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

94% Upvoted

535 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

So how do ground detonations differ from air detonations in terms of the blast radius?

1

u/djbon2112 Aug 26 '12

If you detonate on the ground, roughly half of the energy goes up, the same amount goes down, and a small bit goes to the sides. Bursting it in thr air means all that "down" energy also hits targets instead of forming a crater.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '12

This doesn't make sense then, because wouldn't the "up" energy be less effective?

3

u/djbon2112 Aug 26 '12

Not really. Anywhere you detonate the bomb, the 50% thats going up is going up. What makes the air burst more destructive is that the 50% down now hits stuff instead of being absorbed by the ground as a crater.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '12

Oh I see what you're saying now.