1:55 - Chapter 1 - How do nukes work 10:45 - Chapter 2 - Early work 20:10 - Chapter 3 - The manhattan project 46:30 - Chapter 4 - Hiroshima & Nagasaki 1:06:50 - Chapter 5 - The age of the H Bomb 1:27:40 - Chapter 6 - Development in delivery systems 1:48:00 - Chapter 7 - Legislation 1:54:10 - Chapter 8 - The nuclear world today
I don't know about everyone else but I love these long form videos. I'm a truck driver, and these are my background noise for the day. This one was especially interesting. It's crazy to me that there are those world leaders out there that have all this information and more, and yet they're still seemingly chomping at the bit to use them. If humans ever go extinct, I'm betting it will be our own fault, or rather their's
Believe it, or not, they're quite the opposite of chomping at the bit to use them. They're viewed as an ultimate deterrent and no more. The leaders of all nuclear capable nations are utterly terrified of the prospect of their use, as there are no feasibility studies that indicate anything less than total societal collapse worldwide, even if only a partial exchange were to happen. Efforts to allay public fears were abandoned years ago, when the best (and still ridiculously paltry) means for contingency plans were found to be utterly untenable. The remaining and vastly reduced populations would be too fractured, dying miserably, sick, starving and trying to eek out any means of survival, whilst living in an unprecedented toxic and apocalyptic environment, that all credible cohesion on any significant level would be next to zero. Given the specific structure of recent modern society, these difficulties would be even more exacerbated. In comparison, it would make the film "Threads" look like a slightly bad day.
I hear that, some people's content is good enough that the Vids ain't long enough, Kinda like the Triumph song Lay It on the line, great song, one of my top 5's, and no where near long enough lol.
I’m grounds maintenance and the whistlerverse is my day. I’m all in on 3 hr content, shame TH-cam would make it to hard to be worth the effort to get paid
Odd, I would have thought they would have been special ultra speed Mitchell movements, with zero tolerance oil bath Geneva Mechanism for two perf. pull down.
@@DrDeuteron not that I know of. I’m 41 years old and never in my life have I met a person named “Redwine” who wasn’t a second cousin or closer relative. There aren’t many of us.
Hello, aeronautical engineer and armature nuclear scientist (meaning I just study the discipline as a hobby), I have to agree. I am impressed with the accuracy and effort put into the research and writing, despite being an abridged history of nuclear weapons. This very subject can easily be a longer multi part video. I am a little sad there wasn't a mention of Wernher von Braun being the engineer of our rocket program and his reluctance of rockets being used for missiles.
The symbol for radiation is a film projector reel. Radiation aside I'm calling splitting the atom movie magic considering all the old footage of bomb testing was movie studio produced
he sugarcoats what the Germans and Japanese were doing to receive a reaction from the US in order to create and use the bomb in the first place it wasn't just "you do it first so they can't" it was "they are genociding the planet, starting with Poland, Europe, and next you"
I remember reading Tom Clancy's "The Sum of all Fears" in highschool, and that kind of roughly explained how nuclear bombs work, I'd recommend it, and a lot of other Tom Clancy books, they are great reads.
Agreed, Clancy goes into great detail of the events that occur between a timer saying "Let's explode!", to the bomb actually exploding, to what happens afterward, both compelling and scary reading.
I adore Tom Clancy’s work. I have always wanted to know who his sources were. He completely predicted 9/11 ways back in the late 80’s. As a an undergrad, I was shocked at how many fellow political science students, all guys, felt that I was stepping all over some bro code by joining a discussion about various Tom Clancy novels..😂 I wonder now what they think of the current presidential race.🤣😂🤣
For some comparisons to put things into context: Little Boy's yield of 15kt is equivalent to a pile of TNT that's just a smidge under the weight of the German WW2 era Admiral Hipper class cruiser (most famously including Prinz Eugen, which ironically was used as a nuclear guinea pig at Bikini Atoll) The first fusion weapon Ivy Mike's yield would need a pile of TNT 4 times heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza
Nuclear weapons are also just over engineered fire bombs. If you're close enough for the shockwave to get you the intense heat would have already done its thing.
@@toastercatx I'm British. We use both imperial and metric in a weird eldritch combination of sorts. The numbers were more to put the kiloton and megaton numbers into a better context
I consumed twenty six beers, a multipack of Wheat Crunchies, a large mixing bowl of popcorn, two small children and a pack of sausages watching this. That was a good watch to take up half of my night!
One thing I like about your many channels is that you give the informations you have found, usually very good information, but you also warn us not to be surprised if we find different information on a specific point . And it is very pleasant, respectful and informative towards your audience in order to preserve our critical spirit with regard to your comments. And that’s something that’s increasingly rare in today’s media. This is one of the things that makes me prefer your very informative videos to those of other channels. Continue to educate us intelligently 👍
A small section of inter fission/fusion bombs are often overlooked, with two notable shots. The first of the two "Item" shot was a boosted fission bomb where a small amount of tritium was burned in the plutonium core. This fusion itself provides a negligible amount of power, but the fast neutrons it releases allows a close to doubling of the plutonium that is fissioned before the core blows itself apart. Item yielded 45 killotonnes. The second was "George" shot which was a semi staged hydro test. This was a further refinement of boosting in which a significant portion of the power delivered was from fusion itself. Its practical scale however was limited by the incorporation of fusion fuel into the fission device itself. You could argue the soviet RDS6 is a version or variant of this design. George had a yield of 225 killotonnes.
The fact he dipped out of physics is the most tragic thing. He could of added as much as fermi or durack etc. Sad. The fact he felt guilt after being left in a zero choice scenario is depressing. He was a scientist, not the best, but damn he was the right man to corral that bunch of off the wall physicists. He should have been proud. The bomb was inevitable. Mr Anderson.
