WEBVTT - Can you test a nuclear weapon without a fallout? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:16.479 from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.040 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.360 Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is stuff you should 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.640 not like it or not like it or not. People 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.000 are like tuning out now. Oh, man, I downloaded the 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.080 wrong one. I thought this is radio. I thought this 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.199 is w t F with Martin Marry H. What is 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:40.400 that stand for? What the heck? With an F? What 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.560 the heck? H? I probably shouldn't even say that. We'll 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.600 find out, Yeah, I guess so. Um if we get 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.279 censored or get an angry email, that's right. Um, how 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:56.160 you doing? Man? Good? Good, I'm glad. I'm well sir. Uh. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:57.760 This is gonna be a good one if you ask 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.880 me this this point. This goes in with our um 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.800 nuclear sweet which is pretty extensive by now. Yeah, we've 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.280 done quite a few steel steal a bomb. Yeah, who 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.880 won the Cold War? When the Cold War mutual issued destruction? Um? 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:15.880 What else have we done? Now? This one that seems 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:17.800 like there was one other one Star Wars had some 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.040 nuke stuff to it. Yeah, we've done some other stuff. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:24.880 So this is part of the nuclear nuclear sweet. Yes, 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.440 as it were, the very sweet nuclear sweet. Um. And 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.200 we're talking today about whether or not it's possible to 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:38.600 detonate to test to um, it's a full extent apparently 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.280 I looked that at that's not the term. I think 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.840 Julia Layton made it up. Term up full extent testing 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.760 a nuclear bomb. It's full extent, which means not Apparently, 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.040 you can simulate a nuclear bomb by putting a bunch 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.600 of T and T together and going kaboom, but there's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.240 no radiation. But it's really not quite the same as 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.440 testing a nuclear weapon by really blowing up the nuclear core, 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.920 which we used to do a lot, a lot um 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.200 and most recently there's been a lot of nuclear tests, chuck. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.679 A total of two thousand and fifty three nuclear weapons 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.160 have been exploded on planet Earth, which is a big qualifier. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.440 It's crazy, um, But that was only eight countries that 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:24.280 did that. Yes, the US had one thousand, thirty two, 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:30.600 North Korea, Russia's seven, France two d the UK and 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.760 China are tied at forty five apiece. India and Pakistan 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.079 each had to, and then North Korea had to as well, 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.079 the most recent one to join the FRAY in two 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.120 thousand six and two thousand nine. I wonder if the 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.679 UK and China are kind of like do it. I 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.240 could think China doing it over Oak wouldn't do that. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:56.320 You never know, Okay, well they did it before. Yeah, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.560 but those are different days. But of course the U. 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.080 S A leads the pack in detonating nuclear weapons on 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.560 planet Earth. Yeah, man by far desert out in the ocean, yeah, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.560 underground in the air. I sent Josh a video earlier 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.520 that Jonathan Strickland if tech Stuff sent me today by chance. 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.560 I was like, dude, really, yeah, how crazy is it 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.040 that you sent this? And he didn't respond, but it 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.040 was a there's a video on the YouTube's of this. Uh, 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:30.280 these five Army or Navy guys standing underneath this is 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.520 one of the aerial detonations of a nuclear bomb. I 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.520 think they were Air Force and they were the Air Force, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.200 and they just stood there and and watched. Basically they 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.400 stood at ground zero under the hypocenter. It is crazy 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:44.840 and like you can see it and hear it happen, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.640 and they're just like laughing and carrying on and talking 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:50.680 about how awesome it was. Well, there's so there's five 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.080 of them. Four were volunteers. The only one who wasn't 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.360 a volunteer was the photographer. They forced him to do it. 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.360 But yeah, like, you see this light go off and 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.760 there's no sound, but they like kind of inch and 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.800 then one guy wearing like old timey nineteen forties sunglasses 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.120 like looks up and then you can hear the sound. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.200 It's pretty crazy. But that was again mentioned. Number two 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.160 of Radio Lab. That was Robert croll Witch's blog roll, 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.080 which wonders. He's one of the hosts of Radio Lab 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.520 of course. Um and that was pretty awesome. And I 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.640 found another blog of his that we'll talk about later. 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.159 Did I send it to you? Yes, that was pretty sweet. Yeah. 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.360 I think it's top the first one even But um 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:33.279 So Strickland's involved, the UK has involved Robert croll which 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.240 has already been mentioned. UM. Basically, this is gonna be 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.840 a big, sweeping, enormous epic podcast if you ask me. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:47.520 Um So. Part of North Korea spiel after two dozen six, 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.039 when it became officially a nuclear state was that um 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.880 a press release that said there was no nuclear fallout 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:59.360 from this test, it was totally contained. Well, it's kind 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.159 of unbelo lievable, you know. I mean, like one of 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.720 the things you think of with the nuclear weapon is radiation. