3 ms·

Just to add a little on to what you wrote, seems like there's also a part where anything much over 50 MT just blows the rest of the energy out into space, so th

by th0ma5 15y ago

Just to add a little on to what you wrote, seems like there's also a part where anything much over 50 MT just blows the rest of the energy out into space, so there seems to be a cap on how big one can be?

ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
I'm not an expert here, but my opinion is that there is no limit on the megatons, or if there is, it's substantially higher than 50. The reason I believe this comes partly from one sentence in the Wikipedia article: "Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland." That focusing reminds me of the practice of shaping conventional explosives. The focusing from the Tsar Bomba test was accidental, meaning that they did not design it into the bomb, but if you were to, for example, design a nuclear explosion to work in conjunction with techniques which allow for precise, large-scale control of weather, you could effectively create a nuclear shaped charge which would focus the explosion downwards or outwards, thereby allowing you to increase the expected yield, as delivered to the target, whereby dissipation into space would not be a real concern. This is just off the top of my head, and I'm guessing that no one's tried it, mostly either due to lack of need, or lack of ability to do grand nuclear experiments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_focusing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_focusing
InclinedPlane 15y ago
Big bombs are extremely inefficient at directing damage at targets. Their main benefit is that they don't have to be aimed accurately. If you lob a 10 MT bomb at a capital city, metropolis, or military base and you miss by a mile you will still almost certainly destroy it. The advent of accurately targeted MIRVed weapons makes big bombs obsolete. Instead of lobbing one 10 MT bomb near a target you attack a lot of smaller targets with smaller bombs.

by th0ma5 15y ago

ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago

I'm not an expert here, but my opinion is that there is no limit on the megatons, or if there is, it's substantially higher than 50. The reason I believe this comes partly from one sentence in the Wikipedia article: "Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland." That focusing reminds me of the practice of shaping conventional explosives. The focusing from the Tsar Bomba test was accidental, meaning that they did not design it into the bomb, but if you were to, for example, design a nuclear explosion to work in conjunction with techniques which allow for precise, large-scale control of weather, you could effectively create a nuclear shaped charge which would focus the explosion downwards or outwards, thereby allowing you to increase the expected yield, as delivered to the target, whereby dissipation into space would not be a real concern. This is just off the top of my head, and I'm guessing that no one's tried it, mostly either due to lack of need, or lack of ability to do grand nuclear experiments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_focusing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_focusing

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Big bombs are extremely inefficient at directing damage at targets. Their main benefit is that they don't have to be aimed accurately. If you lob a 10 MT bomb at a capital city, metropolis, or military base and you miss by a mile you will still almost certainly destroy it. The advent of accurately targeted MIRVed weapons makes big bombs obsolete. Instead of lobbing one 10 MT bomb near a target you attack a lot of smaller targets with smaller bombs.