Can nukes really destroy the world?

[Safriz]

During the cold war,Both USSR and USA were busy creating bigger and better nuclear weapons,and at the same time boasting about what nukes can do..A claim generally made is that the 5 major nuclear powers who have stock piles of Nuclear weapons can annihilate the world many times over.They can cease the life sustaining cycles on earth,by creating a nuclear winter..
Now the Biggest ever nuclear explosion was the tzar bomb of 50 megatons and videos are littered across the world wide web..although it looks scary and big but not that big to destroy even a country.
The total remaining Nuclear explosive power of the whole world is estimated to be 10,000 megatons which is reduced from its peak capacity of 25,000 megatons..Is this much explosive power enough to destroy the world?
The only single explosion that interrupted life cycle on earth was the Asteroid that theoratically killed Dinosaurs,but that was a 100 million mega tons explosion as per Nat geo's estimates..

My Question is that,as popular media claims..Can the whole world's nuclear weapons destroy the earth? or is it a hoax?

 

[corporate_slave]

Good question. The other day I was reading a simulation of worldwide nuclear war and the conclusion was that it will NOT end all life on earth. I will try to retrieve it and post here...

 

[third eye]

During the cold war,Both USSR and USA were busy creating bigger and better nuclear weapons,and at the same time boasting about what nukes can do..A claim generally made is that the 5 major nuclear powers who have stock piles of Nuclear weapons can annihilate the world many times over.They can cease the life sustaining cycles on earth,by creating a nuclear winter..
Now the Biggest ever nuclear explosion was the tzar bomb of 50 megatons and videos are littered across the world wide web..although it looks scary and big but not that big to destroy even a country.
The total remaining Nuclear explosive power of the whole world is estimated to be 10,000 megatons which is reduced from its peak capacity of 25,000 megatons..Is this much explosive power enough to destroy the world?
The only single explosion that interrupted life cycle on earth was the Asteroid that theoratically killed Dinosaurs,but that was a 100 million mega tons explosion as per Nat geo's estimates..

My Question is that,as popular media claims..Can the whole world's nuclear weapons destroy the earth? or is it a hoax?

Destroy the Earth is a relative term.

Parts of the earth are already getting destroyed thanks to Global warming. In fact the green house gasses we emit are worse than Nukes , only being in slow motion their ' bang' is not experienced.

On the subject, the Earth may not blow up but shall become inhabitable for considerable lengths of time - as good as destroyed. When life does return, it would be mutated.

Also a nuke at the jugular of the world - along prominent oil & sea routes would bring us all to our knees.

 

[Avatar]

Nukes will destroy the world, as we know it.

 

[nomi007]

i think not nukes will not destroy the world but "nude" is destroying the world

 

[Safriz]

i think not nukes will not destroy the world but "nude" is destroying the world

Although this thread is for more scientific and factual discussion,but your funny comment is welcome..

 

[Arsalan]

for me it will not shatter the world to peices but the destruction will huge..

the world wont be anymore like what we know today!!

as for global warming, it really is a bigger threat. the slow poision we are getting in form of green house gases will surely bring a catestrophy...
there is a quote that describes it very well
"the effect of rise in temprature due to global warming cannot be predicted and the scientists hope, they never find out"

 

[Markus]

Discovery channel showed that during the 90's there were enough nukes with the nuclear powers to destroy the earth 12 times over.

All ppl whoi would survive a nuclear holocaust will live in hell and they themselves will commit suicide.

 

[Arsalan]

nukes wont only kill man kind but there effects on our life style will surely be devastating:

Economic Chaos - If Britain decided to use one of its standard Trident submarine nuclear warheads against a Middle East threat, radioactive fallout could land in oil-producing areas. If it did, that area would likely stop production. If production continued, who would buy radioactive oil? Since the Middle East supplies the world with so much oil, decreased production might trigger economic chaos.

British farmers only produce enough food by themselves to support 12 million of Britain's 56 million people. If Britain used one of its nuclear warheads, it could cost Britain and others in the world greatly. How would the British people feed themselves if there is little fuel for transporting food and the world economy is in chaos?

Some nuclear explosions produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An EMP can travel at the speed of light across a wide area and pack enough punch to wipe out or make unreliable electronic bank and business records, further adding to the economic chaos.

The radioactive fallout from one nuclear explosion can cover a wide area and last a long time. The Center for Defense Information has pointed out that nuclear weapons could not have been used in the Persian Gulf War without poisonous radiation destroying the countries we were fighting to protect (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) as well as our troops and our allies' troops.