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.320 That's one of the things that's designed to do, is 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.159 not just wipe out a population with the explosion, but 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:17.520 to really plague it for generations, you know. Um, But 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.279 it turns out that it is possible depending on the 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.839 type of test you conduct and the conditions and the 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:29.159 h if you carry the two, well, then you might 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:34.480 be able to conduct a nuclear test that doesn't have 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.800 any fallout, at least that atmospheric fallout. Is that true? 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:42.120 Because I didn't even gather that from this. I thought, well, 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.240 we'll get into it. No, it can be totally contained. Really, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.680 I never drew that conclusion like that they have done 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.440 it and contained it completely. The Okay, then theoretically it can. 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.120 I don't know if they if it can. But like 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.159 there's I saw this awesome article on the BBC that 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:03.039 even had an flash slide show, which is the mark 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:08.039 of quality, um, that showed how a an underground test 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:09.880 could be done. We just give it away. It's the 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.800 underground test that you can contain the fallout. But how 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.360 it could contain all the fallout, and that COREA supposedly 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.600 went to these links to do it, supposedly. So um, well, 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.480 let's tuck real quick about what happens in a nuclear reaction. Chuckers, Yeah, Um, 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.200 I guess we should define a couple of things, um, 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.960 because we're gonna be thrown around some terminology that we 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.880 might understand, and you might be like, what's an isotope? 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.800 I forgot chemistry from high school. An isotope is basically 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.080 a different version of the same element, determined by the 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.360 number of neutrons. So like, if you've got hydrogen um, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.320 just a regular old hydrogen atom doesn't have neutrons. If 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.320 you add one neutron, it's tertium. If you have two neutrons, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.400 it's tritium. But they're all hydrogen. So they're just different 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.839 versions of that same element. Pretty easy. So fission happens 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:08.120 when scientists basically bombard a larger isotope with neutrons and 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.560 the collision basically is fission, and it produces like an 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.480 incredible amount of energy because of mass defect. So like 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.440 if you were to take if you were to write 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.560 out this formula for a nuclear fission reaction I have, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.880 and it was like really accurately measured um all the 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:27.880 mass of all the atoms and all these sub atomic 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.840 particles before and after you're gonna find a mass defect. 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.480 You can find some missing mass, and that missing mass 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.280 is the energy, which is awesome if you're have a 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.880 nuclear reactor, because you're creating like tons and tons of energy, 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.400 and I guess it's awesome if you want to make 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.080 the nuclear bomb. Bro it is. What you're talking about 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.040 is fission. So fishing is like when one of those 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.560 neutrons is picked up by an atom, that the additional 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:56.720 neutron just splits the atom and that releases more neutrons, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.600 which forms a chain reaction. Well, it's the key there 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.720 is that were uses. There's only two. It has to 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.840 release extra neutrons and there's only two main isotopes that 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.960 can do this they found out, which is uranium two 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.960 plutonium two thirty nine. I'm more a plutonium guy, are 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.680 you really? Um? So they're fissionable, which is kind of 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.200 an awkward word, right, but it's not suspiciona well, because 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.640 I mean, how we can split an atom if you want, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.320 let's do it right now. But we're just splitting one atom. 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.080 The point to this is that there has to be 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.079 a sustainable chain reaction, so that when we split one atom, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.280 it causes another atom is splitting another atom to split 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.679 in another atom is splitting. As these splits are taking place, Um, 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.760 a huge expansion is undergone. Right, it's growing and supposedly 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.439 at critical mass, which is like the full sustaining of 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.200 this chain reaction of nuclear fission among these atoms. Yeah, 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.680 that's the minimum amount required to create that chain reaction. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:04.160 So the critical mass um the number of neutrons can 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:09.440 be doubled eighty times a micro second. A micro second 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.960 is a millionth of a second, So that means that 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.479 in one second the number of neutrons can have doubled 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.840 eighty million times. That's called yeah, something special. Yeah, and 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:25.400 that's not eighty million times two. That's the eighty million 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.520 power I believe, isn't it. It's exponential. Yeah, So it's 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:34.720 crazy big, right, you go from something very tiny to kaboom, 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.880 where all of a sudden, an enormous mushroom cloud. That's right, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.120 And how you get that cloud? If you want to bomb, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.640 you're gonna have two subcritical. Subcritical means that hasn't reached 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.280 critical mass. You have two subcritical but fission norble isotopes, 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.600 and you keep them separate. That's really key. And then 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:55.079 you combine them with a traditional explosive and it's all 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.800 over after that. And remember there's one of these just 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.760 sitting off the coast of Savanna somewhere a law. That's right, 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.199 it's just sitting there. And there's like there was dynamite. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.920 There's forgot about that. They're not one the same. There's 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:11.480 a t NT detonator that's just aging terribly underwater. I 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.000 thought they found it. No, remember the this x AG 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.720 Yeah yeah, yeah, offered to locate it for a million 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.240 bucks very publicly. Well that was a long time ago. 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.480 We talked about that. Yeah. I think that was the 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.720 maybe the steal the newke one. That was an early 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.720 one for sure. Wow. So that's another reason to be 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.959 scared all over again. Right, So, chuck, um, there's four 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:37.800 kinds of nuclear weapons testing, at least four that we've 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.720 come up with and carried out so far. Yes, there's 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.080 a high altitude space which I think we wondered like 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.520 what would happen in the Star Wars episode? Answered right here? Yeah, Um, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:55.160 underground underwater and atmospheric. Let's talk about these all right, Well, 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.480 let's talk about atmospheric. Let's do this is the one 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.280 that I said. The YouTube of showed a plane flying 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.000 and shooting this bomb off. It wasn't like dropped, It 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.439 was like launched like a rocket and then exploded above 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.200 these dudes heads where they could see it. Um. Not 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.200 a good idea. I don't know why they ever thought 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.160 this is a good idea, even in the middle of 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.880 a desert. Um, it's gonna fall, It's gonna rain down. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.600 What happened upon the ground and whoever is down there 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:25.880 is Billy Idol put it, It's going to rain hell 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.679 from above that idol? Yeah, okay if the rebel yeo 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.520 was it? Yeah? I don't know all the words of 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.200 that song. Where where where does that come? I can't 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.360 remember what is the it's the it's the last rain 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:47.280 hell from a bow in the midnight man crop all. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.559 It's pretty good, Billy Idol. So the scariest thing about 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:53.280 when they do these tests out in the middle of 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.880 a desert is all they do basically is quote clear 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:00.240 the area, Like that's how they prepare the surround owning 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.959 area for a nuclear fallout. They just clear it as 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.880 best they can, which usually consists of clearing like one 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.560 or two micro nations consisting of one or two guys 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.760 who use like chocolate chip cookie dough is currency. Right, Yeah, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.000 I mean, what about all the animals, what about all 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.600 the vegetation and playing Stop thinking about them, hippie, we're 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.040 trying to test nukes here. Well, and that's why they 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:25.760 do it out like in the middle of the Nevada 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.920 desert is because they think, you know, like it's barely 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:34.960 needing alive out there still. Okay, Yeah, the ground groundhog 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.000 or no, the prairie dog populations have been decimated because 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.920 they were reduced by exactly time percent. Did you see 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.240 the guy that wrote in about that today? He says, 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.720 by the way, when Josh said fact toy and decimate, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.400 he's both of them wrong. And I had the same reply. 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.560 I was like, buddy, it's not ancient Rome anymore. Look 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.480 it up. Decimate means a completely different thing, though. Okay, 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.920 at this actoid All right, so let's talk about um 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.480 A ground test, the castle bravo test. Well, hold on 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.640 real quick, the atmospheric test, he said, like you drop 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.440 it out of a plane. There's other ways you can 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.760 do it. You can also um launch it via weather balloon, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:17.480 and you can just put it on top of a 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.320 tall pole. But basically an atmospheric test is anything just 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.960 above ground. You could also detonate it on top of 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.880 the ground because it's atmospheric, there's nothing covering it. Right. Um, 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.240 Between that and say about two fifty miles, that's an 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.679 atmospheric test. Okay, two I believe so because two or 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.800 more is typically the high altitude test. How would they 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.040 do that on the ground though? It's like, get it? 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.920 Two nine miles up is what I say. I mean 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.400 they were standing underneath the hypoth drop, two of them 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.280 on Japan. People were a little more reckless with nuclear 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.920 weapons back then, all right, so the Castle Bravo test. Yeah, 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.040 So basically the reason we talk about this is things 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.000 back then at least they would clear the area for 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.839 what they thought was gonna happen. But when you miscalculate, uh, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.120 and you make an error in your math, bad things 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.040 can happen, which is what happened in nine at the 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.200 Bikinia Toll. That's right, and that's uh, that's actually where 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.320 the bikini swimsuit is named after. That's right. There was 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.800 nuclear fever around the world and some French designer made 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.000 the Bikini in honor of nuclear testing in