Fallout’s Mini Nukes Really Exist
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ต.ค. 2018
- The Fallout series has a heavy dose of nuclear weapons in its games, but could one of its most famous ones actually exist? Kyle games the science on this week's Because Science!
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Learn more:
• KING OF THE WILD FRONTIER: bit.ly/2PAklOm
• KING OF THE ATOMIC FRONTIER: bit.ly/2PzKtc1
• NUCLEAR WEAPON DESIGN: bit.ly/2qlxTyM
• FUSION-BOOSTED FISSION WEAPONS: bit.ly/2EVAxW8
• DAVY CROCKETT: bit.ly/2yRhcAf
• “WALKING GHOST” PHASE: bit.ly/2yHYF9n
• THE PHYSICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: stanford.io/2zi4vgZ - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Hello vault dwellers! Thanks for watching. I *can* fast travel when enemies are nearby, because my show. Here's the test footage of the DC in action if you're curious: th-cam.com/video/xHiihPD7bLM/w-d-xo.html See you in footnotes! -- KH
Because Science “because my show “ 😂😂 oh kyle
Serious punch, Mr Hill. I'm waiting.
Kyle, how do you personally care for your hair? As a guy (me) who is experimenting with long hair (and looks damn good with it) yours is so much prettier than mine. Pls tell.
But you are in the void. How are there enemies? I though you where alone?
Because Science since people use mineral oil in PCs since there is no electrical conductivity, if a person was covered in it and struck by lightning somehow, would they still get hurt?
I know nothing about nuclear physics, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that you can’t fast travel when an enemy is nearby.
There's a mod for that...
@@andrewluscomb1519 ah is see,he was being even more realstic then,who plays vanilla fallout anymore?
@@dracomeme7945 what is vanilla fallout? There's unplayable and there's good...🤔
@@andrewluscomb1519 I was joking,I personally love fallout mods or no
@@dracomeme7945 lolol honestly only fallout 4 really needs mods not counting unofficial patches. There's just not enough in base to feel really like the past ones
5:50 "You cannot fast travel with enemies nearby"
You can if it's story based
Perspective -- kH
Fairly certain I did in 76.
@@IAmKnightsDawn It wouldn't let me when I tried before ;-;
its modded
oh...oh my...
that sponsor did not age well...
It fellout you could say
@@boomsssboom9804 that was bad.
And you should feel bad about it.
Loljk
Fallout 76 is a fun game that I and many other people still play
@@mano7636 your wrong.
And you should feel bad about it.
@@grimreaper3780 I'm technically not. Also might I ask if you've ever actually played it and if so when was the last time you did
4/10 loading screen was unrealistically fast
3.5/10 cant fast travel while enemies are nearby
ssd gang
At least the fact/tip was just as pointless as the ingame ones
Science..science never changes
Wait. No it totally does, all the time
This, but war.
Teknikally hte concept neveer dooes B^)
The rules of nature don't suddenly amend themselves to fit our understanding. Our understanding of those rules grows over time and self corrects with new discoveries. Science never changes, but our understanding of it does.
Love Hawks what’s the word we use to describe our understanding again? Oh that’s right, science
Yeah. It cracks me up every time how people say, for example, that you can't go faster than speed of light. Nope. Not possible. And while we are at it, let's base entire branches of science and give out hundreds of Nobel prises to people using that statement as axiom.
Pretty much the same was said 1000 years ago about a man never flying. Impossibility of visiting the moon, Earth being flat, Atom being inseparable (haha), etc.
I mean, I don't know if speed of light is THE CONSTANT, but something tells me it isn't, and that everyone who say it is are just deluded by their inability to see farther than their nose.
Because I think that all our science combined covers less than 0.1% of Universe's laws and mysteries. The fact that our primitive sensory organs and even our slightly less primitive (but still not really far from Stone Age) machines can't detect anything beyond that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It's like saying "I don't see any microbes, therefore they aren't real, and cannot exist."