Environmental pollution - We need to ask ourselves, "If a nuclear bomb was used to stop a biological or chemical weapon attack or threat of attack, could the explosions throw these poisonous elements into the atmosphere to settle around the world along with the radioactive fallout?" The U.S. Department of Defense acknowledged that thousands of sick veterans from the Persian Gulf War may have been exposed to nerve gas or toxic chemicals when Iraqi weapons containing these toxins were destroyed. They said it also might have been from environmental pollution from oil well fires.

Still Building - It can be seen from the above that one standard Trident submarine nuclear warhead can do a vast amount of damage because the scope of the damage is not necessarily local to the targeted area; it can cross national boundaries, even those of the state using the weapon. One British Trident submarine can launch up to 128 of these independently-targeted nuclear warheads. With U.S. help, Britain is replacing its four Polaris submarines with four much more powerful Trident submarines, of which two are now in operation. The U.S. currently has seventeen Trident submarines and is planning to deploy one more in 1997.

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1997/00/00_babst_consequences.php

regards!

 

[MZUBAIR]

How many Nukes can destroy Sub-continent.

I think 5 to 6 are enough to do a job.
Dont forget it, it will not only effect the place but also effect living things away 100's of miles

 

[mjnaushad]

Sometimes Yahoo Answers give real good answers, Some think that Nukes will knock earth out of orbit and world will be destroyed....Heres the answer

Can a nuke knock Earth off course? - Yahoo! Answers


We can actually calculate the amount of energy that it would take to alter the Earth's course sufficiently that it was ejected from the solar system. You have to accelerate the Earth to the solar escape velocity of 42.1 km/s (from the Earth's position). The Earth currently orbits the Sun at an average speed of 29.8 km/s, so you have to give it an extra 12.3 km/s of speed. We can figure out the change in kinetic energy, and that will give us the yield of the bomb (or bombs) that would accomplish the task.

Kinetic energy = 1/2 mass x velocity²

Kinetic energy = 1/2 (5.9736×10^24 kg) (12300 m/s)²

Kinetic energy = 4.52x10^32 J

In terms of Megatons of TNT, that's about 1.08x10^17 Megatons. The biggest nuclear weapon ever designed had a maximum theoretical yield of 100 Megatons, so it would take about 1 QUADRILLION bombs. That's more than one hundred fifty thousand 100-Megaton bombs for every man, woman, and child alive today. Needless to say, the world's nuclear arsenal isn't anywhere near that size. Even if we DID have that many bombs, and if we COULD get them all into one place and cause them to blow up perfectly (without having ANY of them vaporized before they detonate...a technical impossibility), you'd still need to have ALL of their energy go into moving the Earth. In reality, that simply won't happen. That 1 quadrillion bombs is a very, very low estimate of how much firepower you would actually need to knock the Earth out of the solar system.

But let's say you don't want to knock it out of the solar system. What if you only wish to alter its orbit? That doesn't take AS MUCH energy, but you're still dealing with impossibly large energies. The Earth is immense. To change its orbital velocity by even one measly meter per second would require an energy input of about 3x10^24 Joules, or 713 million Megatons of TNT. Again, that's more than 7 million of the largest nuclear weapons ever designed. It just isn't going to happen.

But what if you simply want to change the Earth's tilt or rotation? Surely that could be done with modern nuclear weapons, right? Not so much. Let's say the day is exactly 24 hours long. That's 86,400 seconds. Using that value, the Earth has a rotational kinetic energy of 2.13x10^29 Joules. What if you wanted to slow down the Earth's rotation so that its day gained exactly 1 minute, bringing the length to 86,460 seconds. Obviously you'd have to develop a way to angle the blast of the bomb so that it applied torque to the Earth in the proper direction, but could you do it? The new rotational kinetic energy of the Earth would be 2.12x10^29 Joules, a difference of 1x10^27 Joules, or 239 billion Megatons of TNT. You begin to see the enormity of the problem, don't you?

Bottom line: no nuclear weapon or combination of nuclear weapons is ever going to affect the rotation or speed of the Earth in any measureable way. I hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[KS]

NO... it cannot !!!








Havent you seen Terminator : Rise of the Machines .. and then Terminator : Salvation .lol

 

[Avatar]

Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth will not allow this to happen.

 

[KS]

Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth will not allow this to happen.

Oh no...not again.

 

[mehboobkz]

Homosapiens would cease to exist against such radiation fallout....