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Interactive Edition of the Nuclear Notebook
Lasrick writes The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has just launched a very cool interactive graphic to go with their famed Nuclear Notebook, the feature that tracks the world's nuclear arsenals. Now you can see at a glance who has nuclear weapons, when they got them, and how those numbers compare to each other. A short introductory video gives some background on the success of the Notebook, which has been tracking nukes since 1987.
could be better tha this dumb app . I dont know why people like dumb apps . People are forgetting how to read data ..
The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race
It shows nothing with respect to Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Mordechai Vanunu would be disappointed!
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race many many many times.
We still need to ban nuclear weapons.
aaaaaaa
The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race
They could certainly wipe out many urban population centers, and kill billions of people. They would also cause major economic disruption, and a collapse in trade that may kill billions more. But wipe out? No way. There are plenty of people living self sufficient lives in remote areas. There are many more people that have food reserves that they can live on until agriculture is revived. Many areas of the world, including most of the Southern Hemisphere, would not even be targeted in any reasonable scenario. Nuclear arsenals are much smaller than they were decades ago. There are far fewer warheads, and they are smaller and cleaner. A nuclear war with today's arsenals is not going to wipe out the human race.
The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race
Maybe, but that would depend on the location, timing and distribution of those explosions. If the balloon went up in 1987, yeah, the human race would pretty much be fscked. Nowadays, I'm not so sure that would be a given, considering that a not-insignificant percentage of those weapons would be destroyed in their silos, are undergoing maintenance at any given time, would fail to detonate completely or cleanly, or a whole host of other factors (and if either the US or Russia abstain from the exchange, then all bets are off as to the doomsday factor entirely.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Ban nuclear weapons, and you bring back the World Wars. WWI left some 38 million dead, WWII killed around 70 million. As grim and pointless as the proxy wars of the Cold War were, they pale in comparison to those numbers. The Korean War left maybe 3.5 million dead, Vietnam maybe 4 million. I won't pretend to offer statistics for the various other third world conflicts between 1945 and the 1990s, but at least those two wars should show that they're on a completely different scale, even with the technological advancements over WWII. There was a lot of dumb, unneccessary fighting going on during that time period, but that's pretty much true of any time period.
I like nukes. They end and prevent world wars. We currently live in the most peaceful time in human history, despite having a larger population than any other time. That's got to tell you that we're getting better. Ban nukes, and we lose all that progress.
wipe out the human race many many many times.
Once is good enough !
"Nuclear Notebook", as in notebook computer, is what my brain saw. It would be even more uncomfortable than my previous laptop*, but the battery life would be amazing.
* An old Gateway MX7515 from when I started college in '06. It would have produced less heat and noise if it ran on an internal combustion engine. Part of my left leg still doesn't grow hair.
Wanna bet?
6 countries are believed to have held nuclear weapons as of the treay's creation.
Only 5 are recognized as "legitimate" nuclear powers.
Saying if you have them you may keep them but no one else can makes a minimal about of sense. Saying: "everyone who has them except Israel is allowed to keep them" is just plain wrong.
The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race
They could certainly wipe out many urban population centers, and kill billions of people. They would also cause major economic disruption, and a collapse in trade that may kill billions more.
Unless the number of each of those "billions" is only 2, then that's just about the entire human species.
Unless the number of each of those "billions" is only 2, then that's just about the entire human species.
Except that it wouldn't be. The people in remote rural areas would be the most likely to survive the initial blasts. They would also be the most likely to survive the ensuing economic disruption. If all the nukes in the world were detonated in maximum casualty producing air bursts, they would destroy about 0.2% of the Earth's land area. Air bursts produce minimal amounts of fallout. If they were detonated in sub-surface bursts (to destroy underground silos) the fallout would be worse, but would still mostly be contained in the ground locally, and almost no one would die in the initial bursts. Today's nukes are more efficient and cleaner than the WWII era bombs. They produce far less fallout for a given yield.