Atomic Weapons don't exist.It has been over 70 years now.70 years are a long time for a mortal.Given Human Nature if Atomic Weapons really existed;Someone would have used them to take over The World by now.Just stop and think for a moment.You have a Invention - The Atomic Bomb,which is capable of demolishing Entire Cities,which can crush The Human Spirit and which has "The Power" to literally enslave/conquer The Whole World and No One All Of This Time has tried to take over The World???It doesn't make any sense.Some people might say this is because of "Mutually Assured Destruction",but my devastating point is this:The Americans were "seemingly" the first to develop Atomic Weapons years before Anyone else,so if The Americans were the first to develop Atomic Weapons and had Atomic Weapons,then why didn't they use them to take over The World.They could have bombed every other Country in The World and then enslaved the survivors.No Army in The World could have stopped them at the time.People will say what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?What about All the pictures,photos,videos,destroyed buildings and dead bodies?When I look at those pictures and videos of destroyed buildings;they look "burned","scorched" and "incinerated" to Me;not by "One Giant Brutal Super-Bomb",but by Thousands,Tens Of Thousands maybe even Hundreds Of Thousands of "Mini-Firebombs".To Me those devastated buildings don't appear to have been "Crushed" by "One-Single Mega-Brutal Crushing Super-Force",but by "Innumerable Smaller Burning-Forces".Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like burned Towns/Cities instead of Towns/Cities that were completely wiped out by "One Enormous Force".Now this is only Theoretical.I could be very-wrong,but if Atomic Weapons truly existed - by My estimates a Atomic Bomb would have not only "Completely Flattened" a Entire City to a pancake,but it would have also left "A Giant Crater" in the ground.The sheer "Monstrous Crushing Force" of a falling Atomic Bomb would have not only flattened The Entire City to ground-level it would have also "Torn-Apart The Very Ground From The Ground Itself".The Entire City would have been "Grinded Into Dust"- there would be Absolutely Nothing and Nobody left except "A Enormous Crater".There would be no clue that a City even existed.Example:If You build a Sandcastle on The Beach ( The Sandcastle is The City and You are The Atomic Bomb ) and then jump and stomp on it or punch it with All of Your might;it will Completely Flatten and You may even carve a Deep Hole in the ground.The Demons and The Fallen Angels who rule over this World need "Human Life Blood".Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "Satanic Human-Sacrifice Rituals".All of those Hundreds Of Thousands of people were being sacrificed to Demons and Fallen Angels for their blood.Many Ancient Civilizations from The Past were also sacrificing people for their blood,because The Demons and The Fallen Angels told them so.The Wars in The World are Human Sacrifice Rituals.Nothing has changed.Atomic Weapons are a monstrous deception designed to frighten The Public out of their Minds in order to create a Future situation where A False Saviour or False Saviours can rescue them.If Atomic Weapons truly existed;Someone would have used them to take over The World by now,but Nobody has and maybe this is because Atomic Weapons don't exist!
The reason Teller was the way he was, he experienced first hand what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe after the First World War. He experienced just how depraved they could be. That deeply affected him on a personal level. Because of that, he never trusted the Soviets to do the right thing. He was a much more deeply complex man than you give him credit for.
Simon, my father worked on Project Hurricane, he told me that the reason why the UK went down the path of an independent nuclear deterrent was because we had the US with nuclear technology demonstrated, we knew that the soviets were working towards it. But we found ourselves in the middle. After the US slammed the door on us in 1946 by the US, after we had given them every thing we knew, we were piggy in the middle, we had no choice. This caused a massive reallocation of funds and we could not afford the old colonial system, not that I defending it. The simple fact is that in the late 40's and 50's London was the financial capital of the world and the worry was that if the Soviets sailed a boat with a nuclear device on board into the port of London they could have wiped out the world's banking industry and turned the clock back to the middle ages. Let us also consider the massive economic advantage of nuke missiles, you don't have to pay an air crew to over fly enemy territory to drop their cargo, or have to avoid flak from pissed off natives as you fly back after dropping it. Your videos are awesome but we do need to consider all the points of view
This might be the single dumbest most misinformed point of view of all time. The us got all of their nuclear knowledge from the nazis whether it was from stolen intel, or scientists that either defected or they saved from Nuremberg. Britain hasn’t been anything since the 1800’s. Hence why their little brother had to save them in 2 separate world wars. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤡🤡🤡🤡
Yes we were! We were just a little paranoid over all the little Oxbridge Communists handing over our nuclear secrets because of their "principles". We still loved you enough to bail you out financially.@@markkettlewell7441
Veritasium has a great video to explain that when nuclear energy was discovered, it was a purely atomic scale phenomenon that scientists had no reason to think could ever be harnessed for power generation let alone for a bomb. That changed when Leo Szilard envisioned a chain reaction.
Technical aside from a guy who knows a thing or two about this…Uranium 236 is also fairly stable…just look up its half-life. But the process of U-235 capturing a neutron results in U-236 with an unstable nucleus, because not all the protons/neutrons are in their ground energy state. This is called an excited atom, denoted like this: U-236* And U-236* is incredibly unstable, unlike U-236, so it will almost immediately fission.
Anyone who is interested in the Manhattan Project or the development of atomic weapons, I recommend "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. Just finished it and while it goes into depth (for a non-theoretical physicist) about nuclear physics, it seems to be the best single piece of first hand accounts of the birth of atomic physics ever written.
I was at the Trinity Site on it's 50th anniversary. I met a former Army MP that had been there on the day of the first atomic explosion. Truly, a "Bucket List" item for me. *P.S. (1) If one Russian Officer had done the job, years ago, as he described he was trained for, We'd all be dead. He didn't trust the information that he was receiving from their missile detection system. Just because the Russian "Early Warning System" was unreliable and declared a false incoming missile attack of hundreds from the U.S. (2) A very high altitude EMP overhead attack using one nuclear weapon, would shut the U.S. almost completely down. Not a single mushroom cloud would be involved. These two statements are based on information that I have read and heard on documentaries. Thank You Simon. Very interesting, detailed and well presented. Peace & Best Regards
The Nanaimo bar is a bar dessert that requires no baking and is named after the Canadian city of Nanaimo in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a wafer, nut, and coconut crumb base; custard icing in the middle; and a layer of chocolate ganache on top. Credit to Wikipedia Just because you mentioned the namesake...
Good video. One thing I do want to note, is that in the “Nuclear Club” section (1h in), you forgot Israel, which gained nuclear weapons somewhere between France and China, alongside South Africa. Israel’s programme IS surrounded by secrecy, but they definitely have at least 40, if not more.
I would love to see one of these long form videos about the development of stealth technology. That would be really cool, although probably also fairly hard to research, since I would bet governments aren't very keen to give that info out
I think the reaction is over before the flash, because the 1st ultra short flash is the completed explosion heating the bomb case, which becomes a millions of degrees light bulb filament for a brief period, then for a few milliseconds your seeing the heated air, and then finally it's expanding slow enough a shock wave can overtake it, and then you're looking at the compressed/heat air in the shock, which is much colder than the fireball behind, but still a few hundred thousand degrees (F, C, K, R, idc). The closest we can imagine is a thousand lighting bolts, all stuck in the ON position.
Amazing video...great as always. I do disagree with the assessments that the US military did not care about the impact on the people and only viewed the cities as targets (factories, etc). I think all involved understood the impact and gravitas of what was happening. It literally crushed RO
Kinda shocked he used a mine explosion in BC and not the Halifax harbour explosion as an example because it was supposedly the largest explosion until the nuclear bombs
The first measurement in weight of plutonium was done at the University of Chicago Jones laboratory. The small room is on the national register of historic places, and labeled as such on the door to the room. And of course, the first self-sustaining nuclear pile was done at Amos Alonzo Stagg football field on the campus of the University of Chicago, in a squash court underneath the seating area.
