Timelapse: every nuclear weapon ever detonated
Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).
Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing"the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.” It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.
I watched that yesterday.
What an interesting reminded of the history of the last 70 years or so. Reminds me of the worries of childhood, - the Cuban Missile Crisis, the cold war, then the bringing down of the Berlin Wall. Great to see how testing has pretty much stopped but I was blown away that there were over 2000 explosions! That’s enormous. It’s a wonder anything is still alive.
Thats bloody mental!!
And we’re worried about Climate Change?????
Yeh, we have pretty much poisoned our plannet through nuclear explosions alone, let alone all the other pollution!
And there’s still a few Nut Jobs that have access to Nuclear Weapons today!!!!!
Yeh, we have pretty much poisoned our plannet through nuclear explosions alone, let alone all the other pollution!
But have we…
A volcano erupts each second.
In 1400BC the Santorini volcano was equivalent to 1million Hiroshima bombs.
Dunno really. Dont wanna get into politics of either side of the argument. I’m not really knowledgeable in the area. But I just cant see how it isnt doing some sort of damage
And there’s still a few Nut Jobs that have access to Nuclear Weapons today!!!!!
HEY!!!! The UN made me give all those warheads back 
More info regarding our overestimation of human power;
The type of volcano mentioned above (1mil nuclear bombs -SUPER VOLCANO- ) happens every 4000 years.
Mt St Helens or Krakatoa happen every 50-100 years and have an explosive force of 400-500 megaton.
The largest Nuclear Explosion EVER = 50 megaton. 100 times less than a big Vocano.
Hiroshima = 20kiloton
Thats explosive force, but what about radiation?
THis chart sould answer your question K2
Link to full scale of the chart above.
Cool, that puts things in perspective.
But what I meant before is not how does it effect humans, but how does the radiation from all those 2000+ detonations over the years effect the environment and the surrounding ecosystems?
If you are referring to ionizing radiation (not thermal radiation), I’ll explain it like this:
1 in 80 people will get a radiation sickness (such as cancer) WITHOUT EXPOSURE just by living a normal life.
1 in 20 will get radiation sickness of those that survive a nuclear explosion that are within 100km of the blast.
The initial heat wave from nuclear explosion is Thermal Radiation and what kills most.
Volcanoes have more thermal Radiation.
Volcanoes cause Nuclear Winters (1-20 years and possibly cause ice ages to begin).
If every bomb in existence was dropped at once it would cause a short nuclear winter (about 6 months)
The smallest of supervolcanoes would kill most of earths population.
A decent supervolcano would eradicate our species eg:Yellowstone Eruption.
The biggest nuclear bomb explosion:
Blast zone 30 miles. Would kill about 3 million if dropped on the most populated place on earth.
Ionizing Radiation would make a further 3 million sick, about 10,000 would die from ionizing radiation in the next 20 years. The radiation would clear in under 20 years. After that a further 90,000 would die as a result but would have lived a significant life.
The nuclear winter created by Krakatoa in 1883 lasted 4 years and killed 60% of human population. Today that would equal 4.5 billion people.
Note: The Tsar Bomba (biggest nuclear blast ever) had a low radiation yeild because of it’s design. Modern nuclear weapons don’t release as much ionizing radiation as a Powerplant Meltdown. Plants and animals live around Chernobyl (as do people). Plants and animals live around Fukushima. Plants and animals don’t live around live volcanoes.
Cool, that puts things in perspective.
But what I meant before is not how does it effect humans, but how does the radiation from all those 2000+ detonations over the years effect the environment and the surrounding ecosystems?
It really doesn’t affect the areas around it after a year or 2.
12 nuclear bombs have been set off in Australia.
500 people live in Womerra today - one of the test sites. And people lived there during the testing, some are still alive.
Cool, that puts things in perspective.
But what I meant before is not how does it effect humans, but how does the radiation from all those 2000+ detonations over the years effect the environment and the surrounding ecosystems?
It really doesn’t affect the areas around it after a year or 2.
12 nuclear bombs have been set off in Australia.500 people live in Womerra today - one of the test sites. And people lived there during the testing, some are still alive.
Ah k. This is what I was wondering 