The Real Mother of All Bombs, 46 Years Ago 526
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."
I respectfully disagree... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pedantry: ENGAGED (Score:3, Insightful)
test? (Score:4, Insightful)
that they can make a bloody big bang?
what the after effect were?
I always thought with nuclear weapons, that really after a certain size there were precious little point is making it more powerful.
Is this... (Score:1, Insightful)
-hps
Somethign doesn't add up (Score:1, Insightful)
I have a hard time believing that the energy output of the latter was anywhere close to 1% of the former, except maybe by some really bogus metric (only counting certain wavelengths of radiation, for example).
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:2, 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.
I also believe "The pen is mightier than the sword" and that, indeed, one day righteousnes, wisdom, and courage will prevail over ignorance, fear, and greed.
Re:test? (Score:2, Insightful)
that they can make a bloody big bang?
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the reason I consider false or sensationalist news more dangerous to the wellbeing of society than terrorism.
Re:Somethign doesn't add up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Somethign doesn't add up (Score:2, Insightful)
If 1/100 of the Sun suddenly appeared on Earth... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wholesale slaughter of millions of people (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
but this is war.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Nuclear weapons get the populace involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that the fall of the Roman Empire started with Constantine is completely ludicrous and obviously is more influenced by your anti-Christian beliefs than an honest view of history. He expanded the empire, consistently beat back Germanic tribes, and led to the empire's split into halves, with the Eastern half lasting a thousand years longer.
Writing = civilization? While there's an obvious correlation, not quite. All the Germanic tribes by the fall of Rome had adopted scripts of their own. Anyway the judgment obviously had a lot more to do with 19th century ethos than anything else.
Christianity was employed against the enemy - Rome pursued a policy of converting Germanic tribes to a Rome-centered Christianity, to make them more dependent towards Rome. So in that sense, Christianity probably prolonged the empire.
It seems you read history books for the sole purpose of re-enforcing your own prejudices, and don't actually absorb any of it. Why do you even bother reading?
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: "Loving Earth" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:test? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the usual competition reason: China has nukes, so India must have them to protect herself, whereupon which Pakistan must have nukes to protect itself against India (and ironacly gets help from China to do so).
Plus it like a large population: if you're country isn't doing too well on other measures, nukes are a nice way of rising above the pack.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
"just because 'the pen is mightier than the sword', that doesn't mean you can win a sword fight with a pen."
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also believe "The pen is mightier than the sword" and that, indeed, one day righteousnes, wisdom, and courage will prevail over ignorance, fear, and greed.
It happened to Athens, and it happened to most of the European democracies in WWII. There are probably lots of examples of civilisation that were culturally quite good that got completely eradicated my their militaristic but philistine neighbours.
Even if your neighbours seem peaceful there's always a risk that their economies may collapse and some Hitler like politician may decide to revive them by deficit spending on a huge military machine. If they do that they pretty much have to use it for armed 'hostile takeovers' of their more peaceful neighbours before the deficit spending causes their economy to collapse.
And it's hard to imagine many decent books being produced in the sort of empire someone like that would build.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)
The GP is right. We aren't there yet, but we will be if we don't kill ourselves first. The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one can not eternally live in a cradle.
The analogies about nuclear explosions "raping" the Earth are quite stupid and misinformed. There is a lot of life at the sites of former nuclear explosions. Think with your head, not with your emotions.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)
more often then not its because its because one side is seen to have a unfair advantage of some kind. or that they but in on topics that they have no reason to. or maybe they claimed, unfairly or unreasonably, resources, including land.
hate never shows up for no reason. find that reason, and understanding why things happen like they do become much clearer.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)
Really that points out the problem with the deaths per dollar metric, it doesn't take into account the fact you want to kill lots and lots of people quickly. It should really be something like log(deaths achievable in one day)/dollar. We should then use a nominal labor cost of, say, minimum wage, and compare the strategy of hiring various sized gangs of thugs with surplus 2x4s versus dropping the bomb as effective ways to kill people in any particular situation.
My guess is that under such a more robust metric, nukes would appear more cost effective.
However even that metric really isn't very good, because really you want to ask how many deaths you need to effect in order to achieve your goal, which is probably political in nature rather than wholesale death per se.
In that case, you really can't do better than an occasional suicide bomber with a nail filled explosive vest. On the scale of cost and complexity, this is much closer to the surplus 2x4 approach than the nuclear approach, but you get a response that is closer to a nuke scale response. You don't have to kill that any people, you just have to do it visibly and unpredictably. This is especially effective if you can provoke your enemy into expensive and strategically counterproductive responses.
Re:I respectfully disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)
"The planet is fine. The planet isn't going anywhere...... WE ARE! We're goin' away! Pack your shit, folks!"
Re:Wholesale slaughter of millions of people (Score:3, Insightful)
At different times in history, all of the methods of destruction I mention abouve have been applied indiscriminately to kill "innocent people."
Lets face it, nukes really are the kinder and gentler weapon of war.