This is going to take me a few watches to get my head around. Physics make my head hurt 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️ On a side note, i really love these long form videos.
The "silver plate" paint job wasn't rattle can or even paint at all. It was called silver plate because they didn't paint it to save weight. The silver was the color of the metal it was made of.
This isn't everything I need to know, you didn't even discuss what concentration of acid or which acids are needed to dissolve the Uranium, how to separate the desired material, or any other useful engineering information. Good thing I got my books or I'd be left screwed unable to build this WMD. I mean Hypothetically?
@@KensCounselingCouch Don't act like every single person carrying around a tracking/listening device in their pockets aren't already on every list known to every alphabet agency that should be abolished already.
What a great explanation of how nukes work in the first 11 minutes I've got some TNT and yellow cake in the kitchen also an Arduino for timing I think I might have a good old DIY try at a nuke this weekend 😜
Thank you for mentioning the South African program. Its amazing how rare its even given a single tiny footnote and how people know about it or the voluntary ending
33:30 The biggest issue making a bomb is enritching enough U235, it took YEARS for the USA to get enough together for a couple of bombs, and it's the biggest stumbling block for all the countries who have tried, so the idea that a little shed in Wales was churning 51KG a day (enough for about 10 bombs) in 1943 is laughable.. Love the rest of the video though, only a couple of little mistakes.. Good watch..
@@jeffdroogExactly. The two A-bombs dropped on them were nothing compared to the decades long suffering, devastation, and death they brought to all of the countries they invaded and occupied up and down the pacific.
Japan in many innovative and disgustingly barbaric ways butchered (yes, like animals) an estimated 23 MILLION civillians and POWs. That does NOT include Allied military dead. In turn, Japan suffered an estimated 3.5 million dead including military casualties. They got off easy.
I believe the fissile material isn’t the only radioactive particles to spread… the closer to the ground the explosion is, the more dust and non-fissile material can be spread around, making ground bursts much more dangerous than air bursts in terms of residual radioactive materials.
Excellent video! Also, I'd be on board for a lighter "Everything you need to know about Modern Life" aimed at being a snapshot of current politics, wars, science, exploration, philosophy, culture, etc from the last decade.
The tone at the end reminded me of a quote "Cave-men of the world, unite!" from Mordecai Roshwald's 'Level 7' circa. 1959, a story written as the journal of a "button pusher" in the lowest level of an unspecified super power's deepest nuclear bunker. The most bleak and depressing story I've come across, do NOT recommend, but the quote is amusing. It is a portion of a "slogan" that the last 2 surviving bunkers exchanged as a game. Since nobody left alive even knew why they were fighting they had signed a peace treaty, and were referred to as "the ex-enemy".
I deeply resent the description of how US war planners viewed Hiroshima without at least balancing it against the MASSIVE amount of horror and suffering the Japanese had unleashed on the world, or the other driving factors for use of the bomb… namely an exhaustion for throwing away the lives of tens of thousands US soldiers fighting a defeated enemy who’s last objective was to take as many Americans with them as possible. Yes, civilians paid the price for the choices of their leaders but we can never know how much further horror was avoided by bringing Japan to surrender and avoiding a mainland invasion of Japan which still would have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Not excusing the use of the bomb, but that was a wildly one-sided take on the choice to deploy it.
Not using the bomb: 1) a million Allied deaths and ten million Japanese deaths in Operation Downfall. 2) a hundred thousand deaths per Month in Japanese occupied areas (mostly China)
The U.S. should have used More than 2. Only the Nazi's and the Jews get all the Press. Japan and their heinous crimes are virtually left out of History. My father fought in Europe & Afrika, U.S. Army, my father-in-law fought in the Pacific Theater, U.S. Army and An Uncle was U.S. Navy Pacific Theater. Japan was EQUALLY Evil As the Nazi's, in Every Way. Japan Brought This On Themselves! Japan didn't have The Vatican to help them escape to South America at the end of WWII, like the Nazi's did.
There are good books on this subject that would dispute your comment. Hiroshima was the choice target for a number of reasons, namely the geography meant that the explosion and fireball would be better reflected and do greater damage. It had also been spared conventional bombing, and this made it easy to do though assessment of the damage that a nuclear blast had achieved. The invasion of the Japanese mainland had already been cancelled, and not simply because the bombs were ready. There was also a number of options considered for the use of the nuclear bombs on Japan that were considered and and dismissed. This included dropping a bomb on an unpopulated area as a demonstration of the power. They also considered warning the city that was to be attacked to allow a large amount of people to evacuate. This was also dismissed. An attack on an unsuspecting, untouched population was the choice.
@@jimmyfreemantle879 Any book that disputes his comments can hardly be called "good". Hiroshima was a target because of it's military use, its factories, and because it makes no sense to bomb a city that's already been bombed out. The invasion of the mainland, Operation Downfall, was Not cancelled. The planning was just about done in the first week of August, with a November start date. Dropping one of the few bombs in existence on an unpopulated area was deemed to be throwing away our only chance to shock the Japanese into surrendering. There is a ridiculous amount of evidence behind this. Same reasoning for your "warning to evacuate". It robs you of the only chance to shock your enemy. You need to change the fairy tale books your reading.
@@jimmyfreemantle879 When you really only have 2 working toys in the toy box, at the time, it's best to choose wisely how to "play" with them. I have always favoured that decision. I visited the Trinity Site on it's 50th Anniversary. Best Regards
Let me begin by saying I was a nuclear weapons expert in the Air Force for 6 years and the first thing you have wrong is the word atomic, the press gave them the name atomic, they were officially called thermal nuclear weapons and never referred to as atomic.
At the peak of the wider Manhattan project it was as a whole across its dispersed sites, estimated to be consuming 10% of the total electrical power generated in the USA as a nation. One can see that this scale effort was well beyond the reach of the UK alone. It’s interesting to hear that the UK had already achieved such success in enriching Uranium. This is significant part of the problem and so a gun type bomb would have been a realistic proposition in short(ish) order.
The scary part youtube recommended this video right after ex cia analyst Larry Johnson warning who spoke in security council to open investigation about Nord stream and now in Russia and talk with the deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov and found out Russian do what they say nuke threat no joke
@@samuelgarrod8327 juries still out on that, my psyche tests all come back as a psychopath though but anyway I can still hear those damn gongs in the background
In the 80s, one expert said that, if a country like Iran threatened to use a nuclear weapon, they would get two calls, one from the USSR and one from the US, basically telling them that if they used such a weapon, their country would be glassed from border to border. The big boys in the game are what keeps everyone else from doing anything stupid.
@@Kikikikenokeno That's a memory I share. Did it work that way? Maybe. But undeniably folks thought that US % the Soviets were of powerful influence against the use of nukes by 3rd parties.
