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World Nuclear Explosion Count

braymoore

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So this is supposed to be the world nuclear explosion count up to the year 1998. Now I have no clue if this is fact and I would like the opinions of others that have more knowledge of this subject. I'm not going to lie, I would have thought that Germany would have had a couple of nuclear tests but according to the map that isn't ture. So I'm a little skeptical on the whole video. All in all there were 2,053 nuclear explosions up to the date of 1998. Another issue I have with this is that if there were really that many explosions wouldn't many parts of the earth be radioactive? Thoughts and opinions.
 
IMO, it's for real and yes, there are areas that are highly radioactive
 
Interesting video, I have to believe the majority of those nuke explosions were under ground or we would all be glowing but still, kind of scary stuff.

Yeah I know right! But it would have to be underground or underwater. Because over 1000 tested nukes in America. It doesn't really make sense.
 
Per post-WWII treaties imposed on Germany and Japan, they have minimal militaries and are probably prohibited from having nukes.
 


So this is supposed to be the world nuclear explosion count up to the year 1998. Now I have no clue if this is fact and I would like the opinions of others that have more knowledge of this subject. I'm not going to lie, I would have thought that Germany would have had a couple of nuclear tests but according to the map that isn't ture. So I'm a little skeptical on the whole video. All in all there were 2,053 nuclear explosions up to the date of 1998. Another issue I have with this is that if there were really that many explosions wouldn't many parts of the earth be radioactive? Thoughts and opinions.



To put it briefly:

1. Yes it is accurate.

2. No, Germany does not, and never has had nuclear weapons.

3. Some of these places that received high amounts of nuclear testing are somewhat hazardously radioactive, but it is limited to the relatively small confines of their testing grounds. However most (the vast majority) are relatively safe for a human to venture into unprotected. Even Bikini Atoll is fine to visit with normal clothing and you could probably eat the fish and fruit on the island without adding too much of a health risk.

4. People have very unrealistic expectations of how nuclear weapons work, and even less for radiation. Generally speaking the immediate risk from nuclear radiation (your ionizing radiation) by the rule of seven, that is radiation decays at a corresponding factor of 10 for every measurement of seven starting at one hour after the detonation. So after seven hours you get a 90% reduction from where it was at the first hour. You can extrapolate this rule successfully for a reasonable period of time and within a few weeks most places would be safe to travel in unprotected. There are a million other variables that nuclear nerds on this board could probably tell you about, but that is a good general outline.
 
To put it briefly:

1. Yes it is accurate.

2. No, Germany does not, and never has had nuclear weapons.

3. Some of these places that received high amounts of nuclear testing are somewhat hazardously radioactive, but it is limited to the relatively small confines of their testing grounds. However most (the vast majority) are relatively safe for a human to venture into unprotected. Even Bikini Atoll is fine to visit with normal clothing and you could probably eat the fish and fruit on the island without adding too much of a health risk.

4. People have very unrealistic expectations of how nuclear weapons work, and even less for radiation. Generally speaking the immediate risk from nuclear radiation (your ionizing radiation) by the rule of seven, that is radiation decays at a corresponding factor of 10 for every measurement of seven starting at one hour after the detonation. So after seven hours you get a 90% reduction from where it was at the first hour. You can extrapolate this rule successfully for a reasonable period of time and within a few weeks most places would be safe to travel in unprotected. There are a million other variables that nuclear nerds on this board could probably tell you about, but that is a good general outline.

So much for "mutually assured destruction" huh
 
So much for "mutually assured destruction" huh

I mean, if you are loosing thousands of nuclear weapons terrible things are going to happen. A thermal blast over a city is still a thermal blast, and you are still talking about a tremendous amount of very deadly radiation for an inhumane amount of time (weeks or months in shelters will generally result in killing a boat-load of your people) not to mention series of other myriad effects that happen with nuclear detonations on that scale. It's bad in a very particular unique way, just not the caricature it's often portrayed as.
 
I mean, if you are loosing thousands of nuclear weapons terrible things are going to happen. A thermal blast over a city is still a thermal blast, and you are still talking about a tremendous amount of very deadly radiation for an inhumane amount of time (weeks or months in shelters will generally result in killing a boat-load of your people) not to mention series of other myriad effects that happen with nuclear detonations on that scale. It's bad in a very particular unique way, just not the caricature it's often portrayed as.

