Science Talk

[Glitchfinder]

the explosion doesn't matter at all, really. it's the fallout that gets people scared. so long as the bomb is enough to spread nuclear nastiness over an un-ponderous area, that's all you need to make some foreheads sweat

Well, yeah. But my point is that Krakatoa was an entirely natural 200 megaton explosion. No nukes necessary. It not only had the immediate blast (which actually killed nobody), it had a half-mile high pyroclastic flow that swept over twenty miles of open water to the mainland in under 6 minutes, and proceeded to dry roast everybody and everything it touched, well into the landmass. Follow that up with a massive tsunami that manages to kill even more people, and you have more people dead than any nuclear weapon could achieve without being dropped on one of the most populous cities in the world. Not only that, but it's happened several times, and unrecorded explosions were probably even bigger. (One, that took place in the dying days of the Roman empire, was almost certainly much larger) And Krakatoa isn't even one of the biggest known volcanic eruptions. One of the volcanoes with that dubious distinction resides within the United States. Specifically, Yellowstone National Park, when it erupts, is the type of volcano that lowers global temperatures. The last few eruptions in the area quite literally blew a state-sized hole in the Rocky Mountains, leaving a massive caldera in its place. Top that off with it suffocating life with its ash fall, from several hundred miles away, and you have a natural disaster on a scale of order far greater than any mere nuclear weapon. Not only that, but that kind of eruption isn't classified as an "if". It is classified as a "when".

Yes. I know. I'm a nerd for geology. :specs:

 

[High Hopes]

Not only that, but that kind of eruption isn't classified as an "if". It is classified as a "when".

Oh good what a relief.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Not only that, but that kind of eruption isn't classified as an "if". It is classified as a "when".

Oh good what a relief.

A relief? The fact that people don't wonder if something will happen, and spend more time trying to pinpoint whether it will happen sometime in the next few years, potentially killing a large portion of the United States and lowering global temperatures several degrees in the natural equivalent of a nuclear winter?

 

[Hybrida]

According to a TV show my dad was just watching, the explosion of Krakatoa was 13,000 times bigger than the explosion of the nuclear ordnance we dropped on Hiroshima. 13,000 times bigger. I guess mother nature kicks the ass of everything when it wants to, including nuclear weapons. What say you, Hybrida?

Dude I heard about it on PBS Nova. Awesome power! The shock wave from the explosion traveled around the planet 8 times. killed people on near by islands, and caused a huge tidal wave. It happened in the 1800's right?

The gov arent gonna scream around going their nuke power levels! are over 9000 megatons!, they'll scream around saying "omfg they have nukes" in general.

Over 9 gigatons is awesome power. I know russia would brag about it, I would. 9000 megaton bomb is near a 6,000 mile Blast radius. The most powerful nuke was only 50 megatons (30mile radius). Big difference...

 

[Venetia]

whats on my mind?
people need to stop thinking about fucking explosions

instead of destroying shit think about making something

like sweet love :kiss:

 

[Glitchfinder]

Dude I heard about it on PBS Nova. Awesome power! The shock wave from the explosion traveled around the planet 8 times. killed people on near by islands, and caused a huge tidal wave. It happened in the 1800's right?

Actually, the shock wave didn't kill anybody. It was the pyroclastic flow and tsunami that killed people. Oh, and the sound of the explosion was so loud that it was heard over 3,000 miles away.

Over 9 gigatons is awesome power. I know russia would brag about it, I would. 9000 megaton bomb is near a 6,000 mile Blast radius. The most powerful nuke was only 50 megatons (30mile radius). Big difference...

First off, blast radius isn't linear. Learn a bit of fluid dynamics, and you'd know this. To give you an idea of what I mean, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale has a seismic yield of approximately 32 gigatons. An earthquake of that size hit Lisbon, Portugal, on All Saints day of 1755. The Indian Ocean Earthquake, in 2004, was a 9.3 on the Richter Scale. That had a seismic yield of 114 gigatons. Second, Krakatoa was equivalent to about 200 megatons, which would be about 4 times bigger than what you say the most powerful nuke was.

:specs:

What exactly is love, anyway? Can it be quantified, studied, and bottled?

 

[mawk]

I really wasn't talking to you or about krakatoa in the first place glitch

 

[mawk]

like uh

how a volcano relates to nuclear fallout is beyond me

 

[Glitchfinder]

like uh

how a volcano relates to nuclear fallout is beyond me

I was trying to point out that nuclear fallout isn't the worst part of nuclear weapons. Damned inconvenient, yes. But it goes away over time. On the other hand, I was pointing out that something like the next eruption of Yellowstone would probably kill far more people than anything short of international nuclear exchange, through direct and indirect reasons. (Imagine the effect of nuclear winter on crop yields, and realize that Yellowstone causes this with one eruption, whereas you'd need quite a few nuclear weapons being detonated all over the world to achieve the same effect.

Anyway, I'm shutting up now. I really shouldn't have gone off into this huge lecture in the first place, much less continued it.

 

[mawk]

Damned inconvenient, yes. But it goes away over time.

do you have any idea how much time it is

a bomb is a split-second thing. it can destroy a city, maybe. cities can come back.

irradiation is something else entirely. it poisons everything and renders the affected areas a functional dead zone for as long as the radiation remains (and the sorts of substances involved take their sweet time.) birth defects, cancer, outright death

are you seriously saying that the explosion is the worst aspect of a nuclear bomb

 

[Ellie]

b-but the radiation causes superheroes and makes boobs grow larger

 

[mawk]

like, yeah, chernobyl's explosion was the worst shit that came out of that meltdown

it's not as if the place is still uninhabitable

it's not as if for a while there was a flourishing trade in "chernobyl apples"

(they were for people you hated)

 

[Jason]

makes boobs grow larger

That's all I need to know...

 

[Ellie]

like, yeah, chernobyl's explosion was the worst shit that came out of that meltdown

it's not as if the place is still uninhabitable

it's not as if for a while there was a flourishing trade in "chernobyl apples"

(they were for people you hated)

not to mention the radiation caused mutations in sheep in WALES

 

[dadevvtsvre]

like, yeah, chernobyl's explosion was the worst shit that came out of that meltdown

it's not as if the place is still uninhabitable

it's not as if for a while there was a flourishing trade in "chernobyl apples"

(they were for people you hated)

not to mention the radiation caused mutations in sheep in WALES

i thought this was a common thing in the uk

 

[mawk]

the welsh take it more seriously than others though

sheep are their only means of entertainment and procreation

 

[Glitchfinder]

like, yeah, chernobyl's explosion was the worst shit that came out of that meltdown

it's not as if the place is still uninhabitable

it's not as if for a while there was a flourishing trade in "chernobyl apples"

(they were for people you hated)

Chernobyl didn't explode. It spewed a large cloud with enormous amounts of radioactive material into the surrounding countryside. A nuclear weapon does not do that. Chernobyl amounted to a dirty bomb, in the sense that it did large amounts of extended damage, while leaving everything, including the Chernobyl complex, completely unharmed. On the other hand, most of the damage from a nuclear weapon is immediate and devastating, with relatively little radiation left over. In fact, people live in Hiroshima today, whereas the entire area surrounding Chernobyl is still under quarantine because of the high radioactivity that still remains.

 

[Stardust]

.-.

tbh I'm surprised I even know what Chernobyl is. I failed at history~

 

[dadevvtsvre]

i would love to go to prypiat

 

[mawk]

In fact, people live in Hiroshima today

and they are still pumping out deformed children