On this date, 45 years ago...

C

Captain-insane

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The most powerful thermonuclear device ever detonated, Big Ivan, AKA Tsar Bomba, exploded over Novaya Zemlya, with a force of 50 megatons, 4000 times more powerful than the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima.

The effects were spectacular.

Despite the very substantial burst height of 2.5 Mile (4 KM) the vast fireball reached down to the Earth and engulfed the ground below it, and swelled upward to nearly the height of the release plane. The blast pressure below the burst point was 20.6 Bar (300 PSI, 21.092 kilogram-force/square centimeter) six times the peak pressure experienced at Hiroshima. The flash of light was so bright that it was visible at a distance of 620 Mile (1,000 KM), despite cloudy skies. The mushroom cloud reached a height of 40 Miles (64 KM). The blast wave was still measurable on it's third passage around the Earth.

Dropped on a city the size of London here's what would happen, the Blast wave would destroy everything within a 15 Mile (24 KM) radius, the fire ball would incinerate everything within a 55 Mile (88 KM) radius, the plane which dropped the Device(or bomb, whatever you want to call it) had to be modified a fair bit to drop the Bomb, as it was too large to fit in the bomb bay, the bomb bay doors had to be removed and the bomb lifted up with a special hoist and was painted white all over to protect it from the thermal pulse. Tsar Bomba was given a parachute too slow it's decent and give the crew more time to escape the shockwave. The parachute required so much nylon that the Soviet nylon industry was disrupted.

Ironicly despite the yield of the bomb, 97% of the total energy came from the fusion stage making it one of the cleanest nuclear bomb detonated, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiyUSv2Z07A
 
Neat.

Is it just me, or was the whole thermonuclear bomb thing pretty much just an e-penis war. They spent millions on these bombs, only to blow up deserted islands.
 
Cold war.

Idea was to scare the other side. Rather have desert islands blown up than NATO cities, right? The US & USSR played all kinds of games with each other to keep each other on their toes. This bomb was purely for show. It would probably be totally impractible for use in combat.
 
Wow, what a beautiful example of human stupidity....What scare me is what we're capable of creating now, thinking that this was made 35 years ago and the advancement in technology would create even larger more powerful bombs today.
 
I can't imagine how frightening it would have been to be in the bomber, not knowing if you were gonna make it or not.
 
I'd be scary, but cool at the same time. Getting to witness firsthand the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated would be absolutly thrilling. However, I'm not sure of the health complications that might result from being there.
 
Well, with today's technology, we make big things in small packages. I'm sure we could make something equally, or more, powerful in a package small enough to stuff into an F-16 or B-52, which could easily escape the blast in time.
 
Heck why not just fire it from a battleship in the middle of nowhere?
 
Humans have become too good at coming up with and even using ways to kill eachother.

It makes me SICK.
 
The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa is among the most violent volcanic events in modern times (a VEI of 6, equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT - about 13000 times the yield of the Little Boy bomb which devastated Hiroshima, Japan)

That is crazy..

This bomb is crazy too considering its man made. If we want to test bigger bombs we need to fire them into space
 
Scientists are now working with anti-materie. This is far more stabil and far more powerful. The actual goal is to create a stabil bomb with even bigger effects then the bomb 4000X the power of Hiroshima.
 
Hey don't blame me for the false information, that's what National Geographic told me...:dopey:
 
The cold war was certainly a 'mines bigger than yours' kind of conflict. Now it's more of 'mine is faster', or 'mine is more accurate'.

Bee
Heck why not just fire it from a battleship in the middle of nowhere?
Click to expand...
Get with the times! No modern navies have battleships anymore :D
 
Meh, it's not mankind's fault that the forces of nature can be harnessed in such a way. Given human intelligence, and the raw facts about the nature of matter, the exploitation of nuclear energy was always going to be inevitable.

Only 2 atomic bombs have ever been used in combat, both dropped on Japan in 1945. However the same technology - harnessing nuclear energy - continues to provide the developed world with a plentiful supply of energy, which no doubt will become increasingly valuable to us as fossil fuel stocks dwindle.

Those 2 bombs, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, proved to be the decisive blow that brought about the end of armed conflict between Japan and the US... we'll never know how many lives may have been saved as a result of that. And, not to belittle the terrible effect of those 2 bombs in any way, but the number of people who died as a result of their use is but a fraction of the total amount of people who died in WWII as a whole - in other words, nuclear bombs, as a general rule, do not make mankind capable of more evil... it's in our nature to be quite evil enough without them... if anything, the advent of nuclear weapons has prevented more serious conflicts from happening...

And never mind the Atomic Cannon, have you heard about this "Atomic Kitten"? :scared:
 
Bee
Heck why not just fire it from a battleship in the middle of nowhere?
Click to expand...

Why not a bipedal nuclear tank capable of launching missiles on any terrain? ;)
 

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