Edward Teller, Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project physicist, was worried that the heat of a nuclear bomb explosion would set off a chain reaction that would destroy the Earth. True, this still has not happened.
But still: how big and devastating can nuclear weapons still be? Can just one bomb destroy the world?
Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, Dr. According to Tara Drozdenko, the yield of the World War II bomb on Hiroshima was 15 kilotonnes, equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT. Also, the Nagasaki bomb was 20 kilotons. Most modern US nuclear weapons are 15-20 times more powerful than these bombs.
For example, the bomb in Hiroshima destroyed 13 square kilometers of the city, destroyed 63% of its buildings, and killed at least 70,000 people.
However, it is often not very practical to design very powerful bombs. This is because even one of them is too large to be dropped from an airplane. Even with a yield of 50 megatons, the question will be whether the aircraft will be able to leave the area before the bomb goes off.
However, Dr. Steven Biegalski is unsure whether the most powerful bomb will destroy the planet.
Source: Ferra
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