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Movies of Cold War Bomb Tests Hold Nuclear Secrets (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Nuclear weapons specialists are limited in their research today. Prudence and international treaties prevent them from setting off any nuclear weapons, so they have to run tests through other means and interpret the results. But this wasn't always the case. In the '50s and '60s, the U.S. government performed a huge number of nuclear weapons tests, and filmed most of them. As happened with a lot of film from that time, most laid untouched in storage facilities until people generally forgot about them. But physicist Greg Spriggs recently realized they could be a trove of useful information, so he started tracking them down, eventually locating thousands of them. His team has started scanning and analyzing them. They've finished about 3,000 so far, with more than half yet to go. "Now, of course, scientists have computer programs that can analyze every single pixel in a frame over hundreds of frames. What might have taken days by hand takes only minutes. With computer analysis, Spriggs is pinpointing more precise yields. Computer models then use yield to estimate the damage from a bomb in different situations."
"Shall we play a game?"
The "secrets" they speak of are higher accuracy measurements of the yield of the weapons. It is done by tracking the speed and size of the shockwave captured in the films, which was originally done by hand. There was up to 20% variation in the results of the measurements made by hand. They are now using computer software to perform the optical per-frame analysis of the shockwaves, and the result is more accurate measurements of the weapons' yield.
Better known as 318230.
Its not what you think, there are no actual national secrets that have to be kept disclosed, all researchers can access all material.
The title is clickbait and taken from the press article.
I believe the US rejected the comprehensive treaty: the president signed it in 1996 but the Senate rejected it in 1999. Therefore, rejected?
http://www.history.com/topics/...
Says the guy posting on Slashdot.
These were movies made by the engineers on actual nuclear explosions.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If you want to calculate nuclear yields, I suggest picking up a copy of Samuel Glasstone's The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (that's an Amazon link, but there are a fair number of used copies floating around). I have the revised 1962 edition.
Be sure to pick up a copy that still has the yield computer wheel in the back of the book.
Also, this web page lets you map nuclear bursts using Google maps, and seems to be heavily based on Glasstone.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Now maybe we can properly calculate the trajectory of that manhole cover
Have gnu, will travel.
This article reminds me of a couple of sayings. One is that that close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and thermonuclear weapons. The other is probably an urban myth. The idea was that, at one point in the Cold War, the US military was given a list of targets to be able to "destroy" and another list of targets to be able to "neutralize." Military Intelligence had to interpret these words in the context of nuclear war so they decided that "neutralize" meant to reduce the target to rubble with fragments no larger than a certain size while "destroy" meant a finer grade of rubble.
There's enough footage of the Tsar Bomba available for viewing to obviate any need for Viagra at the Kremlin, or the Pentagon for that matter.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Apple Inc. Eula: "..You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons."
However I am ok with this. These nuclear explosions should be classified as art nowadays. Just do the dirty math with Linux and everyone should be happy.
Short sentences can convey another message:
An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence:
"The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha."
-- Dave Barry, In Search of Excellence
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Back in the late 1980s or maybe early 1990s (I was a kid at the time), OMSI (https://www.omsi.edu/) had a film that showed a large number of nuclear tests in the Pacific ocean. It was about an hour long and most of it was silent. It was primarily all in black and white. It lacked any sort of narration. It was just bomb after bomb after bomb after bomb...
It would be great to see it again now that I am older and able to appreciate it more.
There's a great clip of Tsara Bomba I've only seen once. It's taken from a building in a town at the end of a street of wooden houses. A Russian/Siberian old man is walking down the dirt in the centre of the road towards the distant mushroom cloud and is blown off his feet (more surprised than hurt). My memory says the footage was something like 100 miles from detonation. Love to find that again, mainly as it's the only filmed example I can remember a civilian hit by the power of an atomic weapon, even this lightly (which in itself is telling).
One thing Slashdot provided and I've lost was a link to some Usenet posts from the mid-nineties by an ex-RAND guy. In four pages, he chillingly outlines the most cynical decision possible in humanity; a first strike on Soviet cities would then lead the USSR to blow up 80% of the US popl, but crucially not hit the now empty bunkers in the dirt of Montana et al., so making the smoking ruin of the USA at least partially habitable through massively reduced levels of fall-out.
Sorry, I'm a little fuzzy on the reasoning behind your second paragraph. Can you expand on the concept please.
If Soviets hit first, then they'll aim for the missile bunkers that are scattered all over the Mid-west. They'll also lob in a load at 'Command and Control' centres (cities). The nukes hitting the midwest will create enormous amounts of radioactive fallout as they're aiming for hardened bunkers so nukes won't be airburst, CONUS is uninhabitable.
A retaliatory strike means only cities are hit, with air bursts. Result, devastation, but not complete annihilation. The remaining 10-20 million could plan WW IV with bows and arrows. So it's 'better' to strike first.