So if WWII lasted for 90 years rather than a mere 9 years (close to a century), that would equal the Tsar Bomba in the blink of an eye. That is terrifying. Well, I didn’t’t need to sleep tonight anyways.
Costco 8-26+-24 - [ ] Indian packets - [ ] Tums - [ ] Return lights and TV mount - [ ] Thank you Simon for your thorough and engagingly presented history of nuclear weapon development. I would like to offer a tiny, almost massless correction. At about 43:30 you mention that at the point of maximum pit compression, the initiator releases a burst of neutrinos to trigger the chain reaction. While the complex cascade of reactions that occurs during a nuclear explosion does release neutrinos, the chain reaction is initiated by the release (or injection) of neutrons. Neutrinos are useful for detecting nuclear testing, even for sub-kiloton devices, because neutrinos only extremely rarely interact with ordinary matter. This means that a test deep under a mountain can be detected on the other side of the globe almost as easily as if the test were performed a few miles away. This minor issue should not in any way detract from your superb production.
Growing up downriver (Columbia River) from Hanford, gotta say, thank you for saying Washington instead of Washington State :-) dunno why that means anything, but it's refreshing to hear.
Excellent crash course on a fascinating and horrific topic which is far more of a menace today than it was when we let the genie out of the bottle almost 80 years ago. Outstanding work as always Simon.
BRILLIANT comprehensive lowdown on Nuclear weaponry, history. Definitely better enjoyed at 0.9x speed (to Simon could just slow the f**k down just a bit. Like 2 hours of credit risk warnings on a radio ad.
1:47:04 A bazooka is a rocket launcher, not a recoilless rifle. A rocket launcher launches rockets which are self propelled, the rocket stays with the warhead, and propels the warhead mid flight. Recoilless rifles have no rocket motors attached to the warhead. They use a propellant cartridge, basically like a bullet's gunpowder. Those gasses get vented out the back eliminating almost all the recoil, hence the name. First most barrels where rifled, but now most aren't, but the name stuck. There are also recoilless rocket launchers though, but they still fire rockets, whereas recoilless rifles fire, basically, big bullets that explode. And as you show in the picture, you see no rocket engine, just a big projectile.
Agreed, Simon does have what was once a Side Project that has now evolved into an admirable Mega Project. Us bald guys with beards will enjoy a non-sponsored by a product video from Simon how to grow and coif such a magnificent beard! And please recommend your preferred beard oil/pomade! Thank you!
1:55 - Chapter 1 - How do nukes work
10:45 - Chapter 2 - Early work
20:10 - Chapter 3 - The manhattan project
46:30 - Chapter 4 - Hiroshima & Nagasaki
1:06:50 - Chapter 5 - The age of the H Bomb
1:27:40 - Chapter 6 - Development in delivery systems
1:48:00 - Chapter 7 - Legislation
1:54:10 - Chapter 8 - The nuclear world today
You're not trying hard enough
Thanks. Not sure why the video doesn't have these by default.
@@Defectoboy Because if it did,no one could do this.
Funny how 🇮🇱 wasn't mentioned.
@@PrimericanIdolhe did but🤫
I don't know about everyone else but I love these long form videos. I'm a truck driver, and these are my background noise for the day. This one was especially interesting. It's crazy to me that there are those world leaders out there that have all this information and more, and yet they're still seemingly chomping at the bit to use them. If humans ever go extinct, I'm betting it will be our own fault, or rather their's
I used to listen to long stuff as a box truck driver, and traveling piano teacher
Believe it, or not, they're quite the opposite of chomping at the bit to use them. They're viewed as an ultimate deterrent and no more. The leaders of all nuclear capable nations are utterly terrified of the prospect of their use, as there are no feasibility studies that indicate anything less than total societal collapse worldwide, even if only a partial exchange were to happen. Efforts to allay public fears were abandoned years ago, when the best (and still ridiculously paltry) means for contingency plans were found to be utterly untenable. The remaining and vastly reduced populations would be too fractured, dying miserably, sick, starving and trying to eek out any means of survival, whilst living in an unprecedented toxic and apocalyptic environment, that all credible cohesion on any significant level would be next to zero. Given the specific structure of recent modern society, these difficulties would be even more exacerbated. In comparison, it would make the film "Threads" look like a slightly bad day.
Petition for Simon to make a video: Battleships: everything you need to know
I truly love the long form simon whistler no matter the channel, I work nights so this is perfect
I hear that, some people's content is good enough that the Vids ain't long enough, Kinda like the Triumph song Lay It on the line, great song, one of my top 5's, and no where near long enough lol.
I drive long routes all day so this I perfect for me too
Yes, I work nights in manufacturing and these long form videos are great for that.
I’m grounds maintenance and the whistlerverse is my day. I’m all in on 3 hr content, shame TH-cam would make it to hard to be worth the effort to get paid
As long as Simon's ok, we're all happy with the content.
Simon, blink twice if you're not ok.
Fun fact, high speed photography and thus ultra slow motion video was developed out of the timing mechanisms made for nukes.
Odd, I would have thought they would have been special ultra speed Mitchell movements, with zero tolerance oil bath Geneva Mechanism for two perf. pull down.
X-ray photography.
@@88njtrigg88 Oh not high speed, got it.
What is a nukes?
@@JimmyJamesJ "nukes" is a shortened way to refer to nuclear weapons.
Nuclear scientist here. Bravo on the explainer. I’m consistently impressed by the writing from you guys.
any relation to Bob Redwine?
@@DrDeuteron not that I know of. I’m 41 years old and never in my life have I met a person named “Redwine” who wasn’t a second cousin or closer relative. There aren’t many of us.
Hello, aeronautical engineer and armature nuclear scientist (meaning I just study the discipline as a hobby), I have to agree. I am impressed with the accuracy and effort put into the research and writing, despite being an abridged history of nuclear weapons. This very subject can easily be a longer multi part video. I am a little sad there wasn't a mention of Wernher von Braun being the engineer of our rocket program and his reluctance of rockets being used for missiles.
The symbol for radiation is a film projector reel. Radiation aside I'm calling splitting the atom movie magic considering all the old footage of bomb testing was movie studio produced
@@jasonvoorhees8545dumb
Simon’s beard now qualifies as mega project.
Petition now for its own video
looks crap and underwhelming tbh
@@JK-dv3qea bit mean
@@JK-dv3qe...NON-BELIEVER!!!
Has always been, the man is my top beard crush
Simon saying to stick around for a couple hours made me check the video to make sure he wasn’t toying with my emotions!
he sugarcoats what the Germans and Japanese were doing to receive a reaction from the US in order to create and use the bomb in the first place
it wasn't just "you do it first so they can't"
it was "they are genociding the planet, starting with Poland, Europe, and next you"
I remember reading Tom Clancy's "The Sum of all Fears" in highschool, and that kind of roughly explained how nuclear bombs work, I'd recommend it, and a lot of other Tom Clancy books, they are great reads.