Paradise, and 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.840 they said, how about some midriff fellas, and the guys went, 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.040 all right, I love the atomic age. Let's screw up 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.640 this big test. Yeah. So um. Basically, what they were 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:41.960 trying out was a new type of fuel core made 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:48.680 of lithium lithium fifteen I believe, And they had not 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:55.640 carried the two And we're estimating a six megatime detonation explosion. Yeah, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.000 I as low as four. So they were off by 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.040 almost three times. Yeah. It turned out to be a 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:06.560 fifteen megaton explosion, which means that the blast radius, the 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.920 the area where it's still safe just from the explosion, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.880 was expanded tremendously, or should have been expanded tremendously. There 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.040 was a group of Japanese fishermen on a boat that 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.280 in English translates the name of which translates to lucky dragon. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.600 And they were not so lucky because they were just 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.160 outside of the blast zone and um of the original 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.640 blast zone, and all of a sudden, all this stuff 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.360 starts raining down and like one of them is like 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.920 sticking at his tongue trying to taste it. It's all 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.040 nuclear fallout, and uh, the whole boat came down with 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.880 with sickness. And actually the one fatality from the Castle 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:47.960 Bravo test was on that boat. But people, Yeah, there 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.560 was a lot of like cancer birth effects, second generation 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.760 birth effect. Yeah, there was a lot of It was 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.040 a huge screw up, to say the least. I got 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.600 some stats on that. They produced a four and a 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.200 half mile wide fireball four and a half miles dude 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.320 left a crater feet in diameter and two fifty ft deep, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.200 and in the end it was a thousand times more 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.080 powerful than either one of the bombs we dropped on Japan, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.320 and it's still the largest nuclear detonation by the United 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.080 States ever. Yeah, I think Russia topped that, of course. 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.040 And they basically just put the device out on top 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.080 of this a toll and like ran away, like setting 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.400 off a firework or something like that. Yeah, that was 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:42.000 pretty nuts, very sad. Um. Shall we go underwater if 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.560 you're interested in this at all, especially like the Bikinia 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:49.320 Tall there's footage in this awesome documentary from called Atomic Cafe. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.040 I think I've seen that it's it's it's just like 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.200 newsreel footage and basically it's like cold war nuclear hysteria 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:03.160 and um love and reasons behind hya. But there's a 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.359 there's a news reel clip of like the King of 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.840 I can't remember, but the Marshall Islands. Basically the indigenous 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.480 king um stands up, He's like, we're really excited to 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.720 evacuate our home for you guys to do nuclear testings, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:22.040 so let's go. And it's really just awkward and staged 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.080 and it's something else. Or the people all behind him 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:26.680 going did he just say what I think he said? Yeah, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.600 They're like, what did he say? That actually sucks? Yeah? So, um, 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.280 it's a good movie. The whole thing is, Yeah, that's 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.440 a documentary. I think there's a movie called The Atomic 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.200 Cafe too. That's it. Oh, I didn't think it was 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.800 a documentary. It's a documentary. It's by two brothers and 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.080 a friend, a lady friend. Really is there a person 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.600 on the bicycle on a bike on the cover? There 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.480 may be. I believe there's definitely a mushroom cloud. I 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:56.040 might be thinking of something altogether different. You're thinking of 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.320 fables of the reconstruction, all right, so now, Mr Zusu, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.760 can we go under water? Yes, that's all right. Um, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.800 underwater is gonna have less fall out obviously because you're underwater. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.719 So that's good. But and you don't see a lot 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.120 of this. It's hard to get a lot of information 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.280 on this, but obviously you're gonna destroy any kind of 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:22.200 marine life, coral reefs that we've talked about, and basically 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.359 anything else that it comes into contact with, not to 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:32.080 mention fishing villages and basically these these people that depend 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.239 on fishing to live. Yeah, it's not just the um, 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.119 it's not just the immediate impacts, which is basically blowing 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.560 up tons of dolphins and whales and stuff like that. Um, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.600 it has a long sustained impact. Like think about it. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.959 That just from Fukushima. That's another one in our nuclear 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:56.720 suite how nuclear meltdown works. That's right, Fukushima. Um, there's 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.600 people who like won't touch any kind of seafood from 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.600 Japan now because they're afraid to fall out. Whether that's 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.800 correct or not, at the very least in the public opinion. 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.720 You can't just blow up a nuclear weapon underwater and 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.600 expect everything to be okay. Well, yeah, and the economic 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.040 impact that has on the fisherman, of course, it's huge. Uh. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.320 And the three eyed fish like the Simpsons, Blinkie was that? 