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A Deeply Unsettling Time Lapse Of Every Nuclear Explosion On Earth

37 points by hiroaki 13y ago

NewHatMatt 13y ago
Site appears to be down. Here is the Google Cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nt4zfUyuG1kJ:abiggersociety.com/a-deeply-unsettling-time-lapse-of-every-nuclear-explosion-on-earth/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nt4zfUy...
- donpdonp 13y ago
  The animation is a youtube video. Here is the direct link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA
roryhughes 13y ago
"Error establishing a database connection" :(
nevir 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA
Dylan16807 13y ago
Deeply unsettling? Because they did 2k tests over a period of half a century?
- rhaphazard 13y ago
  I think it is difficult for most people to conceptualize how short a time period that is since they haven't even lived that long.
stormpat 13y ago
Why am i not suprised america has the most explosions, and still they try to ban other countries from producing nuclear fuel. The future generations will probably like the fallout on us soil. Congrats, this is a wondefull vid.
- bluedino 13y ago
  It's been 50 years since the US did a non-underground test. What do you think we use all these supercomputers for? Nuclear testing.
  - dedward 13y ago
    Yup. The test partial test ban treaty was signed in 1963 by all the nuclear powers at the time - everything after then, US or otherwise, has been underground, with the exception of, I believe, India, who was not a nuclear power when the treaty was drawn up - india set of a series of undersea tests late in the century. This was done specifically because they realized they would collectively make the planet uninhabitable if they continued.
    - achamayou 13y ago
      France didn't sign, and went on with atmospheric testing until 1974, and the same is true of China (although they didn't start testing until 1964, so they weren't technically part of "all the nuclear powers at the time").
    - eshvk 13y ago
      > india set of a series of undersea tests late in the century. underground. [1] [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha
- dedward 13y ago
  The concern isn't that they are producing nuclear fuel. It's that the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons is a by-product of those reactors. Plutonium isn't naturally occurring on earth - the only place to get it is from a reactor - either yours, or buy it from someone else who has one.
MJR 13y ago
Previously on HN... Nuclear Explosions since 1942 (map) (datavis.tumblr.com) 3 points by transburgh 4 years ago | 1 comments | cached Animated History of Nuclear Explosions (ctbto.org) 2 points by brianmckenzie 3 years ago | 0 comments | cached Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached
- pdenya 13y ago
  If you want to contribute to the thread, link to the comments on the previous posts. Otherwise, the fact that this has been posted before (apparently 3 years ago..) doesn't make it less interesting now. > Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586544
etanazir 13y ago
The brits tested a bomb on U.S. soil?
- Pinckney 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol
- Crito 13y ago
  Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_US%E2%80%93UK_Mutual_Defence_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_US%E2%80%93UK_Mutual_Defen...
colechristensen 13y ago
I, for one, am not deeply unsettled by nuclear weapons. As weapons of peace, they have made war a strongly negative sum game between advanced nations. The only way to win is not to play. The drawback of nuclear weapons isn't the actual threat or consequences of war, but using the nature of the game by a government to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst its own people to consolidate power. That, in itself, is not a problem with the weapon, but with the lack of enlightenment amongst the people and their government.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  In addition, a lot of people have completely warped, fantastical and exaggerated perceptions of how powerful nuclear weapons are.
  - chris_j 13y ago
    Would you mind expanding on that? What exaggerated perceptions do a lot of people have and in what way do they not match reality?
    - mikeash 13y ago
      I'm not the guy you're replying to, but I've seen a lot of misconceptions that make them seem much worse than they are (although they are still quite terrible). Common myth: any nuclear explosion causes total destruction for miles in every direction. Because of this, old drills like "duck and cover" were foolishness at best and cold-blooded ways to placate the populace at worse. Fact: the area of total destruction is fairly small. Most injuries and deaths by most bombs would be caused by flying debris. Duck and cover is a great way to increase people's chances of survival. If you're right at ground zero then you're still screwed, but there are potentially millions of people living at distances where structures would overall survive but taking cover would greatly help their chances of survival. I blame this on pictures of Hiroshima from after the bombing there, where nearly everything is just wiped clean. People don't realize that this is because most of the buildings in the city were practically built out of paper. Common myth: following a nuclear explosion, the area will be too contaminated to live in for centuries or millennia. Fact: the really nasty stuff decays in days or weeks. It may not be the healthiest place to be long-term, but months or years after the event, it's not generally going to be a big deal. Witness the distinct lack of widespread contamination and abandonment in modern-day Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example. Common myth: a full-scale nuclear war would destroy all life on the planet. OK, all complex life. Well, all human life. Fact: while it would be an event without precedent in both its size and speed, lots of people would still survive. It would pretty thoroughly wreck civilization and easily kill hundreds of millions or even billions of people, but life would, overall, go on. Many countries would escape the devastation and, while their economics would have extreme trouble due to the devastation of global trade, they would not revert to a pre-industrial state or anything like it. Expect a future with technological advances slowed down greatly and dominated by Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, and possibly Australia, not a future filled with radioactive wastelands and handfuls of survivors waiting for death in underground bunkers. Common myth: the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion will wipe out electronics in the region. Fact: most nuclear explosions don't produce EMP. You only get it when they're set off in the upper atmosphere, as the EMP comes from the interaction of gamma rays with sparse gasses and the Earth's magnetic field. An attacker with the capability would be wise to set such a thing off over the US, but, for example, a terrorist nuke in New Jersey isn't going to wipe the computers on Wall Street. Common myth: despite all of the above misconceptions, nuclear weapons are still tremendously frightening and we're all extremely lucky that the Cold War never went hot. Fact: no, this one is definitely right.
wallflower 13y ago
Reminds me of "Rise Of The HFT Machine": http://imgur.com/DxWer http://imgur.com/DxWer
cstavish 13y ago
The vast majority of these detonations occurred after the US, UK and USSR signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which permitted only underground detonations. Ideally, underground detonations don't release radioactive material into the wider environment, but there were of course failures to contain along the way.
- batbomb 13y ago
  My favorite example of an underground nuclear explosion was project gasbuggy, near where I grew up. They thought it might be useful if they could perform nuclear fracking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy Where they performed the test is a very beautiful area. Part of a larger project to actually perform nuclear terra-forming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899941,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899941,... > Someone shouted: "We did it! We did it!" Hand shakes were exchanged all around. The U.S. had successfully set off the first nuclear explosion sponsored jointly by the Government and industry.
bernardom 13y ago
The number of tests is not what bothers me. The number of times we have had accidents is what does. Thankfully, none has ever resulted in accidental detonation- but this involved a lot of luck. Eric Schlosser's book Command and Control, which just came out this year is a pretty comprehensive treatment of every accident the US has ever had, from decades of filing Freedom of Information reports. I'm halfway through it right now, it's pretty chilling. Book: http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/159420227 http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu... NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-control-by-eric-schlosser.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-c...
- dnautics 13y ago
  the number of tests should bother you, especially the atmospheric ones. People do epidemiological studies of industrial chemicals and their effects on cancer rates. Nobody does the epidemiological study of how the atmospheric tests affect cancer rates. Because there is no negative control.
stevewilhelm 13y ago
Description of artist and the video http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/ http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