Agreed, Clancy goes into great detail of the events that occur between a timer saying "Let's explode!", to the bomb actually exploding, to what happens afterward, both compelling and scary reading.
I adore Tom Clancy’s work. I have always wanted to know who his sources were. He completely predicted 9/11 ways back in the late 80’s. As a an undergrad, I was shocked at how many fellow political science students, all guys, felt that I was stepping all over some bro code by joining a discussion about various Tom Clancy novels..😂 I wonder now what they think of the current presidential race.🤣😂🤣
For some comparisons to put things into context:
Little Boy's yield of 15kt is equivalent to a pile of TNT that's just a smidge under the weight of the German WW2 era Admiral Hipper class cruiser (most famously including Prinz Eugen, which ironically was used as a nuclear guinea pig at Bikini Atoll)
The first fusion weapon Ivy Mike's yield would need a pile of TNT 4 times heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza
ANYTHING but the metric system
and add radiation
Nuclear weapons are also just over engineered fire bombs. If you're close enough for the shockwave to get you the intense heat would have already done its thing.
@@toastercatx 15kt is a touch north of 30,000,000lbs
@@toastercatx I'm British. We use both imperial and metric in a weird eldritch combination of sorts. The numbers were more to put the kiloton and megaton numbers into a better context
I consumed twenty six beers, a multipack of Wheat Crunchies, a large mixing bowl of popcorn, two small children and a pack of sausages watching this. That was a good watch to take up half of my night!
Ah yes, consumable children! 😂
Them bones get stuck in my teeeth.
Half ounce of herb
One titanium cube
Do you eat kids for a snack every night, or just for these mega-mega-project videos?
this video should get an award for being both accessible and comprehensive
One thing I like about your many channels is that you give the informations you have found, usually very good information, but you also warn us not to be surprised if we find different information on a specific point . And it is very pleasant, respectful and informative towards your audience in order to preserve our critical spirit with regard to your comments. And that’s something that’s increasingly rare in today’s media. This is one of the things that makes me prefer your very informative videos to those of other channels. Continue to educate us intelligently 👍
A small section of inter fission/fusion bombs are often overlooked, with two notable shots.
The first of the two "Item" shot was a boosted fission bomb where a small amount of tritium was burned in the plutonium core. This fusion itself provides a negligible amount of power, but the fast neutrons it releases allows a close to doubling of the plutonium that is fissioned before the core blows itself apart.
Item yielded 45 killotonnes.
The second was "George" shot which was a semi staged hydro test. This was a further refinement of boosting in which a significant portion of the power delivered was from fusion itself. Its practical scale however was limited by the incorporation of fusion fuel into the fission device itself. You could argue the soviet RDS6 is a version or variant of this design.
George had a yield of 225 killotonnes.
Thank you for a Mega long video !!!!! More please
Simon's AI writing crew is compensating for inferior hardware.
The fact he dipped out of physics is the most tragic thing. He could of added as much as fermi or durack etc. Sad. The fact he felt guilt after being left in a zero choice scenario is depressing. He was a scientist, not the best, but damn he was the right man to corral that bunch of off the wall physicists. He should have been proud. The bomb was inevitable. Mr Anderson.
At least teller was vilified for the rest of his life for what he did
@@Shinzon23You mean getting Oppie’s security clearance pulled because Teller was jealous of Oppenheimer’s ability to manage the Manhattan Project?
@@o2benazTeller was skipped-over for running the Super project and Livermore Radiation Lab, which he was not happy about.
Atomic Weapons don't exist.It has been over 70 years now.70 years are a long time for a mortal.Given Human Nature if Atomic Weapons really existed;Someone would have used them to take over The World by now.Just stop and think for a moment.You have a Invention - The Atomic Bomb,which is capable of demolishing Entire Cities,which can crush The Human Spirit and which has "The Power" to literally enslave/conquer The Whole World and No One All Of This Time has tried to take over The World???It doesn't make any sense.Some people might say this is because of "Mutually Assured Destruction",but my devastating point is this:The Americans were "seemingly" the first to develop Atomic Weapons years before Anyone else,so if The Americans were the first to develop Atomic Weapons and had Atomic Weapons,then why didn't they use them to take over The World.They could have bombed every other Country in The World and then enslaved the survivors.No Army in The World could have stopped them at the time.People will say what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?What about All the pictures,photos,videos,destroyed buildings and dead bodies?When I look at those pictures and videos of destroyed buildings;they look "burned","scorched" and "incinerated" to Me;not by "One Giant Brutal Super-Bomb",but by Thousands,Tens Of Thousands maybe even Hundreds Of Thousands of "Mini-Firebombs".To Me those devastated buildings don't appear to have been "Crushed" by "One-Single Mega-Brutal Crushing Super-Force",but by "Innumerable Smaller Burning-Forces".Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like burned Towns/Cities instead of Towns/Cities that were completely wiped out by "One Enormous Force".Now this is only Theoretical.I could be very-wrong,but if Atomic Weapons truly existed - by My estimates a Atomic Bomb would have not only "Completely Flattened" a Entire City to a pancake,but it would have also left "A Giant Crater" in the ground.The sheer "Monstrous Crushing Force" of a falling Atomic Bomb would have not only flattened The Entire City to ground-level it would have also "Torn-Apart The Very Ground From The Ground Itself".The Entire City would have been "Grinded Into Dust"- there would be Absolutely Nothing and Nobody left except "A Enormous Crater".There would be no clue that a City even existed.Example:If You build a Sandcastle on The Beach ( The Sandcastle is The City and You are The Atomic Bomb ) and then jump and stomp on it or punch it with All of Your might;it will Completely Flatten and You may even carve a Deep Hole in the ground.The Demons and The Fallen Angels who rule over this World need "Human Life Blood".Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "Satanic Human-Sacrifice Rituals".All of those Hundreds Of Thousands of people were being sacrificed to Demons and Fallen Angels for their blood.Many Ancient Civilizations from The Past were also sacrificing people for their blood,because The Demons and The Fallen Angels told them so.The Wars in The World are Human Sacrifice Rituals.Nothing has changed.Atomic Weapons are a monstrous deception designed to frighten The Public out of their Minds in order to create a Future situation where A False Saviour or False Saviours can rescue them.If Atomic Weapons truly existed;Someone would have used them to take over The World by now,but Nobody has and maybe this is because Atomic Weapons don't exist!
The reason Teller was the way he was, he experienced first hand what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe after the First World War. He experienced just how depraved they could be. That deeply affected him on a personal level. Because of that, he never trusted the Soviets to do the right thing. He was a much more deeply complex man than you give him credit for.
