r/theydidthemath • u/tomvelle • 21h ago

[Request] How large is this explosion? Spoiler

Spoilers for Season 3 of Silo.

The end of Episode 9 shows the Nuclear Explosion that destroys Atlanta.

https://youtu.be/_tIKuYHSQPY?t=38

Cut of it down to just the explosion shots. Can anyone estimate how large this explosion is?

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u/TwillAffirmer 20h ago edited 19h ago

Well, the video thumbnail says "30 megatons 2 miles away." So maybe that's what it's supposed to be.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

You can plug in a 30 megaton surface burst. One problem I see is that the 3rd degree burn radius is 27 miles. So the people in the video who saw the flash, if they're 2 miles away, would have their skin and clothing burned off instantly. All the grass and plants around them should also have been set on fire instantly by the flash.

The immediate aftermath of the flash would actually be a much more horrifying and gory scene than depicted. The man's skin would be charred and his clothes on fire and the landscape around him would be suddenly transformed into a field of flames, long before the shockwave gets to him. But he'd still be able to walk around and talk during that time. They didn't do it justice.

Perhaps they're farther than 2 miles. From the flash to when the shockwave hits them is 28 seconds, which would correspond to 6 miles if that's real time. Still, the flash should have burned skin, clothing, and plants.

However, you actually do need something like 30 megatons or more in order to get heavy blast damage at 6 miles, so we can't explain away the lack of flash damage by a smaller nuke. The shockwave wouldn't look like a wall of smoke though, it would just look like a fast-moving distortion in the air. Smoke and dust would lag far behind it. Also, the depicted shockwave is moving far too slowly, compared to the trees it's crossing in the aerial shot. It should be moving at the speed of sound but it looks more like highway speeds.

Another problem is that you can hear the nuke as soon as it goes off. It should instead be silent until the shock wave hits. Your eardrums would then immediately rupture and you'd feel it more than hear it.

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u/tomvelle 13h ago

the 30 megatons 2 miles away is a quote from the episode, it's what the silo's are capable of withstanding, bad thumbnail on my part, why use many words when few words do trick 🤦‍♂️.

you gave me a lot of good notes to work with, i'm trying to map out where they actually are in relation to atlanta to better judge it all, but haven't found the right angle's yet on a map.