37 points by hiroaki 13y ago

Site appears to be down. Here is the Google Cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nt4zfUyuG1kJ:abiggersociety.com/a-deeply-unsettling-time-lapse-of-every-nuclear-explosion-on-earth/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nt4zfUy...

donpdonp 13y ago
The animation is a youtube video. Here is the direct link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA

roryhughes 13y ago

"Error establishing a database connection" :(

nevir 13y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA

Dylan16807 13y ago

Deeply unsettling? Because they did 2k tests over a period of half a century?

rhaphazard 13y ago
I think it is difficult for most people to conceptualize how short a time period that is since they haven't even lived that long.

stormpat 13y ago

Why am i not suprised america has the most explosions, and still they try to ban other countries from producing nuclear fuel. The future generations will probably like the fallout on us soil. Congrats, this is a wondefull vid.

bluedino 13y ago
It's been 50 years since the US did a non-underground test. What do you think we use all these supercomputers for? Nuclear testing.
- dedward 13y ago
  Yup. The test partial test ban treaty was signed in 1963 by all the nuclear powers at the time - everything after then, US or otherwise, has been underground, with the exception of, I believe, India, who was not a nuclear power when the treaty was drawn up - india set of a series of undersea tests late in the century. This was done specifically because they realized they would collectively make the planet uninhabitable if they continued.
  - achamayou 13y ago
    France didn't sign, and went on with atmospheric testing until 1974, and the same is true of China (although they didn't start testing until 1964, so they weren't technically part of "all the nuclear powers at the time").
  - eshvk 13y ago
    > india set of a series of undersea tests late in the century. underground. [1] [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha
dedward 13y ago
The concern isn't that they are producing nuclear fuel. It's that the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons is a by-product of those reactors. Plutonium isn't naturally occurring on earth - the only place to get it is from a reactor - either yours, or buy it from someone else who has one.

MJR 13y ago

Previously on HN... Nuclear Explosions since 1942 (map) (datavis.tumblr.com) 3 points by transburgh 4 years ago | 1 comments | cached Animated History of Nuclear Explosions (ctbto.org) 2 points by brianmckenzie 3 years ago | 0 comments | cached Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached

pdenya 13y ago
If you want to contribute to the thread, link to the comments on the previous posts. Otherwise, the fact that this has been posted before (apparently 3 years ago..) doesn't make it less interesting now. > Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586544

etanazir 13y ago

The brits tested a bomb on U.S. soil?

