els@pur-phy.UUCP (Eric Strobel) (07/17/84)
Does anyone out there in netland monitor rain water for radioactivity??
(Or perhaps know of someone who does this, like some high school or college
classes occasionally do.) If so, and if any nukes cooked off in the blast,
perhaps the count in the rainwater rose a few weeks after the blast. I'm
sure there are many people who are curious about this, so I'm hoping for some
sort of response.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Someday, all this will be |
yours!!" | A message from the mental maze that
| calls itself:
"What??? The curtains????" |
| ERIC STROBEL
--------------------------------|
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els
INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCPhenry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/19/84)
> ......................... If so, and if any nukes cooked off in the blast, > perhaps the count in the rainwater rose a few weeks after the blast. ... Sorry to ruin your day, Eric, but nuclear weapons don't "cook off" in any very spectacular way. The most one would get would be a "fizzle" explosion, which would spray radioactive debris through the immediate vicinity, but wouldn't put anything substantial up into the stratosphere where it could travel long distances. Getting a nuclear explosion requires very fussy timing and just the right conditions; nuclear bombs are precision devices. [Obviously, I'm referring to their innards rather than their effects.] They explode properly only when triggered properly; anything else (fire, impact, mechanical damage) and they just go "splat" and make a nasty but fairly localized mess. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry