14 ms·

10 Years of Nukemap

133 points by Hooke 5y ago

mikewarot 5y ago
I grew up knowing that my life could end any time in a flash... still could because I live very close to some of the heaviest industry in North America, a prime target if there ever was one. My house would be pushed over, then burn, no doubt.
- scoofy 5y ago
  I mean, the real fear for me, is not being vaporize, but learning to live in a post-judegment day style dystopia. I can see no way that a strike does not lead to escalation. Our world is so specialized, that even if we have the ability to keep growing crops locally, most of us simply might not have access to the information to how get access to water, grow food, and build shelter in the time we need to survive until we can reestablish society.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I mean we've seen what people are capable of if there's a hint that some people may be buying more toilet paper than they need. That's just the tip of the iceberg; if there is a nuclear strike, the resulting panic and "everyone for themselves" that follows will take care of the rest.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    That latter point is pretty much the introduction to Threads: "In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable." https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190925-was-threads-the-scariest-tv-show-ever-made https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190925-was-threads-the...
echelon 5y ago
Nuclear war seems like the most plausible end to humanity, yet popular culture hasn't thought about it much since the end of the cold war. It's not a part of the zeitgeist anymore. Nuclear armed nations are back to increasing and modernizing stockpiles rather than diminishing them. New delivery mechanisms that are impossible to track and counter. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is becoming an issue too. Everybody's getting in on the party. Nuclear weapons are a type of great filter if there ever was one.
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  Bioweapons are increasingly more likely to be the end of humanity. With fancier tools like CRISPR you're getting closer and closer to having one person in a basement making something that can propagate across the whole world. Nuclear weapons are inherently limited by the fact that you need huge institutions to generate and deliver large numbers of them, and without large numbers of them you can't destroy humanity because of the large size of the planet. https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-4/Strategic_Terrorism_corrected_II.pdf https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-4/Str...
  - spockz 5y ago
    Although in the case of nuclear, all it takes is for someone to trigger a chain reaction. That could even be done with stolen material. (Or have I read too much Tom Clancy?)
    - colordrops 5y ago
      what sort of chain reaction are you referring to?
      - constantlm 5y ago
        likely refers to successive preemptive strikes in this context
      - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
copperwater69 5y ago
There was a great article on HN regarding the super secret 'ripple device' which allowed a 99% efficient nuclear weapon if I recall correctly
- echelon 5y ago
  I tried searching for it using the keywords "ripple" and "nuclear", but to no avail. Do you remember more details or happen to have the link? Edit: I think I found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29037556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29037556
  - mjlee 5y ago
    Perhaps this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044637
  - copperwater69 5y ago
    https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729/pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729/pdf
Wilber131 5y ago
[flagged]
er4hn 5y ago
I just learned from the blog that the author also published a book on the history of nuclear secrecy last year. I've read the introduction and am very excited to go through more (Books title is Restricted Data)
- wwwhizz 5y ago
  Could you please tell us what the title is? ;)
  - baobrien 5y ago
    "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States", on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/022602038X https://www.amazon.com/dp/022602038X
    - NicoJuicy 5y ago
      I'll only buy it if it mentions the history with Belgium, Congo and Plutonium ( then i know it's fairly complete)
      - eesmith 5y ago
        FWIW, the author certainly knows about Shinkolobwe, which is mentioned in these book scans hosted on the author's site: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1989-Hewlett-Holl-AtomsforPeaceandWar.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1989-Hewlett-Holl-Atomsf... , http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1962-Hewlett-Anderson-NewWorld.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1962-Hewlett-Anderson-Ne... , and http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1969-Hewlett-Duncan-AtomicShield.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1969-Hewlett-Duncan-Atom... . At http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/02/25/the-secret-song/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/02/25/the-secret-song/ we can see the author quoting from the first of these. A look at Hewlett & Holl finds: > The far-flung complex of mines, ore-processing mills, feed material plants, gaseous-diffusion plants, production reactors, chemical separation plants, metal fabrication plants, and weapon component and assembly plants was still largely concealed behind the security barriers established by the Atomic Energy Act ... > Of the 3,700 tons of uranium concentrates (U308) that the Commission received in 1953, only about one-quarter (1,100 tons) came from mines in the United States; the rest was produced in the Belgian Congo (1,600 tons), South Africa (500 tons), Canada (400 tons), and Portugal (100 tons). ... > As for foreign sources, the leveling off of production from the Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo would be more than offset by projections of rapidly increasing deliveries later in the decade from the Union of South Africa and Canada. ... Hewlett was (quoting the author) "the first official historian of the Atomic Energy Commission ... [whose] volumes on AEC history are extremely useful resources."
agumonkey 5y ago
Is it related in any way to the recent news ?
mothsonasloth 5y ago
I like Nukemap, however the problem is that there is no way to have multiple target sites. Having a visualization of one target site is useful but if it was a full nuclear strike lots of targets would be hit by smaller yielded weapons (I am not an expert). Industry, Military Bases, Infrastructure and Communications AFAIK population centers are secondary targets in a first strike, however in a MAD (mutually assured destruction scenario) everything would be a target, right? example targets for UK https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/06/article-2650518-1E8609FB00000578-134_634x758.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/06/article-2650518-1...
- djcapelis 5y ago
  Like this? https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/ https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    When Colorado is nuked so badly that only Color remains hah. https://i.imgur.com/yvsPBak.png https://i.imgur.com/yvsPBak.png
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Putting NORAD in a mountain to protect it from nukes is a problem solved by more nukes it seems.
- arethuza 5y ago
  I think that's a pretty old map. Pretty sure the target to the North West of Edinburgh is the Pitreavie Castle site that was closed in '96 and is now housing. The UK also hasn't had strategic bombers for a long time either!
jnsaff2 5y ago
More interesting stats would be to see which places users tried to nuke the most...
- NabiDev 5y ago
  Try Kolkata
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Considering 92% of strikes were done with the defaults, I'd expect it to roughly be a list of English speaking cities by population. With the remaining 8% I'd expect NYC and some Japanese cities to be overrepresented.
mrtri 5y ago
iqanq 5y ago
Oh yes, nukemap. https://i.imgur.com/HxIYAdv.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/HxIYAdv.jpeg
app4soft 5y ago
I like the suggestion at the bottom of side bar, when I just tried Nukemap[0]: > Fallout: Your choice of burst height is too high to produce significant local fallout. The minimum burst height to produce appreciable fallout for a yield of 100 megaton is 5.49 km. Its really helpful. Guess, I should retry it with recommended value. [0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1491747174178336774 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1491747174178336774
superkuh 5y ago
I really miss the original Nukemap. The modern one, a forced re-implementation because API providers massively increased their fees, it nicely done in open source software. Unfortunately it now relies on fancy features like webgl to draw the ellipses/circles on the map where before it was just vanilla JS. Many browsers and machines, all of mine included, do not support webgl. RIP nukemap.
bradgessler 5y ago
Nuclear weapons is humanities biggest existential threat, and few people talk about it in popular culture. At any given point in time, we're 30 minutes away from the complete destruction of civilizations we know it today. I highly recommend diving into the movies & books below to begin understanding the issue and simply be in awe that humanity is capable of creating such horrific and destructive weapons. First, watch "Trinity And Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114728/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114728/]. It gives a great overview of the nuclear weapons program history and his incredible video footage of tests. Next watch "Threads" [https://archive.org/details/threads_202007 https://archive.org/details/threads_202007]. Be warned, it's depressing, but it does a great job dramatizing what a nuclear attack might look like, including its generational impacts. Finally, read "Command and Control" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)]. The book discusses how nuclear weapons are actually secured and designed to prevent accidental use. A movie was created if you prefer to watch that [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598206/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598206/]. When you get through these three pieces of material, you'll have a much better understanding of the history behind this weapons, how destructive they are, and hopefully think critically about whether or not they're worth the risk. The thing I worry the most about is unintentional or accidental use of a nuclear weapon quickly snowballing into something that ends humanity within 30 minutes. That's what's at stake.