Pinckney 13y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol
Crito 13y ago
Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Bristol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_US%E2%80%93UK_Mutual_Defence_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_US%E2%80%93UK_Mutual_Defen...

colechristensen 13y ago

I, for one, am not deeply unsettled by nuclear weapons. As weapons of peace, they have made war a strongly negative sum game between advanced nations. The only way to win is not to play. The drawback of nuclear weapons isn't the actual threat or consequences of war, but using the nature of the game by a government to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst its own people to consolidate power. That, in itself, is not a problem with the weapon, but with the lack of enlightenment amongst the people and their government.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
In addition, a lot of people have completely warped, fantastical and exaggerated perceptions of how powerful nuclear weapons are.
- chris_j 13y ago
  Would you mind expanding on that? What exaggerated perceptions do a lot of people have and in what way do they not match reality?
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I'm not the guy you're replying to, but I've seen a lot of misconceptions that make them seem much worse than they are (although they are still quite terrible). Common myth: any nuclear explosion causes total destruction for miles in every direction. Because of this, old drills like "duck and cover" were foolishness at best and cold-blooded ways to placate the populace at worse. Fact: the area of total destruction is fairly small. Most injuries and deaths by most bombs would be caused by flying debris. Duck and cover is a great way to increase people's chances of survival. If you're right at ground zero then you're still screwed, but there are potentially millions of people living at distances where structures would overall survive but taking cover would greatly help their chances of survival. I blame this on pictures of Hiroshima from after the bombing there, where nearly everything is just wiped clean. People don't realize that this is because most of the buildings in the city were practically built out of paper. Common myth: following a nuclear explosion, the area will be too contaminated to live in for centuries or millennia. Fact: the really nasty stuff decays in days or weeks. It may not be the healthiest place to be long-term, but months or years after the event, it's not generally going to be a big deal. Witness the distinct lack of widespread contamination and abandonment in modern-day Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example. Common myth: a full-scale nuclear war would destroy all life on the planet. OK, all complex life. Well, all human life. Fact: while it would be an event without precedent in both its size and speed, lots of people would still survive. It would pretty thoroughly wreck civilization and easily kill hundreds of millions or even billions of people, but life would, overall, go on. Many countries would escape the devastation and, while their economics would have extreme trouble due to the devastation of global trade, they would not revert to a pre-industrial state or anything like it. Expect a future with technological advances slowed down greatly and dominated by Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, and possibly Australia, not a future filled with radioactive wastelands and handfuls of survivors waiting for death in underground bunkers. Common myth: the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion will wipe out electronics in the region. Fact: most nuclear explosions don't produce EMP. You only get it when they're set off in the upper atmosphere, as the EMP comes from the interaction of gamma rays with sparse gasses and the Earth's magnetic field. An attacker with the capability would be wise to set such a thing off over the US, but, for example, a terrorist nuke in New Jersey isn't going to wipe the computers on Wall Street. Common myth: despite all of the above misconceptions, nuclear weapons are still tremendously frightening and we're all extremely lucky that the Cold War never went hot. Fact: no, this one is definitely right.

wallflower 13y ago

Reminds me of "Rise Of The HFT Machine": http://imgur.com/DxWer http://imgur.com/DxWer

cstavish 13y ago

The vast majority of these detonations occurred after the US, UK and USSR signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which permitted only underground detonations. Ideally, underground detonations don't release radioactive material into the wider environment, but there were of course failures to contain along the way.

batbomb 13y ago
My favorite example of an underground nuclear explosion was project gasbuggy, near where I grew up. They thought it might be useful if they could perform nuclear fracking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy Where they performed the test is a very beautiful area. Part of a larger project to actually perform nuclear terra-forming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899941,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899941,... > Someone shouted: "We did it! We did it!" Hand shakes were exchanged all around. The U.S. had successfully set off the first nuclear explosion sponsored jointly by the Government and industry.

bernardom 13y ago

The number of tests is not what bothers me. The number of times we have had accidents is what does. Thankfully, none has ever resulted in accidental detonation- but this involved a lot of luck. Eric Schlosser's book Command and Control, which just came out this year is a pretty comprehensive treatment of every accident the US has ever had, from decades of filing Freedom of Information reports. I'm halfway through it right now, it's pretty chilling. Book: http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/159420227 http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu... NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-control-by-eric-schlosser.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-c...

dnautics 13y ago
the number of tests should bother you, especially the atmospheric ones. People do epidemiological studies of industrial chemicals and their effects on cancer rates. Nobody does the epidemiological study of how the atmospheric tests affect cancer rates. Because there is no negative control.

stevewilhelm 13y ago

Description of artist and the video http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/ http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/