• Abundance114@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    What a load of garbage. The surface of the earth is turned to glass before we lose a single major city. Lose lose for everyone.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      20 days ago

      “fun” fact: we could never actually glass the earth, but with the success of disarmament work we’re at the point where, with perfect geometry, ideal yields, and a generous definition of “glass” the biggest country we could do that to is Luxembourg.

      The moral of the story: strategic arms reduction treaties work, they’re just very slow.

      • swim@slrpnk.net
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        19 days ago

        I’m not sure about that fact, there are thousands of active warheads. Do you have a source?

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Math.
          Our typical warhead (100kt) leaves a 200m radius crater if used to maximize the crater size. (Experiment in using nukes for mining and terrain shaping). We have less than 6000. 6000 π (0.2 km)2 ~ 6000(0.125km2 ) ~ 754km2 < 2,586 km2.

          Nukes are dangerous because (other than the obvious) of what they do to the air, not the ground.

      • Abundance114@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        I understand that; the expression isn’t literal; and we never had enough nukes to glass the surface of earth regardless of arms reduction treaties.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          You’d be surprised how many people don’t. It’s a good fun fact, and I stand by supporting arms reduction regardless. :)