133 points by Hooke 5y ago

I grew up knowing that my life could end any time in a flash... still could because I live very close to some of the heaviest industry in North America, a prime target if there ever was one. My house would be pushed over, then burn, no doubt.

scoofy 5y ago
I mean, the real fear for me, is not being vaporize, but learning to live in a post-judegment day style dystopia. I can see no way that a strike does not lead to escalation. Our world is so specialized, that even if we have the ability to keep growing crops locally, most of us simply might not have access to the information to how get access to water, grow food, and build shelter in the time we need to survive until we can reestablish society.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I mean we've seen what people are capable of if there's a hint that some people may be buying more toilet paper than they need. That's just the tip of the iceberg; if there is a nuclear strike, the resulting panic and "everyone for themselves" that follows will take care of the rest.
- arethuza 5y ago
  That latter point is pretty much the introduction to Threads: "In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable." https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190925-was-threads-the-scariest-tv-show-ever-made https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190925-was-threads-the...

echelon 5y ago

Nuclear war seems like the most plausible end to humanity, yet popular culture hasn't thought about it much since the end of the cold war. It's not a part of the zeitgeist anymore. Nuclear armed nations are back to increasing and modernizing stockpiles rather than diminishing them. New delivery mechanisms that are impossible to track and counter. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is becoming an issue too. Everybody's getting in on the party. Nuclear weapons are a type of great filter if there ever was one.

acidburnNSA 5y ago
Bioweapons are increasingly more likely to be the end of humanity. With fancier tools like CRISPR you're getting closer and closer to having one person in a basement making something that can propagate across the whole world. Nuclear weapons are inherently limited by the fact that you need huge institutions to generate and deliver large numbers of them, and without large numbers of them you can't destroy humanity because of the large size of the planet. https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-4/Strategic_Terrorism_corrected_II.pdf https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-4/Str...
- spockz 5y ago
  Although in the case of nuclear, all it takes is for someone to trigger a chain reaction. That could even be done with stolen material. (Or have I read too much Tom Clancy?)
  - colordrops 5y ago
    what sort of chain reaction are you referring to?
    - constantlm 5y ago
      likely refers to successive preemptive strikes in this context
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago

copperwater69 5y ago

There was a great article on HN regarding the super secret 'ripple device' which allowed a 99% efficient nuclear weapon if I recall correctly

echelon 5y ago
I tried searching for it using the keywords "ripple" and "nuclear", but to no avail. Do you remember more details or happen to have the link? Edit: I think I found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29037556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29037556
- mjlee 5y ago
  Perhaps this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044637
- copperwater69 5y ago
  https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729/pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729/pdf

Wilber131 5y ago

[flagged]

er4hn 5y ago

I just learned from the blog that the author also published a book on the history of nuclear secrecy last year. I've read the introduction and am very excited to go through more (Books title is Restricted Data)

wwwhizz 5y ago
Could you please tell us what the title is? ;)
- baobrien 5y ago
  "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States", on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/022602038X https://www.amazon.com/dp/022602038X
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    I'll only buy it if it mentions the history with Belgium, Congo and Plutonium ( then i know it's fairly complete)
    - eesmith 5y ago
      FWIW, the author certainly knows about Shinkolobwe, which is mentioned in these book scans hosted on the author's site: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1989-Hewlett-Holl-AtomsforPeaceandWar.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1989-Hewlett-Holl-Atomsf... , http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1962-Hewlett-Anderson-NewWorld.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1962-Hewlett-Anderson-Ne... , and http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1969-Hewlett-Duncan-AtomicShield.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/misc/1969-Hewlett-Duncan-Atom... . At http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/02/25/the-secret-song/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/02/25/the-secret-song/ we can see the author quoting from the first of these. A look at Hewlett & Holl finds: > The far-flung complex of mines, ore-processing mills, feed material plants, gaseous-diffusion plants, production reactors, chemical separation plants, metal fabrication plants, and weapon component and assembly plants was still largely concealed behind the security barriers established by the Atomic Energy Act ... > Of the 3,700 tons of uranium concentrates (U308) that the Commission received in 1953, only about one-quarter (1,100 tons) came from mines in the United States; the rest was produced in the Belgian Congo (1,600 tons), South Africa (500 tons), Canada (400 tons), and Portugal (100 tons). ... > As for foreign sources, the leveling off of production from the Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo would be more than offset by projections of rapidly increasing deliveries later in the decade from the Union of South Africa and Canada. ... Hewlett was (quoting the author) "the first official historian of the Atomic Energy Commission ... [whose] volumes on AEC history are extremely useful resources."

