Poll: The Nuclear bomb and The hydrogen bomb

[Exocet]

I believe nukes are a necessary evil,but instead of having them owned by separate countries that can fire them whenever they feel like it,it should be handled by an international commitee,such as the International Atomic Energy Agency.Any nuke launching request would be handled as a top priority within 24 hours,with a rational explanation infront of a jury of selected nations.

We really can't get rid of all our nukes now,because the recipe is out.Should a rogue nation make some,and are able to strike anywhere on the globe,they wouldn't have to fear a nuclear retaliation.Honestly,thinking that if every major countries disarm their nukes,no one will make any more,ever,is just wishful thinking.
Until we have a reliable way of shooting down over 99% nuclear missiles should any be launched,nukes MUST be kept operational(see my first paragraph for who gets them).

 

[AwesomePabloGetsHigh]

If their was a nuclear fallout do you think it would like what? would it ressemble fallout 3?

 

[Zakarath]

Well, speaking as one with a fair knowledge of nuclear weapons, that site doesn't really do a good job of explaining either nuclear reactions or the design of nuclear weapons. It gets the most basic concepts behind an implosion-type fission weapon correct (while leaving out several critical components) as well as nuclear fission and fusion, but that's about it.

Other facts: Thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range, particularly those with a yield >10 Mt, are uncommon and only a few have ever been tested(the most powerful US device was about 15 Mt, and the most powerful device ever tested was by the Soviets with a 50-60Mt yield), and they are generally too impractical to ever be incorporated into strategic weapons. The standard for a thermonuclear warhead is about 550 Kt, about the equivalence of 27 pure fission weapons.
Additional note: Due to that hydrogen and helium comprise the lowest portion of the curve of binding energy, the energy they release is comparatively quite small against the energy released by uranium or plutonium fission. The neutrons released are the main reason thermonuclear weapons are much more powerful, as they greatly boost the amount of fission reactions.

Fun fact: During the peak reaction time of the Soviet 50 Mt bomb, (39 nanoseconds) the power it released was equal to 1.4% of the total energy the sun produced over the same time frame.

Edit: I believe that the presence of moderate stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the hands of word superpowers who are sane enough to only use them as deterrent weapons against land war is the best case for nuclear weapons. The main concern is in keeping nuclear weapons out of those who do not fear retaliation (i.e. terrorist organizations and those who might give such weapons to terrorists.)

Also note that it isn't just the USA and Russia (and N. Korea) with nukes, off the top of my head, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, and (possibly) Israel also have stockpiles, among others.

 

[Nimcha]

Nobody gains anything by throwing them around. So yeah I'm not too worried.

 

[silverleaf81]

I reckon keep the nukes for emergencys. You never know when a movies plot might need them

 

[DefunctTheory]

I reckon keep the nukes for emergencys. You never know when a movies plot might need them

You never know when the government will need to loan one out to Michael Bay.

 

[silverleaf81]

Well, speaking as one with a fair knowledge of nuclear weapons, that site doesn't really do a good job of explaining either nuclear reactions or the design of nuclear weapons. It gets the most basic concepts behind an implosion-type fission weapon correct (while leaving out several critical components) as well as nuclear fission and fusion, but that's about it.

Other facts: Thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range, particularly those with a yield >10 Mt, are uncommon and only a few have ever been tested(the most powerful US device was about 15 Mt, and the most powerful device ever tested was by the Soviets with a 50-60Mt yield), and they are generally too impractical to ever be incorporated into strategic weapons. The standard for a thermonuclear warhead is about 550 Kt, about the equivalence of 27 pure fission weapons.
Additional note: Due to that hydrogen and helium comprise the lowest portion of the curve of binding energy, the energy they release is comparatively quite small against the energy released by uranium or plutonium fission. The neutrons released are the main reason thermonuclear weapons are much more powerful, as they greatly boost the amount of fission reactions.

Fun fact: During the peak reaction time of the Soviet 50 Mt bomb, (39 nanoseconds) the power it released was equal to 1.4% of the total energy the sun produced over the same time frame.

Edit: I believe that the presence of moderate stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the hands of word superpowers who are sane enough to only use them as deterrent weapons against land war is the best case for nuclear weapons. The main concern is in keeping nuclear weapons out of those who do not fear retaliation (i.e. terrorist organizations and those who might give such weapons to terrorists.)

Also note that it isn't just the USA and Russia (and N. Korea) with nukes, off the top of my head, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, and (possibly) Israel also have stockpiles, among others.

Ah, the most powerful Nuclear Device ever tested, the Tsar Bomba (King Bomb) at 50 megatons. That was a beauty. A damn powerful one!

 

[Ph33nix]

nuclear weapons are the only thing keeping china out of tiwaan and half the Middle-east out of Israel

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Not really sure on that one, I mean if you really want to kill millions of people there are much cheaper ways of doing it, so even if no one had nukes there's still the other 2 of the unholy triumvirate of WMDs to make everybody very dead, nukes are just the most impressive.

But anyways...I suppose if we could get through the cold war without turning the planet to ash we can probably manage it now. Mind you it will be interesting to see how things go in the future when more countries develop Nukes. Some I'm sure will just have them as an insurance policy against invasion but what happens when smaller countries with nukes start dicking around? Do we just go back to war by proxy as in the cold war or will we just say fuck it, not much we can do, they've got nukes? Call their bluff? Limited conventional engagement but never being able to deal a killer blow because they might decide to spoilsport? I imagine after seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein that's what most leaders of that ilk would do. Anyway, I'll stop rambling now.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

Not really sure on that one, I mean if you really want to kill millions of people there are much cheaper ways of doing it, so even if no one had nukes there's still the other 2 of the unholy triumvirate of WMDs to make everybody very dead, nukes are just the most impressive.

