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The Real Mother of All Bombs, 46 Years Ago

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the things-that-go-boom dept.

vaporland writes "Tsar Bomba is the Western name for the RDS-220, the largest, most powerful weapon ever detonated. The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961, in an archipelago in the Arctic Sea. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb had a yield of about 50 megatons. Its detonation released energy equivalent to approximately 1% of the power output of the Sun for 39 nanoseconds of its detonation. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to reduce the resulting nuclear fallout. The Tsar Bomba qualifies as the single most powerful device ever utilized throughout the history of humanity."

11 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. I respectfully disagree... by TobyRush · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Tsar Bomba qualifies as the single most powerful device ever utilized throughout the history of humanity.
    I don't know... my money's still on the pen.
    --
    Sam! If you will let me be,
    I will try them.
    You will see.
    1. Re:I respectfully disagree... by KDR_11k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The pen is mightier than the sword: Often propaganda will work better than overt force. Shackle a man's hands and he will try to break free, shackle his mind and he will never consider it.

      This is the reason I consider false or sensationalist news more dangerous to the wellbeing of society than terrorism.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:I respectfully disagree... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was heartening to see such encouraging words after watching that horrific video which made me want to cry just thinking about how profanely humans have abused this ancient, loving Earth we have inherited. Ancient, loving Earth that we have inherited? Are you kidding me? You could argue the first point, but the last two are absurd. There is no Gaia, and the Earth does not have a soul. The Earth is only a very big rock with a layer of pond scum on it. It doesn't love you any more than your pet rock does. And we haven't inherited the Earth any more than the pond scum have inherited a rock they happen to be clinging to.

      Enough with this stupid Gaia superstition and quasi-religion! The planet Earth does not care whether you exist or not. It will not protect you. And it is not holy. It is just a rock. The real loss if we hurt the environment of this planet is not some spiritual entity. It is the potential loss of knowledge for us humans. But once that level of knowledge is reasonably complete and humans can survive without the Earth, this planet will only have sentimental value and it will not matter whether we mine it to the core or use it as a testbed for nuclear weapons.
    3. Re:I respectfully disagree... by Nazlfrag · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is it really that hard to grasp that the Gaia concept is a metaphor for our incredibly complex and precious biosphere. It bloody well is holy because this rock is our symbiote, our petri dish. Fuck it up and we're toast. So yeah, anthropomorphising the planet makes perfect sense. Sentimental value my arse, if we keep poisoning and harvesting the planet to extinction life as we know it will cease to exist. Mining it to the core or testing nuclear weapons is literally killing the planets lifeforce. The only stupidity is your ignorance in thinking humanity can survive outside of the fertile lifestream that birthed it.

    4. Re:I respectfully disagree... by smilindog2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I basically agree. An uncensored Internet has to be the greatest gift to mankind during my lifetime to date, if not all of history. The battle for freedom of speech, and thus free people, will be waged here, in the form of censorship. Too bad Google and others actively support censorship.

      --
      Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
    5. Re:I respectfully disagree... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I took the parent as taking issue with the 'loving' part than with the anthropomorphic tone of the OP.

      My favorite 'mother earth' quote, from someone who was out in it quite a bit:

      "...nature is a stern, hard, immovable and terrible in her unrelenting cruelty. When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero she will allow her most ardent lover to freeze to her snowy breast without waving a single leaf in pity, or offering him a match; and scores of her devotees may starve to death in as many languages before she will offer a loaf of bread."

      That from Nessmuk.

      I'm from the Aldo Leopold school of conservation, I don't want to poison the air and water and cut down all the trees. But I also know, from various somewhat narrow escapes, that regardless of the cartoon face stuck on nature, it wants to crunch up my bones and return them to the soil and only by my wits or by erecting technological barriers do I keep that from happening.

      Entropy and all that. Nature is a big promoter of entropy.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    6. Re:I respectfully disagree... by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My favorite pen-sword retort:
      "just because 'the pen is mightier than the sword', that doesn't mean you can win a sword fight with a pen."

      --
      stuff |
  2. Re:Somethign doesn't add up by Neo+Quietus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The key difference is the incredibly short time frame the bomb produces 1% of the energy of the Sun. This is helped by the Sun releasing energy in essentially the slowest possible way. (The sun is self limited, in that when it gets too hot from too much fusion occurring it expands slightly, lowering the rate of fusion until it cools down.) I don't find it odd at all that for a short period of time the largest fusion bomb ever tested produced 1% of the sun's energy. I can produce accelerations in the hundreds of G's simply by smashing my fist into a wall and likewise say that "for less than a millisecond I produced forces hundreds of times stronger than the pull of Earth's gravity" and be technically correct.

  3. Wholesale slaughter of millions of people by flajann · · Score: 4, Insightful
    You gotta love nuclear bombs. It'll vaporise you no matter who you are. An old grandma, a kid playing in her yard, a dad leaving for work, a mom washing the dishes. A student graduating from college. A bird in a tree. A doctor saving a life. All gone in quite literally a flash.

    Really and honestly, what purpose can a 50-megatonne thermonuclear bomb really serve, except to say, "My power to vaporise millions of innocent people is greater than your power..."? While perhaps impressive from a scientific point of view, there is no practical use for nukes other than to annihilate civilization as we know it.

    Yes, leave it to the governments of the world to protect us and keep us "safe". "Safe" as in safely glowing in your grave.

    --
    Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
  4. Nuclear weapons get the populace involved by Colin+Smith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the population know they're going to be vaporised when the government goes to war, they'll become far more concerned with the politicians preponderance for going to war in the first place.

    --
    Deleted
  5. Re: "Loving Earth" by Neuticle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bravo, AC, Bravo. I was going to say much the same thing, albeit maybe less bluntly. However, I would add this to the above:

    Everyone I have heard espouse the "loving Earth/Gaia" bit lives a comfortable, relatively modern life. Mother Earth loves you plenty when you have electricity, running water and stores full of food.

    Take that away and get real close to Mother Earth. I've been there: Mother Earth may still love you, but the bitch will try her best to kill you at every opportunity.

    --
    "Cheeze it!" - Bender