What would the world be like if the cold war turned hot?

[Lovro]

Also if you have a realy big bomb the force of the explosion in the middle of the bomb would spread the outer bomb nuke material away so it would no longer be at the point of criticall mass.

But you could redisign the bomb to contain more stages (tsar was designed as a fission-fusion-fision bomb but last stage was then dropped because it would otherwise be too powerfull) Imagine a 7 stage H bomb

[Lovro]

I came up with another question- If you could go back in time and talk with the guys at manhattan project, einstein, nazi scientist... (everyone who contributed in making of the bomb) and convice them not to develop nukes. Would you realy do it?

IMO nukes were the only things actually preventing WW3 because both sides knew they would get wiped out. If there were no nukes we would have a massive convetional WW3 IMO

[dragonfliet]

I came up with another question- If you could go back in time and talk with the guys at manhattan project, einstein, nazi scientist... (everyone who contributed in making of the bomb) and convice them not to develop nukes. Would you realy do it?

No, because a) nukes were helpful in ending the pacific part of WWII and I firmly believe that despite the sadness of the deaths it saved many, many Japanese (as well as American) lives. b) people would have developed it anyways even if you had convinced those men not to. That's the way of war and the military.

~Jason

[Shr3d]

On my comment about the hydrogen bomb- Aren't hydrogen bombs 3000x more powerful than the atom bomb dropped in hiroshima?

That's what I heard, and if it's true, there wouldn't be any middle east once the bomb is dropped there.

[slayera]

It is a worst case scenario but USA wont nuke Middle East for shure.

I would not take that bet, Bush's heads have all ready had those plans in place if Iran develops a nuke and Israel all ready blew the shit out of one nuclear facility years ago. Israel will not wait for Iran to nuke them first. The Jews learned a hard lesson along time ago not to sit around and wait to see what happens.

Just as I said:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070106/ts_ ... _israel_dc

[zombie@computer]

On my comment about the hydrogen bomb- Aren't hydrogen bombs 3000x more powerful than the atom bomb dropped in hiroshima?

That's what I heard, and if it's true, there wouldn't be any middle east once the bomb is dropped there.

h-bombs are fission bombs. They have a bomb like the hiroshima bomb inside them to simply 'start them up'. Fission, the technology that allows us to convert solid mass into energy, is amazing. If we could convert a mere gram of some material completely into energy, we could power the globe for 1000's of years!

Oh, and its stupid to compare current nuclear devices with one of the world's first a-bombs. It's like comparing the intel core 2 duo with an abacus

[firedfns13]

lmao rightly put... The bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were measured in Kilotons... instead of Megatons of tnt.
Take the 9 kiloton (i think that was one) and compare that to an average 9 megaton one now...

but yes, Nukes were essential in keeping a million (est. by the army to invade japan) us casualties from happening, and many more japanese deaths. I also believe without them the Cold war would have ended humanity with conventional weapons, kinda like how the 2 world wars anihilated Europe.

[Trip]

Keep in mind that during the Cold War, the Soviet Army had more nuclear weapons than NATO, and the fact that America was beaten by Vietnamese forces but we won against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

So in a sense it did turn hot but not all-out. I think it would have ended a stalemate but whoever won it would have been a Pyrrhic victory (come on in the Cold War the Soviets controlled the biggest army the world has ever seen over 16 million men or so)

[Sorrow]

If it turned hot both the USSR and the US would've destroyed this world 7 times over.
remaining survivors would probably die during the Nuclear winter that would ensue.

-I love doom scenarios.

[Dionysos]

If it turned hot both the USSR and the US would've destroyed this world 7 times over.
remaining survivors would probably die during the Nuclear winter that would ensue.

-I love doom scenarios.

Somewhere, away from the major targets and in thrid world countries people would survive. It would be a step backwards in technology, but we would survive.

[Sorrow]

perhaps...

[AnthraX1]

Hiroshima was not that powerful I mean the bomb just blew up a couple blocks... the death tole was high becaouse it was a populated city... nuclear bombs are very destructive and very well cause world wide panic but there not as powerful as people think.

[Sorrow]

This is quite severe even for such a small yield nuke...

[Mr. Happy]

It was small nuke, and the city was densely populated, but the destroyed area was a lot larger than you might think. 68% of the building were destroyed (wikipedia)

[Dead-Inside]

Hiroshima was not that powerful I mean the bomb just blew up a couple blocks... the death tole was high becaouse it was a populated city... nuclear bombs are very destructive and very well cause world wide panic but there not as powerful as people think.

Yes, they are.