Simon, my father worked on Project Hurricane, he told me that the reason why the UK went down the path of an independent nuclear deterrent was because we had the US with nuclear technology demonstrated, we knew that the soviets were working towards it. But we found ourselves in the middle. After the US slammed the door on us in 1946 by the US, after we had given them every thing we knew, we were piggy in the middle, we had no choice. This caused a massive reallocation of funds and we could not afford the old colonial system, not that I defending it. The simple fact is that in the late 40's and 50's London was the financial capital of the world and the worry was that if the Soviets sailed a boat with a nuclear device on board into the port of London they could have wiped out the world's banking industry and turned the clock back to the middle ages. Let us also consider the massive economic advantage of nuke missiles, you don't have to pay an air crew to over fly enemy territory to drop their cargo, or have to avoid flak from pissed off natives as you fly back after dropping it. Your videos are awesome but we do need to consider all the points of view
Excellent point, well made 😅 The Americans were not our friends during those years.
The American government isn't anyones friend, not even it's own people@@markkettlewell7441
This might be the single dumbest most misinformed point of view of all time. The us got all of their nuclear knowledge from the nazis whether it was from stolen intel, or scientists that either defected or they saved from Nuremberg. Britain hasn’t been anything since the 1800’s. Hence why their little brother had to save them in 2 separate world wars. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤡🤡🤡🤡
Yes we were! We were just a little paranoid over all the little Oxbridge Communists handing over our nuclear secrets because of their "principles". We still loved you enough to bail you out financially.@@markkettlewell7441
Always the Yankees fault.
Veritasium has a great video to explain that when nuclear energy was discovered, it was a purely atomic scale phenomenon that scientists had no reason to think could ever be harnessed for power generation let alone for a bomb. That changed when Leo Szilard envisioned a chain reaction.
AWESOME! Thanks for producing this! I will have to watch this 2/3 times, but worth it! Thanks!
Technical aside from a guy who knows a thing or two about this…Uranium 236 is also fairly stable…just look up its half-life. But the process of U-235 capturing a neutron results in U-236 with an unstable nucleus, because not all the protons/neutrons are in their ground energy state. This is called an excited atom, denoted like this: U-236*
And U-236* is incredibly unstable, unlike U-236, so it will almost immediately fission.
Anyone who is interested in the Manhattan Project or the development of atomic weapons, I recommend "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. Just finished it and while it goes into depth (for a non-theoretical physicist) about nuclear physics, it seems to be the best single piece of first hand accounts of the birth of atomic physics ever written.
It’s available on audiobook. Especially great for LONG road trips as it’s about 30 hours long and goes into excruciating but very interesting detail.
Wow, nearly 2 hours - I need to grab the popcorn 🍿 👍
Popcorn is totes woke boomer feed
@@jennyanydots2389 cup of tea?
@@NoobGamer-sc9lt Tea is another name for nectar of the toxic left wing media mafia brugh. Also woke and for boomers.
@@NoobGamer-sc9lt Tea is for soy boys
@@NoobGamer-sc9lt What? Tea is nothin' but soy boy fuel.
I was at the Trinity Site on it's 50th anniversary. I met a former Army MP that had been there on the day of the first atomic explosion. Truly, a "Bucket List" item for me.
*P.S. (1) If one Russian Officer had done the job, years ago, as he described he was trained for, We'd all be dead. He didn't trust the information that he was receiving from their missile detection system. Just because the Russian "Early Warning System" was unreliable and declared a false incoming missile attack of hundreds from the U.S. (2) A very high altitude EMP overhead attack using one nuclear weapon, would shut the U.S. almost completely down. Not a single mushroom cloud would be involved. These two statements are based on information that I have read and heard on documentaries.
Thank You Simon. Very interesting, detailed and well presented. Peace & Best Regards
I was just running out of nuclear documentaries. Thanks for filling my void.
The Nanaimo bar is a bar dessert that requires no baking and is named after the Canadian city of Nanaimo in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a wafer, nut, and coconut crumb base; custard icing in the middle; and a layer of chocolate ganache on top. Credit to Wikipedia
Just because you mentioned the namesake...
And it's delicious btw.
I miss them and want them. Going to have to make myself some.
Other Nanaimo bars have strippers and whatnot!!!!
A very tasty treat
Great well-written and very thought provoking. Thank you Simon and team, very much enjoyed this !
This how I see a real Megaproject video should be. Its truly MEGA.
Good video.
One thing I do want to note, is that in the “Nuclear Club” section (1h in), you forgot Israel, which gained nuclear weapons somewhere between France and China, alongside South Africa. Israel’s programme IS surrounded by secrecy, but they definitely have at least 40, if not more.
I would prefer your videos like these be double or even triple the length and you include all pertinent information
I would love to see one of these long form videos about the development of stealth technology. That would be really cool, although probably also fairly hard to research, since I would bet governments aren't very keen to give that info out
By the time your brain registers the flash the reaction is already over.
Kind of like being in a failing submarine near the titanic.
I think the reaction is over before the flash, because the 1st ultra short flash is the completed explosion heating the bomb case, which becomes a millions of degrees light bulb filament for a brief period, then for a few milliseconds your seeing the heated air, and then finally it's expanding slow enough a shock wave can overtake it, and then you're looking at the compressed/heat air in the shock, which is much colder than the fireball behind, but still a few hundred thousand degrees (F, C, K, R, idc).
The closest we can imagine is a thousand lighting bolts, all stuck in the ON position.
@@DrDeuteron of course, when talking nuclear we would be remiss not to mention that simultaneity doesn’t really exist anyway. 😂
Amazing video...great as always. I do disagree with the assessments that the US military did not care about the impact on the people and only viewed the cities as targets (factories, etc). I think all involved understood the impact and gravitas of what was happening. It literally crushed RO
Simon, another very well-made video, thank you.
Kinda shocked he used a mine explosion in BC and not the Halifax harbour explosion as an example because it was supposedly the largest explosion until the nuclear bombs
Yeah.... the little artillery style ones went away in the 70s. Let's go with that.
The first measurement in weight of plutonium was done at the University of Chicago Jones laboratory. The small room is on the national register of historic places, and labeled as such on the door to the room. And of course, the first self-sustaining nuclear pile was done at Amos Alonzo Stagg football field on the campus of the University of Chicago, in a squash court underneath the seating area.
This is going to take me a few watches to get my head around.
Physics make my head hurt 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
On a side note, i really love these long form videos.
Simon has yielded to us Americans and now measures in Great Pyramids of Giza.
Duuno why you lot just can't go metric - like the rest of the world
The "silver plate" paint job wasn't rattle can or even paint at all. It was called silver plate because they didn't paint it to save weight. The silver was the color of the metal it was made of.
Interesting. I thought maybe the color was chosen to reflect thermal radiation from nearby nuclear fireballs.
