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Five Men Agree To Stand Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear Bomb
- ars 14y ago18,500 feet is 3.5 miles. So is there a different between being 3.5 miles under a bomb vs being 3.5 miles away from a bomb?
- cma 14y agoAverage air density between you and it would be higher or lower depending on exactly what you mean by 'away'.
- mc32 14y agoI think the main thing is that at that altitude there are few particles to rain radiation upon you. On the ground there is dust, debris, ash etc. which will carry the radiation and land on everything.
- smacktoward 14y agoYes. Studies of nuclear explosion impact effects distinguish between "ground burst" and "air burst" detonations. Ground bursts typically have a smaller overall radius of damage, but do more intense damage at or near ground zero. Air bursts spread their effects across a wider radius, but damage is relatively more evenly distributed. Ground bursts also produce more fallout, since they dig up and irradiate earth and scatter it to the winds.
- gcb 14y ago"Ground bursts also produce more fallout, since they dig up and irradiate earth and scatter it to the winds." don't the produce the same amount of fallout? but the one in the dust is measurable and the air is not as easy to quantify?
- ars 14y agoReply to 'gcb' who's account is hellbanned, so I can't reply to him directly. No: Ground bursts cause way more fallout. Air pretty much can not become radioactive no matter how powerful the bomb. But soil can, so it becomes radioactive, then is scattered by the wind. The fallout from the bomb itself is different and is the same for both - but it's a smaller component, since there isn't that much of it.
- lutorm 14y agoThe initial radiation and heat wave is likely more intense because there's no ground to shield between you and the blast but, as someone else said, most radioactivity is from induced activity in ground material sucked up in the blast, so from that perspective air bursts are much less "dirty" as the fission products rise into the stratosphere and are dispersed in the winds. Definitely it would be better than being 3.5mi downwind of a ground blast, but probably not compared to being upwind. The shock wave is probably also less damaging because it comes from straight above so it won't pick up objects and throw them at you.
- baby 14y ago3.5 miles is 5.6 km
- masterponomo 14y agoThat looks like an episode of "McHale's Navy" with all the dimwits standing around.
- ses4j 14y agoThis image needs to become one of the standard meme images.
- russell 14y agoNow we know why no one is afraid of the North Korean nuclear program.
- caf 14y agoIt is worth pointing out that designing deliberately low-yield nuclear weapons, like the one used in this test, requires significantly more technical know-how than a higher-yielding basic design.
- iamdann 14y agoIt's amazing how these men have went on to live such long lives. As someone who has only cursory knowledge of atomic explosions and radiation damage, I was always under the impression that standing under an explosion such as this would almost guarantee a death during or shortly after. I suppose it's a lot like HIV. Unprotected sex with an HIV positive person doesn't * guarantee* disease contraction, which is the impression I was always get. Not worth the risk, by any means, but still different than I had always been taught.
- Dylan16807 14y agoFar safer. You have to remember that they're over three and a half miles from the explosion. They're just in a dramatic direction.
- _delirium 14y agoIn fact, the entire point of this test was to demonstrate that it was safe to stand under it. While some of the early tests were very unsafe, by the time of this test (1957), the dangers of radiation were well-known, so it wasn't a cowboy-type experiment like the early ones, and the planning would've computed the expected radiation dose and ensured it was safe. The military did it as a publicity stunt to assuage public fears of nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles by showing that even if they were used in a dogfight directly over a city, they wouldn't pose any risk to those on the ground. The volunteers were even supposed to not wear a helmet or hat to show that it was fine for normal people. If I recall correctly from having seen this discussed previously, they measured radiation doses received, and found that the highest doses (but still not at dangerous levels) were received by the pilots involved in the test, not the ground volunteers. This was from the relatively short-lived era when several militaries were hoping to make a distinction between "strategic" nuclear weapons, the kind that blow up cities and would only be used in doomsday scenarios, and "tactical" nuclear weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon), small-yield varieties that would just be like very big regular weapons and could conceivably be used in a non-apocalyptic war. Due to a mixture of public opposition and fears of international chain reactions that might result from "going nuclear", though, that initiative failed, which is why you saw a transition back into really-gigantic conventional weapons in the 1990s, e.g. the MOAB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_Massive_Ordnance_Air_Blast_bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_Massive_Ordnance_Air_B...).
- BHSPitMonkey 14y ago> "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt it was related to the testing." Is there really no doubt? I didn't see any more details in the article pertaining to the deaths, but for the sake of not implying that correlation == causation, I would point out that most cancer patients were never involved in nuclear testing (and, conversely, the cameraman who said the above also shows contradictory results).
- yanowitz 14y agoAs the saying goes (roughly): "correlation doesn't equal causation, but it's a good place to start looking". Are cancer incidence rates higher among those around nuclear explosions? Yes. http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/rad-exposure-cancer.html/ http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/rad-ex... Is there a plausible mechanism by which radiation exposure leads to cancer? yes. http://hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/intro_9_5.html http://hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/intro_... These two facts greatly increase the probability of linkage.
