Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp (Howard J. Scrimgeour) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Nuclear Devastation Message-ID: <7124@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 5 Jun 89 02:43:20 GMT References: <6942@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario Lines: 59 Approved: military@att.att.com From: hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp (Howard J. Scrimgeour) In article <6942@cbnews.ATT.COM> Brian Dickson writes: >In article <6844@cbnews.ATT.COM> hall@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (john hall) writes: >>>On the generic quality of "destroy the world n times" statements. >>> >>>To the best of my knowledge this was traditionally calculated as: >>> >>>( Hiroshima + Nagasaki explosive power / deaths from same) * >>>( explosive power used in scenario / worlds population ). >> >A method of calculation which gives a more graphic representation of the >destructive power of fission bombs is: > > (Hiroshima blast area) * (number of Hiroshima size bombs) > ----------------------------------------------------------- > (radius of Earth)^2 * 4 * PI * 0.3 (30% of Earth is land) > >which gives: (10^2 * PI) * (200000 (U.S. and U.S.S.R)) > ---------------------------------------------------- > (6366 kilometers)^2 * 4 * PI * 0.3 > >which equals about 0.4 of the surface of the Earth. In other words, a saturation >bombing could place about 40% of the Earth's surface inside a lethal blast >radius of a nuke. Of course, this 40% includes northern Canada, Sibera, This seems to be as good a place as any to put in my own calculations. My figures for the US nuclear arsenal came from a 1982 Sci Amer article on nuclear reduction treaties. My figures for lethal blast radius came from "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons", (3rd ed., US govt., 1977). Some devices were indicated as variable yield; for these, I assumed the maximum. 40,50l # dvcs lethal lethal total lethal area (A) radius area(B) (AxB) 1 Mt 6420 1.4mi 6mi^2 38,520 mi^2 100kt 1700 0.9 2.5 4,250 200kt 1870 1.0 3.2 5,984 300kt 900 1.0 3.2 2,880 40kt 3000 0.7 1.5 4,500 1.5Mt 450 1.4 6 2,700 9Mt 52 2.2 15.2 790 _______ 59,624 sq. mi. (5.9x10^4) The land area of the Earth is 5.7x10^7 sq. mi. 5.7x10^7 / 5.9x10^4 ~ 10^3 Q.E.D. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M. | | hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp CIS:75126,2744 | | uunet!{utgpu!moore,attcan!telly}!ziebmef!hjsdvm | | "We also walk dogs..." | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+