity. Further, surface or ground-penetrating attacks against military targets would tend to rain out much more of the radioactive material locally than the relatively high altitude airburst strikes of 1945. The Japanese targets would have probably suffered fewer casualties but would have had a more persistent radioactive contamination problem if the 1945 bombs had been configured to explode on hitting the ground instead of in the air. You might expect that modern weapons would have lower yields of radioactive fission products since they all incorporate fusion and don't rely on fission alone. And it's true that the US and USSR (and perhaps other nations) successfully developed thermonuclear weapons that produced over 95% of their energy from fusion, which doesn't create radioactive fission products. This was in the late 1950s/early 1960s. This is an amazing recently published article about the cleanest American device ever tested: "Ripple: An Investigation of the World’s Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design" https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://watermark.silverchair.com/jcws_a_01011.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAApswggKXBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKIMIIChAIBADCCAn0GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMmc-7HyKXSo00LzxRAgEQgIICTuqPscBoVjjWh_tKunObkLoN7FSdkh2PxeEJkp5mj_2CyMuZfLOqJrnpFFDJ29xVftGe9Xdjk66F1Leqe2AR1kKiIBFz2eJlpEp1JXGY6oINk_FTzAIOHd9J52kAAWf2LJ99vkY5rlgXynp7hs714ez7JMc_6PnRTP_BVDIwSxwo3KvlxHzgHmRRNxCLgeO2Pt5bAqFmyuXlRUgRcBdkFTep5wLY3jTg7P7Cmp99O0JJZREL-76AiV2TbEOJghNNwM0k5UTQ_IMAUXs6M7Lqkcav7VJGfmE5aXLMYahqzpKEqTKGE7gew6aQm32Hl5NKH9XdZpSMw1SV4kpZcg4LC-QSxfSKjzaf07lseLF0vgrmps1-UR__G5t9P6ZyobUfNPB-Uvzpqz4Ky9vvDnVLAHGg6vCG1ASikXYVTeWnLPxX7AjNQAfNDZiHfYi9CqomPyD5G4zAydAZaDonXie6xtd7T_LiHN1iArBMHEiowHpMv6jC6A9JP4sWbf4ehJ1bunDNIgdo0u4NhogNpqcePs2f9jlTrIqy24stdAeRksyNOYpKQW54JRK7Ube2y22UjwU0VtgA3HnpGdvVrFLn-JpzAuo0Lzgu8DVYFlrsE_ZYJzKJVqx3c1DJMI-9HpKu9zHTqeK0j2tXKD5QujUWaZ6NisOTEtLkK7OpvuJgjWPopAnJySVN6r6Iciyy2d-OEh8JRDoDF_BDjCI1KiMXPeH22ARgOtlWIIKV8YkjHvaV-O4uAgyCLFRcFFDoY5tclLvZKf9P57W2l-5I97YS https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://waterm... However, devices like that described above were too large for submarine launched missiles. The most effective way to make small, light, efficient warheads for submarine launched missiles is to use the fusion reaction's fast neutrons to fission additional uranium in the tamper around the fusion fuel. So modern submarine launched thermonuclear weapons develop about half of their explosive yield from fission, with corresponding generation of radioactive fission products. https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-warhead-energy-output-comes-from-fusion-and-how-much-from-fission https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-...