- adrianwaj 14y agoI've heard from anti-vaccine advocates that a number of diseases were on the decline, and that vaccine use was insignifcant in that decline. But the vaccines were introduced anyway so you could say it was the vaccines that did it but other factors were at hand. Sometimes I think correlation not only doesn't equal causation, but counters causation, like a son doing well not because of his overbearing mother, but in spite of it. (She would claim the credit anyhow.) - I've read about vaccines causing diseases they are proclaimed to guard against - "weaponized vaccines."
- Tichy 14y agoJust because on popular pseudo-scientific theory was successfully debunked doesn't imply that all theories can be debunked. Arguing with the vaccination case here boggles my mind, it's so misguided.
- anonova 14y agoThe article says that the video is from [the National Security Archive][1]. Does anyone know where exactly the raw video can be downloaded? [1]: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb332/index.htm http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb332/index.htm
- eli 14y agoYou could email and ask. I'm guessing they got it through a FOIA request. http://archive.org/ http://archive.org/ hosts a lot of public domain gov't videos too.
- rahim 14y agoOne of the two authors of the post (Robert Krulwich) is also a co-host on a fantastic podcast called Radiolab. Their most recent episode is about this topic and they tell the story of a Japanese man that was in the blast radius at Hiroshima, went home to Nagasaki, injured, and was caught in the second explosion as well! http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jul/16/double-blasted/ http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jul/16/doub...
- kitsune_ 14y agoOperation Plumbbob, troops in front of an exploding nuclear bomb (@2:50): http://youtu.be/7mV0Lt2PUjI?t=2m50s http://youtu.be/7mV0Lt2PUjI?t=2m50s Tactical nuclear artillery being fired (@0:50): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GBjlUOROY&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GBjlUOROY&feature=relat...
- delinka 14y agoHoly Hell. That second video really drives home the devastation caused in the blast wave. Paint on vehicles turned instantly to ash and blew away. Wooden structures instantly caught fire. What was unexpected to me (I saw this in the first video which made me aware of it) was the 'backwash' after the initial shock wave. Terrifying.
- cubicle 14y agoThe prompt X-rays from the physics package heat up a lot of air very quickly. This expands, producing the supersonic shockwave front. Then the fireball, being very hot and much less dense than the air around it, rises. Air is sucked towards ground zero, producing the backwash, and the characteristic mushroom cloud of any very large explosion.
- klodolph 14y agoAnd the fireball created by the X-rays is, for a moment, hidden behind the shock wave. This makes a "double flash" which can be detected from orbit without even the need for a camera, just point a photodetector at the Earth's surface.
- arethuza 14y agoBhangmeters are one kind of specialised photo detector used to detect nuclear explosions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangmeter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangmeter I'm pretty sure these were used in bunkers (at least in the UK) as well as satellites.
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- bearmf 14y agoThis video is so Dr. Strangelove
- aMtnViewer 14y agoAgreed
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoIf you want more details on the "Downwinders", this is a pretty good piece: http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/nucleartestingandthedownwinders.html http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/nuclear... I remember seeing some statistics when I lived in St. George 15 years ago (like high school dropouts) from 18 years after the tests. There was a huge increase in dropouts (and other negative indicators) as the downwinder babies reached adulthood.
- GFischer 14y agoDo these tests release heavy metals in significant enough quantities to cause this? In my country, the children close to the oil refinery have the same behaviour, from heavy metal poisoning.
- mturmon 14y agoAnother excellent reference is the MIT Press book, "American Ground Zero": http://www.amazon.com/American-Ground-Zero-Secret-Nuclear/dp/0262071460 http://www.amazon.com/American-Ground-Zero-Secret-Nuclear/dp... It's abundantly clear that the people near the Nevada Test Site suffered hugely from cancer because of these aboveground tests. This national shame is documented in disturbing detail in the book. (It has 11 reviews on Amazon, all 5-star reviews.) Some shots were particularly dirty, with unexpectedly much fallout. They couldn't/didn't predict this in advance, it was just bad luck if you happened to be nearby when one of these dirty tests went off.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoI wouldn't trust statistics like that unless they had strong differences betweeen other cities over the same time period. There's been a hell of a lot of social change over the last half century, assuming something like dropout rates should remain constant over a period of decades is a non-starter.
- bjornsing 14y ago> Some of you may have noticed the nuclear missile video says the explosion took place 10,000 feet above our group of soldiers. Apparently, the video is wrong. The Natural Resources Defense Council checked the numbers and says the explosion, part of Operation PLUMBBOB, was actually at 18,500 feet. Well, there's actually some pretty good proof here that the explosion was closer than that: I count the time between light and sound to be slightly less than 13 seconds (and voices sound right so I'm assuming the recording is accurate in that respect). That would mean the explosion is about 14 000 feet away from the camera.