But anyways...I suppose if we could get through the cold war without turning the planet to ash we can probably manage it now. Mind you it will be intersting to see how things go in the future when more countries develope Nukes. Some I'm sure will just have them as an insurance policy against invasion but what happens when smaller countries with nukes start dicking around? Do we just go back to war by proxy as in the cold war or will we just say fuck it, not much we can do, they've got nukes? Call their bluff? Limited conventional engagement but never being able to deal a killer blow because they might decide to spoilsport? I imagine after seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein that's what most leaders of that ilk would do. Anyway, I'll stop rambling now.

Simply move to cyber war. What good is a nuke if none of your planes, ships, submarines, and launching pads can fire them? The Army as we know it is soon to be obsolete, if it isn't already. Hell, I'd even wager that nukes will be obsolete as deterrents in a couple years.

 

[VaderMan92]

I say don't let anyone new have nukes. The people who have them now are not going to get rid of them because they cant trust that their potential enemies would as well. And anyone who thinks that we can get rid of all the nukes is hopelessly idealistic. And these B.S. arms reduction treaties we keep signing with the former soviet union are just that B.S. we both have enough nukes to level the entire planet 8 times (probably more I'm guesstimating) so what if we can only destroy the earth 7 times now.

 

[VaderMan92]

Simply move to cyber war. What good is a nuke if none of your planes, ships, submarines, and launching pads can fire them? The Army as we know it is soon to be obsolete, if it isn't already. Hell, I'd even wager that nukes will be obsolete as deterrents in a couple years.

I don't think that our nuclear missile silo computers are connected to the internet. So they only way to get into the closed system would be to actually physically interface with it. And its not like you can remotely hack a submarine or a plane the communications gear in those things are not linked to the flight controls. I'm pretty sure in this day and age the military would be prepared for something like that. Unless someone develops a remote hack think like in bioshock.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Give 'em to the superpowers to maintain peace. If every country has them, the unstable or weak ones are taken over by insurgents, who then have nukes and will bomb something.

And what if one of the superpowers is taken over? Then everyone is screwed. Hell, the USSR was a superpower at one point. Want another Cold War?

 

[Anarchemitis]

of trillions of isotopes of hydrogen named deuterium and tritium.

This sort of annoyed me from my knowledge of chemistry. There are trillions of atoms in the entire universe. There are probably millions of atoms in a given bomb. Hydrogen has two useful isotopes that can be put to use, Deuterium and Tritium. One of these uses is weaponry. However one of the more common uses of Deuterium is the manufacture of heavy water for Nuclear Reactor stabilization. (An Isotope is a variant of an Element that has a different atomic weight than the normal Element because of additional neutrons.)

I do not think any nation should have nuclear weapons, however many nations will still want to make them even if there were no more.
Fact is that there are numerous Nuclear Nations. Thankfully, there are fewer than what should be of great concern. Eg Iraq or North Korea.

Nuclear weapons are actually quite hard to manufacture. A true Nuke is basically a baseball-sized sphere of a weaponized radioisotope with a specially designed shaped charge mounted all around it so that at the moment of detonation, the conventional explosion compresses the radisotope sphere from the size of a baseball to the size of a small marble, causing immense pressure and friction, which initiates the nuclear reaction.
The technology required to make such a device as well as the industrial and engineering capabilities required to make the specifics demanded of the radioisotope are rather high, and the techniques developed by already Nuclear nations are closely guarded secrets, which is why not everyone has nukes.

(Counter intuitively, the fastest method of disarming a nuclear weapon is to interrupt or disrupt the specially-calibrated-and-designed conventional charge somehow, such as shooting the detonation core with a gun or otherwise damaging the warhead.)

 

[kuyo]

we have missiles that can go through a window and take out a single room with minimal property damage. Much better than nukes.

 

[Astoria]

How about no nukes? I know a bunch of manly "ERRBODY NEEDS NUKES NAO" people are going to flame me, just until they are watching the flesh literally melt away from the bones on their bodies, but I'd rather have a nice peaceful life without such pointless apocalypse starters.

Yeah this. Nukes seem like a stupid weapon to me. You're not defeating an enemy, you're completely annialating (sp?) them and the surrounding environment. Seriously, they're just too powerful and it's too easy for them to get in the wrong hands. I get that if all world powers get rid of theirs and some terrorist group gets one we're all screwed but there has to be some way to remove them all and all ways of making one if people try hard enough.

 

[The Night Shade]

Everyone has nukes so nobody would risk going to war

 

[Jedoro]

Give 'em to the superpowers to maintain peace. If every country has them, the unstable or weak ones are taken over by insurgents, who then have nukes and will bomb something.

And what if one of the superpowers is taken over? Then everyone is screwed. Hell, the USSR was a superpower at one point. Want another Cold War?

Sure, why not? We all die anyways, and if the globe's carpet bombed with nukes, we won't feel it for long.

It'd take longer for a superpower to be taken over, during which time they'd be able to ask the others for aid or the others could intervene regardless.

 

[FoolKiller]

How about no nukes?

I like this... Why was this option not on the list. I didn't vote because the whole option of not allowing nukes but having them made illegally isn't ideal. I'm not saying it isn't going to happen but the thread is about what we thought would be the best situation on nukes.