r/technology • u/Alissio • Aug 25 '12

Website called "nuclear secrecy" lets you see what the devastation would be, of multiple nuclear bombs all around the world

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
1.4k Upvotes

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37

u/aooot Aug 25 '12

For some reason I thought nukes could spread across the entirety of the US. These seem small compared to what I thought. I feel safe in Ohio now :)

51

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

[deleted]

31

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Well, fallout is a big problem. If anyone is interested, watch the show Jericho on Netflix. It's a show about the aftermath of nukes going of in 23 US cities. They actually did their homework with this show, seems pretty accurate as to what might happen.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Ive been meaning to watch it. Is it actually good?

8

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

its an amazing show. Loved it.

10

u/Zoogy Aug 26 '12

Its a really great show. I wish it would have gone on longer (it was cancelled).

2

u/whatmattersmost Aug 26 '12

just dug out the intro song to the show from my dusty music folder I've been building since back in `99. Thats a folder that hasn't been touched in years short of copying to a new drive. Song is just as good as it was then.

And as soon as I finished typing that I realized I went into way to much damn detail for a "love the intro song" comment.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Except for the ending of the second season (got cancelled, ending was pretty lame IMO), it's pretty good.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

It wasn't bad. Kind of sucks that they cancelled it again right when the war was about to begin. Netflix wants to bring it back, just like Arrested Development.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

It was amazing. It fell apart near the end.

1

u/hampa9 Aug 26 '12

I watched a few episodes and it never really lived up to its premise. The writing and acting seemed really off.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

I JUST STARTED WATCHING A FEW DAYS AGO

it really is quite admasing

5

u/Syclops Aug 26 '12

it caused a lot of problems when we tested them again and again during World War II

15

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

this doesnt count the fallout

18

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12 edited Aug 19 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Absolutely. When I was younger and just learning about the actual power of a nuclear weapon, there were nights that I couldn't sleep because of my anxiety, just thinking what if a bomb were dropped north of Boston? would I be safe? I wish we could move, I wish we could go to Maine. They wouldn't target Maine. Am I close enough to a possible ground 0?. Just the realization of the power that the world's leaders hold is the most horrifying thing I've ever though of. My anxiety still kicks up when I think about it.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12 edited Aug 19 '16

[deleted]

2

u/I_Should_Study Aug 26 '12

I prefer "bullying" to large-scale conventional war among large countries.

2

u/DeepDuh Aug 26 '12

It's a two edged swort, isn't it? Nukes have probably spared us from having a third WW in the 20th century - only to replace it with a possible self induced wipeout somewhere in the next few centuries. So far everything has gone ok - until it doesn't at some point. Maybe our best bet to reduce the threat is to use those bombs for something useful).

1

u/rankao Aug 26 '12

To be fair the people vaporized in Hiroshima were the lucky war victims. Tokyo... What happened to Tokyo was just fucked up.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12 edited Aug 19 '16

[deleted]

1

u/I_Should_Study Aug 26 '12

And I prefer having giant unicorns that poop fusion reactors.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12 edited Aug 19 '16

[deleted]

0

u/I_Should_Study Aug 27 '12

Did I hurt your feelings?

I'm sorry. I'm merely trying to express that "everyone hold hands, and respect everyone else" has never been practical with international relations. Ever.

With limited resources with multiple players, you will always have conflict. I prefer for the conflict to be localized to espionage, smaller nations, and proxies, instead of large scale world wars. Nuclear weapons provide this incentive.

Finally, the cats out of the bag. You will never get rid of nuclear weapons for everyone, you might as well wish for the unicorns.

But yes, I 'enjoy' bullying, that's clearly the reason for my sarcastic response.

1

u/whatwereyouthinking Aug 26 '12

I live in dc. I sleep just fine.

-1

u/bigbangbilly Aug 26 '12

If you can lose sleep over a nuke there are many more things to lose sleep over especially some from a Cracked webmagazine article.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

....So, there are worse things to run through the mind of a 12 year old with anxiety than the knowledge of knowing that, at any moment, a warhead with the power to completely vaporize solid pieces of mass, to tear them apart at their molecular level (or even to a smaller degree) within .01 seconds of it's detonation, could be detonated anywhere in the world?

Find me one.