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.600 Who was? And it blinked on in succession? Right? Yeah, 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.439 that's pretty funny. Yeah. Um, and you just confirmed that 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:32.920 it was a bicycle in the front of the Atomic Cafe, right, yeah, 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.520 that's Atomic Cafe, all right. I've always wanted to see that, 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:37.640 and I never knew it was a documentary. It's very good. 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.360 I always associated with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes because 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.040 I think they came out at about the same time 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.160 and they both seem to have like the same kind 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:50.199 of thrilling poster. Okay, shall we go into outer underground 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.440 or should we say that for last and do outer space? Uh? Well, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.960 let's go underground because this is the winner as far 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.959 as the only way theoretically took taine fully a nuclear blast. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.840 But you gotta go down really really really deep, like 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.000 eight which is a half a mile about feet and 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.760 for that's that's a bomb of what size? Uh? I 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.320 don't know, Chuck, Well, Okay, this can put it into 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.040 into comparison. At least three hundred feet down you could 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:25.359 contain a one kiloton bomb. That's kiloton. You gotta remember 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:30.280 that Castle Bravo was fifteen mega tons. So yeah, there's 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:34.639 some math involved there somewhere, But I imagine eight hundred 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:42.080 eight hundred feet you said, um, And supposedly, even though 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.399 they do point out in this article, you never really 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.760 know until you do it because it can be unpredictable, 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:54.120 obviously in the case of of the Bikini Atoll. But um, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.760 it's worst case scenario if it does go above ground, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.479 because then it's raining down radioactive soil and lots and 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.040 lots of radio ative soil. So UM. To to outfit 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:09.280 the best case scenario, um, basically, you want to dig 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.920 this eight D you want to bore an eight hundred hole, 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.359 and you've hit subtraine in rock like the mantle of 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.679 the earth at this point, depending on where you are, 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.120 but most likely you have because you're half a mile 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.800 into the earth. You put your little nuclear bomb in there. Um. 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.600 And it says here also that North Korea's it's done 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.800 something like four to five mega tons. Yeah, Um in 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.320 in the chamber, which is like the bottom of the hole, 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:42.919 and you backfill it with like gravel, gypsum, like this 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.879 composite of all these different solid materials that are gonna 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:49.760 pack that whole solid to absorb the shock wave the 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.639 blast um. So that means that it can go up, 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:55.960 but it's not going to go up very far. What 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:57.879 it's gonna do is go out. So you set the 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.199 thing off and it goes out and down and it 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:05.719 actually the blast vaporizes the mantle of the earth around it, 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.720 which then eventually, after probably a few seconds, cools into 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:14.159 molten rock. And after that sits there in stews for 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:18.919 a couple of minutes. The um the the whole above 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.760 it where the it can't support the earth above it 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.119 any longer, and so it collapses. And then what you 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:29.320 have is called a subsistence creator. Subsidence creator cannot be 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.720 good for the Earth. It's not. But there's YouTube lousy 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:37.040 with like underground tests where these creators just form. It's nuts, 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:42.800 But that supposedly contains the fallout. Supposedly, that's what I hear, 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.159 that's what the BBC says. But that's how if you 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.200 if you're ever interested, that's how you perform an underground 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.680 nuclear test. If you have a nuclear bomb and an 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.359 eight D boer. Yeah, that's I mean, that's got to 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.680 be some high engineering right there to get down there 0:22:57.680 --> 0:22:59.520 and not have a cave in on itself. And it's 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.160 not just a hole either. Probably, Hey, Kim jong Ill 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.119 knew what to pull the stops one. That's right, all right. 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.680 So now outer space, which is one of the dumbest ideas. 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:12.560 Actually they're all pretty dumb if he asked me. But 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:15.720 we did it, and so did Russia, and we would 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:20.600 um to see basically if we could kill satellites with 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.439 nuclear bombs in space. Um. One of the problems is 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.320 it kills a lot of satellites and possibly your own 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:31.840 important satellites. So they just discovered the Van Allen Belt 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.320 of nuclear radiation around the Earth, and they figured out 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.480 that if they blew up a nuclear bomb in the 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:43.040 Van Allen Belt, they could create an electromagnetic pulse that 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.359 would wipe out satellites. But it wiped out more than 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:50.200 two stars, and it actually created that. This is where 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:53.200 we hit Robert Krolwitz again, who apparently shares the same 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.480 interest in nuclear history cold war nuclear history that we do, 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:00.359 because this is the second blog of his on this topic. 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:03.640 But UM, I would definitely recommend looking this up. It's 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:07.640 called um a very scary fireworks show and it's about 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:12.399 this um US launch of nuclear weapons into space. It 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:15.200 was called Starfish Prime was the operation. It's a pretty 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:20.120