nukes nukes nukes and other myths

I love science fiction... but unfortunately far too many scientists have based their theories on fiction instead of facts.

Since the 80s, the world has been bombarded by idiots that spout such nonsense as 'we have enough nukes to destroy the world 1,000 times over'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3917480/Could-survive-nuclear-winter-Shocking-video-reveals-black-skies-global-famine-killing-frosts-wipe-millions.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

The latest suggest that, with 'computer models' they have proven that the world would end if just 100 Hiroshima size bombs went off.

Those are around 15 kilotons. 15x100 is 1,500 kilotons. Since a megaton is 1,000 kilotons (in the metric system too) 1,500 kilo anything is 1.5 mega everything.

1.5 megatons is on the low end of a hydrogen bomb. One hydrogen bomb. The largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated in the air was by Russia called the 'Tsar bomb'. How big? It was roughly 30 megatons, or roughly 2,000 Hiroshima bombs, twenty times as big as what the computer model experts demands would end life as we know it.

So, a single bomb detonated over fifty years ago has already proven that their model is obviously, irrefutably wrong.

But...it...doesn't...stop...there...

Los Vegas is within sight of where they tested (by exploding them above ground) roughly 300 nukes of all kinds, all of them MUCH bigger than the two dropped on Japan. Since the 40s, well over 1,000 nukes have been detonated, most above ground, almost all of them orders of magnitude more powerful than... You get the point, right?

But the stupidity persists. The fear mongering and hysteria over nukes persists.

And, like clockwork, we get models and reports that 'prove' that the sky is falling. Well, don't fall for it.

Entirely too many scientist make models based on fiction, not well-known fact. Willful ignorance, because they had to have looked at these above ground detonations in order to develop these models.

We have, already, detonated more than enough warheads to end life everywhere... and nothing happened at all. This is not to suggest that nukes are some sort of health food, just it is not and never has been the end of the world. Hiroshima is a highly populated state, today, with a barely detectable increase in cancer.

Nukes are not bullets. They may be weapons of mass destruction, but they are really not mass produced. They're not Fords rolling off an assembly line, they're more like science projects or custom built homes. They're all a little different, a little unique. That's why approximately 5-10 percent of them were 'test fired' outside of Vegas or other places to ensure quality controls were always maintained.

We did it.
Russia did it.
China did it.

All the nuclear powers live-test their new designs, and they test lots of them. They test and detonate and adjust and test and detonate until they feel confident that they can rely on them going off and not drop a dud.

Space X had to test lots of engines, costing millions, before anyone trusted them enough to put/bet a payload on it.

Common sense has been driven out of science. Reports like that should be a SNL skit not "news".

It plays well in fiction, and yelling the sky is falling or the world is coming to an end will bring in the federal funds... but that doesn't make it science.

It makes it fiction.

It also makes me doubt climate science models too, but that's a separate issue.