Even within target urban areas, there would be survivors. Some people in downtown Hiroshima, and many more in Nagasaki, survived the blast, and the radiation, and went on to have children and grandchildren. Most people in Hiroshima didn't die from the blast or the radiation. They died in the firestorm. But Nagasaki was mostly made from stone, instead of wood like Hiroshima, so there was no firestorm, and many more people survived there despite the bomb being nearly twice as powerful.
If people 200 meters from ground zero can survive, I am sure someone on New Zealand's South Island, 5000 km from the closest impact, will be okay.
If 90% of humans were killed in a nuclear exchange (or any other mass death event), we'd still have a population considerably higher than it was 2000 years ago.
If 99% of humanity were killed, we'd still have a population considerably higher than it was 3000 years ago....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We still need to ban nuclear weapons.
And alcohol. And drugs. And cigarettes. And... well, you get my point. Banning something doesn't make that thing unavailable. This is doubly true in reference to sovereign nations dealing in a world lacking a unified system of enforceable international laws.
The genie doesn't go back in the bottle. We are either going to have to figure out how to get along in a world in which each of us has the capability to destroy all of us, or resign ourselves to the extinction of our species.
One could also make the argument that by preventing smaller wars, you set the stage for larger, more disastrous ones. The 100 years or so prior to WWI set the stage for both world wars.
Trying to suppress instability seems to smooth things over in the near term, but when it does (and it will) blow up, the result is far messier than if things had been left alone to resolve themselves.
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with your general assessment, I was just taking a cheap jab at your wording. While technically "billions" could be as low as 2 billion, usually it's intended to mean much more than that. Since you said twice that billions would die, "billions" would only need to mean 3-4 billion for it to equal the total human population.
Your post is total hogwash. Just about everything you have said is completely 100% factually false. By "scientists" I assume you are referring to an actor portraying a scientist in an anti-nuclear power propaganda piece.
a) there is no large pool of water directly below the reactor
b) even if the fuel melted into a large reservoir of water, it could not become critical. It is not physically possible without the precise fuel and moderator arrangement present in an in-tact reactor configuration.
c) even if you somehow made the fuel become critical, it could not explode like a bomb. If a fuel mass became critical, it would simply heat up and disperse. Worse case is the heat would cause additional steam/fire to disperse more fission products. Let me reiterate: it is physically impossible for reactor fuel of any kind to produce a nuclear bomb type explosion. Nuclear bombs require extremely precise arrangement with unimaginably creative engineering to function.
d) if the fuel mass reached the water table, all that would occur would be another path for contamination in the local area which was already heavily contaminated. Fission products would not be magically transported throughout the whole continent, nor could an entire continent be made uninhabitable.
e) a power plant contains a couple orders of magnitude more fuel than a bomb. The contamination from a worse-case-scenario power plant accident is much higher than nuclear bombs would be, unless they were some sort of salted enhanced radiation bomb. For comparison, a typical nuclear power reactor creates as many fissions as a nuclear bomb about every 6 hours.
f) radiation does not spread like a contagion. This is just plain FUD.
The only part of your post which was even remotely accurate was about doomsday enhanced radiation bombs or salted bombs. No one has ever designed, built, or tested such a device and they are only theoretical. But theoretically, with enough salted bombs (meaning about 1000 times more than the entire world's nuclear stockpile at the height of the cold war) you could theoretically make most of the surface uninhabitable.
I could tell you stuff about how research indicates ...
Rather than "telling us", why don't you provide a citation. Because I think you are full of baloney.
Scientists ran calculations and warned that, should the zircon-and-graphite-clad fuel mixture contacted the water, it would have created an explosion in the range of several megatons.
Please provide a citation for this as well. I would love to read about how fuel concentrated to only 3% U-235 could possibly cause a "megaton" explosion.
The maya civilization died.
The roman civilization died.
The greek civilization died.
The industrial/nuclear civilization will also.
aaaaaaa
there is no large pool of water directly below the reactor
You are THIS totally uninformed, and accusing me of posting "hogwash"?
even if the fuel melted into a large reservoir of water, it could not become critical.