When I was a kid we were taught that nuked cities would be uninhabitable for thousands of years. Apparently that is wrong and man kind would survive a nuke war and it is not the end of everything. I hope we never test this though.
 
When I was a kid we were taught that nuked cities would be uninhabitable for thousands of years. Apparently that is wrong and man kind would survive a nuke war and it is not the end of everything. I hope we never test this though.

I mean obviously that isn't true. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are massive and vibrant cities. The problem is more that millions upon millions of people would perish in the initial hours, days, and weeks of a nuclear conflict rather than perpetual radiological disaster. I wont get too into the intensely bitter debate about 'nuclear winter' but I'll say an increasingly large (since the late 1980's) number of scientists and climatologists have cast a skeptical eye on the theory (to put it lightly) and I tend to fall in that camp.
 
I think all those nuclear detonations is responsible for the massive outbreak in different cancers in recent times. . . But I guess that belongs in the Conspiracy forums.

Interesting video, I have to believe the majority of those nuke explosions were under ground or we would all be glowing but still, kind of scary stuff.
 
It's not really the cities anymore, its the radiation being released and built up into the atmosphere that can be deadly.

That's why most tests are underground.

When I was a kid we were taught that nuked cities would be uninhabitable for thousands of years. Apparently that is wrong and man kind would survive a nuke war and it is not the end of everything. I hope we never test this though.
 
When I was a kid we were taught that nuked cities would be uninhabitable for thousands of years. Apparently that is wrong and man kind would survive a nuke war and it is not the end of everything. I hope we never test this though.

Clearly it was wrong. Lots of people live in Hiroshima, for example.
 
What I don't get is why there were so many nuclear tests. Einsteins definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I can understand maybe up to 20 tests. Beyond that is insanity. If they didn't understand what was going on by test # 20, then they should have thought about doing something else.

Over 1000. And the treaty banning nuclear testing appears to be worthless. Oh that's right, we're America. Our rules apply to everyone except us.
 
What I don't get is why there were so many nuclear tests. Einsteins definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I can understand maybe up to 20 tests. Beyond that is insanity. If they didn't understand what was going on by test # 20, then they should have thought about doing something else.

Over 1000. And the treaty banning nuclear testing appears to be worthless. Oh that's right, we're America. Our rules apply to everyone except us.

They were trying new warheads for the tests. There are probably over 100 different types of nuclear warheads in America alone. They wanted to see if/how they would work.
 
They were trying new warheads for the tests. There are probably over 100 different types of nuclear warheads in America alone. They wanted to see if/how they would work.

We know the nuclear part works. I could understand if they wanted to test different detonation devices. That wouldn't require testing the nuclear part. I'll just sit back and wait for a hacker group to remote detonate all the nuclear explosives so we don't have to deal with the crap anymore. It'll be a long time away, but it may happen.
 


So this is supposed to be the world nuclear explosion count up to the year 1998. Now I have no clue if this is fact and I would like the opinions of others that have more knowledge of this subject. I'm not going to lie, I would have thought that Germany would have had a couple of nuclear tests but according to the map that isn't ture. So I'm a little skeptical on the whole video. All in all there were 2,053 nuclear explosions up to the date of 1998. Another issue I have with this is that if there were really that many explosions wouldn't many parts of the earth be radioactive? Thoughts and opinions.


Absolutely accurate. I love showing this video to people. In fact, there are lots of great infographic vids out on many subjects..
 
What I don't get is why there were so many nuclear tests. Einsteins definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I can understand maybe up to 20 tests. Beyond that is insanity. If they didn't understand what was going on by test # 20, then they should have thought about doing something else.

Over 1000. And the treaty banning nuclear testing appears to be worthless. Oh that's right, we're America. Our rules apply to everyone except us.

They were tested primarily to make sure that new designs actually worked. This is the era of pen and paper calculations, and the predictive models weren't that great. The best way to ensure that designs actually worked was to test them in the field. Furthermore has time wears on it arguably becomes important to test because of the need to make sure nuclear caches are actually operational. Plutonium decays with time and we run extremely sophisticated computer testing with powerful supercomputers (it costs billions) to test how the warheads have aged and sub-critical nuclear (non-explosive) tests to provide data for these calculations all to see if we need to began replacing the plutonium. We can do this in the digital age, in days gone by you had to actually detonate the bomb to see. It's also cheaper.
 
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