- dhughes 14y agoMe too! distance = 1,116.44 feet/second * 12 seconds = 13,397.28 feet
- backprojection 14y agoSignificant figures, you have too many of them.
- dhughes 14y ago13,397 feet
- backprojection 14y ago14,000 feet. Sorry to nitpick! You go with the min of the sigfigs in the expression, which here is 2 = sigfigs(12) < sigfigs(13,397.28) = 7
- dhughes 14y agoHa, don't worry about it. I was thinking it was the significant digits after the decimal. It's always been my weakness calculation-wise. How about 14E3 feet? :P
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- mattparlane 14y agoWhat I'd like to know is why the recording equipment kept functioning -- isn't an EMP supposed to wipe out sensitive electronics? At least that's what the movies tell me...
- pjscott 14y agoVacuum tubes hold up better than today's little transistors, and there are ways of EMP-protecting things, like putting them in Faraday cages.
- mattparlane 14y agoFairy nuff, I thought transistors might have been used in 1957 but I guess not.
- Symmetry 14y agoThe nuke was pretty low energy and it didn't go off in the ionosphere, so no.
- drblast 14y agoWouldn't they have used a mechanical film camera? I don't believe that would be susceptible.
- dredmorbius 14y agoA few things. ICs are a lot more sensitive to EMP than vacuum-tube devices. The amount of EMP experienced is a function both of the size of the size of the nuke, and of the receiving antenna. One reason the Starfish and Hardtack bursts affected street lighting systems is that these were attached directly to the electrical grid: power lines == large antennas. Blast yields were also in the megaton range, 1000x greater than the one here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosio...
- Sharlin 14y agoThere were no "sensitive electronics" in 1957. There were pretty much no electronics at all, particularly not in cameras. The transistor was just invented.
- Craiggybear 14y agoDoes anyone else recognise this as totally manufactured propaganda? Some of the statements here are ludicrous and make no sense. Its as believable as Indiana Jones hiding in a fridge and walking away unscathed. Jeez -- come on. Prompt gamma flux would have destroyed their minds almost instantly even if their bodies had (improbably) survived incineration.
- twfarland 14y agoThey all sound kind of high. Although such a power is terrible, it must be pretty exhilarating.
- ck2 14y agoThink about how all our nuclear tests actually raised carbon 14 levels to such a high point it can actually be used as a marker to determine the age of an object anywhere in the world. Then think about our crazy high cancer rates.
- ekianjo 14y agoC14 exists naturally as well. The reason you can date C14 containing objects has NOTHING to do with nuclear bombs.
- kragniz 14y agoNuclear testing did change the levels of C14 significantly [1]. Carbon dating is impossible for dates after the '50s, when large amounts of nuclear testing started. [1] http://www.sciencecourseware.org/VirtualDating/files/RC_3.html http://www.sciencecourseware.org/VirtualDating/files/RC_3.ht...
- ekianjo 14y agoOK, but in my understanding, C14 dating was not really used to date anything recent in the first place. Usually it's used to date old items, monuments, bones, etc... So, what's your point exactly ?
- polymatter 14y agoI think the suggestion is C14 dating would be useful to date recent events (perhaps in accidents or crime scenes) were nuclear tests not so common in the 50s. Humanity lost a useful tool (dating recent events) so that we could develop more devastating nuclear weapons a bit quicker than we otherwise would have. Phrased like that it sounds a shame, but I have no idea if this is true or not. My understanding of C14 dating is that it relys on the half-life of C14 being predictable. But my understanding of radioactive decay is that it is not perfectly deterministic. This suggests to me that you might need a bit of time for the radioactive decay to trend to its expected average rate.
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- DCoder 14y agoCompare that to a training exercise the soviets carried out - 40+ thousand troops engaging in combat while a nuke is detonated overhead: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1....
- kristianp 14y agoThis is amazing, but it's not exactly "Hacker News", is it.
- sophacles 14y agoSubmission guidelines: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I found it interesting and the discussion was even better, I've regularly had a low-grade curiosity about nuclear testing, the effects on people, etc, and a lot of that was brought up (with references true HN style) in the comments. So it is exactly hacker news. Much like in real life as a programmer - it's not always editors, programming languages etc, sometimes it's just fun. Not too long ago, the whole dev team ended up roped into a heavy discussion one afternoon, we were debating and calculating the observed effects of some hypothetical phenomenon, full whiteboard and math style. The boss comes in and tells us problems with our math and helps us whip up a quick simulation to figure it out. (this is at a university, the bosses are pretty smart cookies, professors and the like) After a couple hours for us (an hour for him), he says, "ok, I guess I should probably suggest you get back to work, but this was fun!". Amusingly 2 of the devs got modules back on schedule the next day, apparently we all just needed some hard but fun and unrelated problem. HN can have that too :)