This isn't everything I need to know, you didn't even discuss what concentration of acid or which acids are needed to dissolve the Uranium, how to separate the desired material, or any other useful engineering information. Good thing I got my books or I'd be left screwed unable to build this WMD. I mean Hypothetically?
Welcome to the government watch lists! It's fun and cozy here!
@@KensCounselingCouch Don't act like every single person carrying around a tracking/listening device in their pockets aren't already on every list known to every alphabet agency that should be abolished already.
In minecraft of course
The PUREX process used by France, Japan, and Russia is well documented online.
@@Spike-sk7qlthere's a difference between the passive surveillance of a normal citizen and the more specialised surveillance of being on a watchlist
Excellent episode Team. Absolutely top notch👌
Great video, been taking it all in over 3 days.
Extensive? Comprehensive? Brilliant, thank you.
Simon, I really enjoy your longer videos. I just clean my house and listen to you narrorate knowledge upon me.
What’s scary is that in fission weapons only about 3-5% of the fissile product actually breaks down throughout the entire process.
Crickey, a 2 hour video, I've saved this for my Friday night favorite.
What a great explanation of how nukes work in the first 11 minutes I've got some TNT and yellow cake in the kitchen also an Arduino for timing I think I might have a good old DIY try at a nuke this weekend 😜
Great job on touching all aspects of the nuclear history, including the making as well as the intent behind the development
You failed to mention one thing: BIG BADA BOOM
Are yoh also OG BB?
This is why I love this channel. I learned to only use my nukes as a last resort. It also helps that H-bombs release much less radiation.
When I had radiation for breast cancer my chest looked like raw meat. It was god-aweful. It gave me a tiny idea of those bombings in Japan.
Wait, I just almost tripped over myself. That's a 2-hour video. Simon, well done. I'm going to watch every bit of it
Thank God for radaway
Thank you for mentioning the South African program. Its amazing how rare its even given a single tiny footnote and how people know about it or the voluntary ending
Or the even rarer known about Swedish bomb project.
I have come soon enough. So soon that no one has watched the entirety of this video, 54 minutes after uploading.
I couldn't come soon enough.
I'm always coming...Squish
Watched every information packed minute. Thank you megaprojects team. This was excellent.
33:30 The biggest issue making a bomb is enritching enough U235, it took YEARS for the USA to get enough together for a couple of bombs, and it's the biggest stumbling block for all the countries who have tried, so the idea that a little shed in Wales was churning 51KG a day (enough for about 10 bombs) in 1943 is laughable.. Love the rest of the video though, only a couple of little mistakes.. Good watch..
Great video. It's amazing to see how many channels have came about from one man
Two hours on nuclear weapons and not one mention of Leo Szilard. Hmm. He pretty much started the Manhattan Project and all.
Man him going into the deep explanation of the effects of the nuclear bomb on Japan are chilling. It's hard to not see that as pure evil.
No,what japan was doing to others was inhuman...
@@jeffdroogExactly. The two A-bombs dropped on them were nothing compared to the decades long suffering, devastation, and death they brought to all of the countries they invaded and occupied up and down the pacific.
Japan in many innovative and disgustingly barbaric ways butchered (yes, like animals) an estimated 23 MILLION civillians and POWs. That does NOT include Allied military dead.
In turn, Japan suffered an estimated 3.5 million dead including military casualties.
They got off easy.
Plane: Everything you need to know when???
wind make wing go fwoosh
@@slezyorla😂😂
I believe the fissile material isn’t the only radioactive particles to spread… the closer to the ground the explosion is, the more dust and non-fissile material can be spread around, making ground bursts much more dangerous than air bursts in terms of residual radioactive materials.
Excellent video!
Also, I'd be on board for a lighter "Everything you need to know about Modern Life" aimed at being a snapshot of current politics, wars, science, exploration, philosophy, culture, etc from the last decade.
Hey Simon, I love your videos and I honestly think I could listen to you talk about the process in which paint actually dries for four hours lol
Fusion weapons is when fission weapons go Kaio-ken.
Kaio-what?
@@SuperVALERockKen...
"Kaio-ken...."
"Nooooooo"
"Times..."
"No no no no!"
"Four!!!!!!"
My friends dad actually worked at the ranch back in the day as an engineer! One of many Many MANY people that worked there.
Cool story liar!
The only thing I know and need to know, is that in case of nuclear war is that there is no winners.
It seems that the US came out pretty okay after the last one.
@@adamredwine774 The US have never been involved in a nuclear war.
@@abnurtharn2927 the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would disagree with you.
@@adamredwine774 The US dropped two nukes, it was not a nuclear war, it was a nuclear strike if you will.
@@adamredwine774Japan didn’t have nukes nor the capability to launch nukes, that’s not a nuclear war, stop being a regard.
What a fantastic video. Best megaprojects yet. Somehow managed to cram an epic amount into 2 hours.
pretty relevant
The tone at the end reminded me of a quote "Cave-men of the world, unite!" from Mordecai Roshwald's 'Level 7' circa. 1959, a story written as the journal of a "button pusher" in the lowest level of an unspecified super power's deepest nuclear bunker.
The most bleak and depressing story I've come across, do NOT recommend, but the quote is amusing. It is a portion of a "slogan" that the last 2 surviving bunkers exchanged as a game. Since nobody left alive even knew why they were fighting they had signed a peace treaty, and were referred to as "the ex-enemy".
Grabbed some popcorn, now me and my FBI agent will sit and enjoy the video.
the fbi meme obscures the people probably actually watching you, homeland security.
Epic efforts 🤯Thx
I deeply resent the description of how US war planners viewed Hiroshima without at least balancing it against the MASSIVE amount of horror and suffering the Japanese had unleashed on the world, or the other driving factors for use of the bomb… namely an exhaustion for throwing away the lives of tens of thousands US soldiers fighting a defeated enemy who’s last objective was to take as many Americans with them as possible. Yes, civilians paid the price for the choices of their leaders but we can never know how much further horror was avoided by bringing Japan to surrender and avoiding a mainland invasion of Japan which still would have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Not excusing the use of the bomb, but that was a wildly one-sided take on the choice to deploy it.
Not using the bomb:
1) a million Allied deaths and ten million Japanese deaths in Operation Downfall.
2) a hundred thousand deaths per Month in Japanese occupied areas (mostly China)
The U.S. should have used More than 2. Only the Nazi's and the Jews get all the Press. Japan and their heinous crimes are virtually left out of History. My father fought in Europe & Afrika, U.S. Army, my father-in-law fought in the Pacific Theater, U.S. Army and An Uncle was U.S. Navy Pacific Theater. Japan was EQUALLY Evil As the Nazi's, in Every Way. Japan Brought This On Themselves!
Japan didn't have The Vatican to help them escape to South America at the end of WWII, like the Nazi's did.
There are good books on this subject that would dispute your comment.