This was not the conclusion of the Soviet scientists and engineers at the time, working with more detailed knowledge than I suspect you are.
even if you somehow made the fuel become critical, it could not explode like a bomb.
Once again, this was not the conclusion of the better-informed Soviet scientists and engineers at the time.
if the fuel mass reached the water table, all that would occur would be another path for contamination in the local area which was already heavily contaminated.
I don't even know what to make of this statement, except that you don't seem to understand what a water table is, as "local area" in reference to one does not make a whole lot of sense.
a power plant contains a couple orders of magnitude more fuel than a bomb.
Granted?
radiation does not spread like a contagion. This is just plain FUD.
You are probably being deliberately being over-literal, but in any event are once again proving a little too determinedly bereft of clue to bother with.
You just named three cultures and then a technology. But do cultures and technologies obey the same "rules"? Lets see:
The fire civilization died.
The copper civilization died.
The electricity civilization died.
Hmmm.
You are THIS totally uninformed,
Hot steam is not going to cause a "megaton" explosion. Maybe one ton. Maybe not even that, since it could just vent to the atmosphere.
This was not the conclusion of the Soviet scientists and engineers at the time
Citation?
We've had nukes for about 70 years, and over half of this time period was spent with world leader's fingers trembling nervously over the launch buttons. The past 30 years have seemed relatively peaceful but is it because of nukes or general worldwide economic progress? Supposing a causal relationship between nukes and peace seems bordering on magical thinking.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Yeah, just wait a bit until Doomsday vault is full of seed samples, just in case.
Supposing a causal relationship between nukes and peace seems bordering on magical thinking.
I wouldn't totally discount the suppressive effects of mutually assured destruction on conflict between rational powers seeking enlargement of their empires. But those are a lot of qualifiers, and the history of humanity seems to suggest that effective weapons, once developed, will eventually be used.
> and the history of humanity seems to suggest that effective weapons, once developed, will eventually be used.
Yes and fact is, a lot of international policy is currently based around the assumption that nukes are no deterrent to direct confrontation. The US/Israel reaction to N Korea and Iran's nuclear program, for instance. Or the very real threat of nuclear terrorism via stolen warheads. MAD isn't a principle that applies here.
Nuclear weapons are more relevant than ever and even though Russia may not want to use them, there are a lot of people who do.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Yes, I'm sure Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong Un will join in with the ban and won't begin plotting the obliteration of civilisation. The reality is, even if the US, Russia, UK, China, France, India and Pakistan all claimed to have decommissioned their nukes we wouldn't know for sure. The state that secretly hasn't may gamble they're the only one and use them. And then you have states like Israel that probably have nuclear weapons but will neither confirm nor deny it. No, we're safest keeping a nuclear stalemate balanced between the major power blocs with the majority of the nuclear armed states openly so.
FWIW, out of the states listed above (excluding Iran and NK, but including Israel) I'm not most worried about east-west relations; it's the two states that are less than friendly with each other but share a large land border with sporadic violence between them (one of which could, not inconceivably, have an Islamist government at some point in the future) that make me most jittery (on the plus side they're probably only interested in nuking each other and neither of them are near me). Israel don't worry me too much because all the countries they're likely to want to nuke are close enough to Israel to make that a very unattractive option. Iran and NK are the wildcards - NK in particular because they're already almost totally isolated from the rest of the world and I doubt Kim Jong Un gives enough of a rat's arse about his people to care if they get atomised.
MAD isn't a principle that applies here.
Increasingly anywhere. MAD has always had the attribution problem, and it snowballs with proliferation. :\
Yep, but a lot of knowlege and technology got lost by the desappearing civilizations (often to be found again much later...)
The knowledge of nuclear weapons will fade with time when governments break up and people will worry with survival.
aaaaaaa
The knowledge of nuclear weapons will fade with time when governments break up and people will worry with survival.
That's a very thin limb upon which to base so much.