agumonkey 5y ago

Is it related in any way to the recent news ?

mothsonasloth 5y ago

I like Nukemap, however the problem is that there is no way to have multiple target sites. Having a visualization of one target site is useful but if it was a full nuclear strike lots of targets would be hit by smaller yielded weapons (I am not an expert). Industry, Military Bases, Infrastructure and Communications AFAIK population centers are secondary targets in a first strike, however in a MAD (mutually assured destruction scenario) everything would be a target, right? example targets for UK https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/06/article-2650518-1E8609FB00000578-134_634x758.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/06/article-2650518-1...

djcapelis 5y ago
Like this? https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/ https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/
- moffkalast 5y ago
  When Colorado is nuked so badly that only Color remains hah. https://i.imgur.com/yvsPBak.png https://i.imgur.com/yvsPBak.png
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Putting NORAD in a mountain to protect it from nukes is a problem solved by more nukes it seems.
arethuza 5y ago
I think that's a pretty old map. Pretty sure the target to the North West of Edinburgh is the Pitreavie Castle site that was closed in '96 and is now housing. The UK also hasn't had strategic bombers for a long time either!

jnsaff2 5y ago

More interesting stats would be to see which places users tried to nuke the most...

NabiDev 5y ago
Try Kolkata
boomboomsubban 5y ago
Considering 92% of strikes were done with the defaults, I'd expect it to roughly be a list of English speaking cities by population. With the remaining 8% I'd expect NYC and some Japanese cities to be overrepresented.

mrtri 5y ago

iqanq 5y ago

Oh yes, nukemap. https://i.imgur.com/HxIYAdv.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/HxIYAdv.jpeg

app4soft 5y ago

I like the suggestion at the bottom of side bar, when I just tried Nukemap[0]: > Fallout: Your choice of burst height is too high to produce significant local fallout. The minimum burst height to produce appreciable fallout for a yield of 100 megaton is 5.49 km. Its really helpful. Guess, I should retry it with recommended value. [0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1491747174178336774 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1491747174178336774

superkuh 5y ago

I really miss the original Nukemap. The modern one, a forced re-implementation because API providers massively increased their fees, it nicely done in open source software. Unfortunately it now relies on fancy features like webgl to draw the ellipses/circles on the map where before it was just vanilla JS. Many browsers and machines, all of mine included, do not support webgl. RIP nukemap.

bradgessler 5y ago

Nuclear weapons is humanities biggest existential threat, and few people talk about it in popular culture. At any given point in time, we're 30 minutes away from the complete destruction of civilizations we know it today. I highly recommend diving into the movies & books below to begin understanding the issue and simply be in awe that humanity is capable of creating such horrific and destructive weapons. First, watch "Trinity And Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114728/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114728/]. It gives a great overview of the nuclear weapons program history and his incredible video footage of tests. Next watch "Threads" [https://archive.org/details/threads_202007 https://archive.org/details/threads_202007]. Be warned, it's depressing, but it does a great job dramatizing what a nuclear attack might look like, including its generational impacts. Finally, read "Command and Control" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)]. The book discusses how nuclear weapons are actually secured and designed to prevent accidental use. A movie was created if you prefer to watch that [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598206/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598206/]. When you get through these three pieces of material, you'll have a much better understanding of the history behind this weapons, how destructive they are, and hopefully think critically about whether or not they're worth the risk. The thing I worry the most about is unintentional or accidental use of a nuclear weapon quickly snowballing into something that ends humanity within 30 minutes. That's what's at stake.