Hiroshima was the choice target for a number of reasons, namely the geography meant that the explosion and fireball would be better reflected and do greater damage.
It had also been spared conventional bombing, and this made it easy to do though assessment of the damage that a nuclear blast had achieved.
The invasion of the Japanese mainland had already been cancelled, and not simply because the bombs were ready.
There was also a number of options considered for the use of the nuclear bombs on Japan that were considered and and dismissed. This included dropping a bomb on an unpopulated area as a demonstration of the power.
They also considered warning the city that was to be attacked to allow a large amount of people to evacuate. This was also dismissed. An attack on an unsuspecting, untouched population was the choice.
@@jimmyfreemantle879 Any book that disputes his comments can hardly be called "good".
Hiroshima was a target because of it's military use, its factories, and because it makes no sense to bomb a city that's already been bombed out.
The invasion of the mainland, Operation Downfall, was Not cancelled. The planning was just about done in the first week of August, with a November start date.
Dropping one of the few bombs in existence on an unpopulated area was deemed to be throwing away our only chance to shock the Japanese into surrendering. There is a ridiculous amount of evidence behind this.
Same reasoning for your "warning to evacuate". It robs you of the only chance to shock your enemy.
You need to change the fairy tale books your reading.
@@jimmyfreemantle879 When you really only have 2 working toys in the toy box, at the time, it's best to choose wisely how to "play" with them. I have always favoured that decision.
I visited the Trinity Site on it's 50th Anniversary.
Best Regards
Best summary of nuclear weapons ever. Thank you so much to all the team putting this episode together.
Let me begin by saying I was a nuclear weapons expert in the Air Force for 6 years and the first thing you have wrong is the word atomic, the press gave them the name atomic, they were officially called thermal nuclear weapons and never referred to as atomic.
At the peak of the wider Manhattan project it was as a whole across its dispersed sites, estimated to be consuming 10% of the total electrical power generated in the USA as a nation. One can see that this scale effort was well beyond the reach of the UK alone.
It’s interesting to hear that the UK had already achieved such success in enriching Uranium. This is significant part of the problem and so a gun type bomb would have been a realistic proposition in short(ish) order.
The scary part youtube recommended this video right after ex cia analyst Larry Johnson warning who spoke in security council to open investigation about Nord stream and now in Russia and talk with the deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov and found out Russian do what they say nuke threat no joke
They're not going to do anything.
@@Wasteland88 read the Russian nuclear doctrine
@@NoobGamer-sc9ltHe wouldn't dare. His daddy Xi Jinping wouldn't let him.
You know the top gun theme, well right before it kicks in proper is those gongs....I can here them in the background on this video.
Then you have schizophrenia.
@@samuelgarrod8327 juries still out on that, my psyche tests all come back as a psychopath though but anyway I can still hear those damn gongs in the background
In the 80s, one expert said that, if a country like Iran threatened to use a nuclear weapon, they would get two calls, one from the USSR and one from the US, basically telling them that if they used such a weapon, their country would be glassed from border to border. The big boys in the game are what keeps everyone else from doing anything stupid.
Forgot about China & Pakistan
Ah sure bro sure 👍
@@Kikikikenokeno That's a memory I share. Did it work that way? Maybe. But undeniably folks thought that US % the Soviets were of powerful influence against the use of nukes by 3rd parties.
I love these videos all the different channels I listen to them at work.
So if WWII lasted for 90 years rather than a mere 9 years (close to a century), that would equal the Tsar Bomba in the blink of an eye. That is terrifying. Well, I didn’t’t need to sleep tonight anyways.
What are you on? Do less meth.
Costco 8-26+-24
- [ ] Indian packets
- [ ] Tums
- [ ] Return lights and TV mount
- [ ] Thank you Simon for your thorough and engagingly presented history of nuclear weapon development. I would like to offer a tiny, almost massless correction. At about 43:30 you mention that at the point of maximum pit compression, the initiator releases a burst of neutrinos to trigger the chain reaction. While the complex cascade of reactions that occurs during a nuclear explosion does release neutrinos, the chain reaction is initiated by the release (or injection) of neutrons. Neutrinos are useful for detecting nuclear testing, even for sub-kiloton devices, because neutrinos only extremely rarely interact with ordinary matter. This means that a test deep under a mountain can be detected on the other side of the globe almost as easily as if the test were performed a few miles away. This minor issue should not in any way detract from your superb production.
Unintentionally including my Costco list is the Universe’s way of rebuking me for making such a petty comment.
Simon’s beard is glorious
Growing up downriver (Columbia River) from Hanford, gotta say, thank you for saying Washington instead of Washington State :-) dunno why that means anything, but it's refreshing to hear.
I like puppies and Megaprojects.
Simon wants to genocide all dogs. 😂
As a long time viewer, I appreciate the longforms. Much love!
What you need to know is no one is going to use them.
Until their country is about to die and they want to not let enemies survive
Never say never
Dont be such a party pooper
Maybe ai will push the button
I'd use em, but my Doctor won't allow me to own them.
The ending of your videos are always so impactful.
Thank you, I really like this kind of informative and comprehance video, only remark is to please use normal units and not imperial
Brilliant stuff as always, Thanks team MegaProjects.
Excellent crash course on a fascinating and horrific topic which is far more of a menace today than it was when we let the genie out of the bottle almost 80 years ago. Outstanding work as always Simon.
Love this kind of content. 2 hours on everything about nuclear weapons? Yes please! 😊
Excellent overview of the creation of The Bomb.
Helluva breakdown
BRILLIANT comprehensive lowdown on Nuclear weaponry, history. Definitely better enjoyed at 0.9x speed (to Simon could just slow the f**k down just a bit. Like 2 hours of credit risk warnings on a radio ad.
1:47:04 A bazooka is a rocket launcher, not a recoilless rifle. A rocket launcher launches rockets which are self propelled, the rocket stays with the warhead, and propels the warhead mid flight. Recoilless rifles have no rocket motors attached to the warhead. They use a propellant cartridge, basically like a bullet's gunpowder. Those gasses get vented out the back eliminating almost all the recoil, hence the name. First most barrels where rifled, but now most aren't, but the name stuck. There are also recoilless rocket launchers though, but they still fire rockets, whereas recoilless rifles fire, basically, big bullets that explode.
And as you show in the picture, you see no rocket engine, just a big projectile.
Simon and his team have gone from making TH-cam vids to historical documentaries and I love it… someone nominate his for an Oscar 😂
Have a nice day Simon
What a ride. Bravo again for the details that get left out in schools. Any chance we get the followup on nuclear energy?
Agreed, Simon does have what was once a Side Project that has now evolved into an admirable Mega Project. Us bald guys with beards will enjoy a non-sponsored by a product video from Simon how to grow and coif such a magnificent beard! And please recommend your preferred beard oil/pomade! Thank you!