- "The journal Science even published a piece on the question, in June 1946, on the eve of the US's post-war tests in Bikini Atoll. It stated that not only "non

- "The journal Science even published a piece on the question, in June 1946, on the eve of the US's post-war tests in Bikini Atoll. It stated that not only "non-scientists" are "disturbed over the prospect" of planetary ignition." Huh: that linked Science piece is actually not correct. Its safety argument is that nuclear fission of silicon and oxygen, the most common elements in the Earth's crust, are endothermic. That's true. It's also backwards: the actual problem is that nuclear fusion of light elements is exothermic, and in fact self-sustaining under certain conditions (extreme mass density). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.103.2687.760.a https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.103.2687.760.a The piece doesn't touch nuclear fusion at all. Was the expert not aware of it? He should be: he's discussing (astrophysical) novae as an analogy – and those are precisely runaway thermonuclear fusion detonations. (Didn't they know that in 1946?) To be fair, he does clearly disclaim in that piece that he isn't a nuclear physicist. Still: it's remarkable that it's totally wrong, given the severity of the question it's attempting to answer (and the authoritative platform it's published in).