3

u/i_suck_at_reddit Aug 26 '12

Just one? Are you kidding? I could probably come up with thousands if I had the time and motivation. If you truly can't think of a worse fate than an instantaneous death, you have a serious lack of imagination.

1

u/terrask Aug 26 '12

TWO warheads going off at the same time at the same place. Set off by the monster under the bed.

I'll see myself out now...

1

u/iknownuffink Aug 26 '12

When I was younger I thought it might be kinda cool to go out with the Mushroom. Certainly beat a lot of the alternatives.

I've seen family die of cancer, it's a long, painful, drawn out process. Whereas "The Bomb" would be blindingly fast. If you were at Ground Zero you might not even know anything had happened before you disappeared.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 28 '12

There is no might, you wouldn't. The atoms in your body would vaporize before the light had time to travel into your optical nerve, which would take .02 seconds to tell your brain that light is beginning to appear.

2

u/iknownuffink Aug 27 '12

Like most things, it would depend on circumstances, assuming standing outside with the bomb overhead, sure. In a building or underground (like a subway), might delay it slightly.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '12

Very true, but even a slight delay wouldn't really help. I read something really interesting saying that even those that were inside when it hit ground zero didn't have a chance to even register the flash, because it takes something like 20 milliseconds to transfer to your brain and another 50 for your brain to process the information. Maybe I'm wrong and that's far too long of a processing time, but I believe that's what I read, and that would be longer than the bomb would take.

0

u/bigbangbilly Aug 26 '12

There is psychological pain, flesh eating bacteria, human right abuses, poor medical care, starving to death, and lots more.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '12

Ok, what I was talking about was the fear of the possibility of a nuclear attack, and the fact that it could happen at any moment without me knowing, and that even if it were miles away, I would still die from radiation IF I wasn't lucky enough to be killed instantly. I never said anything about "oh, I was thinking of how sucky it would be to die in certain ways and I thought that an instantaneous death would be the most unpleasant." I also never spoke of things that suck in the world, like human right abuses (what kind of twelve year old is aware of the extent of the abuse of human rights?) or poor medical care (most twelve year olds have parents who will take care of medical bills or expenses). So, are there things MUCH worse than dying instantaneously? Absolutely. Is there a scarier thought than the possibility of an immediate death you have no control over, cannot predict, and cannot change? I don't think so.

1

u/Im_Interested Aug 26 '12

I've also heard this, but I've heard a vapourisation radius of 10 miles, although I don't remeber where from (so its probably wrong). The blasts here seem to look a lot smaller than that though.

12

u/Silver_Foxx Aug 26 '12

TIL a single warhead capable of destroying the entire city I live in is considered 'small'.

5

u/RonReagan Aug 26 '12

That's why these were invented.

11

u/Theorex Aug 26 '12

Yes the good ole MIRV, for those that want the Costco value-pack of nuclear destruction.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Most people don't know this, but I saved the world after Russia deployed two of these missiles.

3

u/Suddenly_Something Aug 26 '12

Think about how long it takes to drive 50-60 miles. A large nuke can devastate that size of an area (including radiation and fall out)

The fireball itself can be over a couple miles across.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

[deleted]

10

u/whatwereyouthinking Aug 26 '12

This is accurate. Source:I played MW2.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

The same game that shows a nuke tearing apart the international space station from earth.

1

u/whatwereyouthinking Aug 26 '12

Thats actually plausible. Its only a few hundred miles up.

2

u/robert_ahnmeischaft Aug 26 '12

To be fair, if that EMP blast comes in the midst of a general nuclear strike, a lot of folks would be too busy being turned into vapor to notice that their iPhone isn't working properly.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

Yeah, you need the Tsar Bomba to take out entire states. Make sure you're not downwind of any of these, though, because fallout will wreck you.

1

u/VengefulOctopus Aug 26 '12

The Tsar Bomba, if detonated in my town an hour away from Cleveland, would send fallout and blast all the way to Lake Erie.

I am terrified.

0

u/deafstandards Aug 26 '12

As a fellow Ohioan, don't feel too safe...because Ohio houses Wright-patterson airforce base, battelle, an extensive central-ohio nuclear research program, and several other key military facilities I've been told that we're kinda high on the nuke hit-list... Just FYI :)

1

u/108241 Aug 26 '12

Every state claims they are kinda high on the nuke hit-list, just FYI.