Actually, both US and USSR also made a range of nuclear cannon shells with calibers of 155mm and 152mm respectively. They ranged in power from 0.07KT for W48 to about 2-2.5KT for W82 and the Soviet 3VB3. These, especially the Soviet one, are actually the size of the mini nuke in Fallout series. Or at the very least a lot closer to it.
These shells are smaller around than the Davey Crockett, but they use the less efficient ellipsoidal design to be so narrow. They are thus much heavier than the DC round.
Favorite nuke is the British chicken mine. They never deployed that one. Kinda weird that there was a nuke with a live chicken as a part.
@@Bacopa68 Well, the US also developed pigeon guided Anti Ship Missiles... Weapon development is weird.
@@Bacopa68, Because some people just want to be like the Japanese.
@@imapopo2924, Japan, back in WWII, made a Bat Bomb. It was used to target civilian households/neighborhoods in the U.S (and elsewhere probably) to infest peoples homes (I think and do some other bat-related stuff), but it was never deployed.
Why would we let people handle these when they would definitely drop these.
I feel like that Fallout takes place in an alternate universe in where either the uranium and plutonium they have access to puts out or radiates significantly weaker radiation, or through either passive genetics, genetic experimentation, or evolution Humans process and can handle radiation very differently than they do in the real world.
For example: One dose of 5 Sieverts of radiation will kill you, but in the fallout universe there are many that survived close to ground zero blast areas and lived under heavy radioactive fallout for years and years and years... By all accounts, all human life should be dead, but in the Fallout universe many of those surviving humans became Ghouls, and some Humans appear to not have been overtly affected by the global fallout hardly at all.
Its game man get over it .game is in alternatif reality . simulation reality
I have no idea wtf u just said
Actually the entire plot of Fallout 2 is about how your people are dying because of radiation related problems, sending you to find what's a essentially a "Make everything ecologically perfect" machine. Same with Fallout 3 and one of the major villain Factions, the Enclave considers all non-Enclave humans as irradiated mutants. In lore, the US government (actually Vault-Tec but whatever) used mostly Low Yield tactical nukes, aiming for the overall radiation to have died out around 25-30 years after the war.
Also remember Fallout takes place in a world that almost completely relied on nuclear power on a consumer level. They have medication that immediately negates radiation absorption and attenuates the rads you've already absorbed. They basically have magic medicine. People probably had a few doses of Rad-Away or Rad-X just to do some work on the old family car.
Point being, radiation definitely affected life in the fallout universe but differently than it affects us in the real world.
You can't do that in actual reality. It breaks physics in ways that you wouldn't even be able to have a universe, let alone people.
I agree with you
Oh wow, Bethesda couldn't even give him proper fabric and gave him canvas just like the bags.
The bags were supposed to be Canvas and they ended up being Vinyl.
Ironically you can get hurt or irradiated by using the mini nuke because it cant always launch it far enough away. If you read the lore you find the launcher never made it out of prototype because it couldn't get enough distance.
I said that at the end! -- kH
they were used by Power armor units because the range was far enough for the armor to protect them, but the fort where T51 and the Fat man were produced has a terminal entry about two soldiers getting vaporized during testing because it misfired and either only went a few feet or detonated on launch
It was meant to mirror the very real Davy Crocket launcher developed by the US
Ace Halle that’s literally the same as the Davey Crockett system, and is why it wasn’t fired, it’s clearly based off of the actual weapon
A G a great inspiration indeed
Nuclear launch detected.
Wait wrong game.
whenever i see a world untouched by war, a world of innocence, of lush forests and clear rivers.. i really just wanna nuke the crap out of it!
"I'm gone"
Starcraft reference. Nice.
Only a little Exterminatus?
Ironically with Fallout 76 that joke doesn't work, since there actually *is* a in game message of "nuclear launch detected"
This sponsor didn't age well but Todd gave Kyle money so I'm happy
True
Apparently F76 isn't bad now, haven't played it myself though.
@@JustAnotherAccount8 it’s…. Fine. I played it for 2 to 3 days. Not worth 60 especially not worth buying it’s dlc but if your looking for a way to mess around with friends then yeah it’s good
@@danieltukua4527 there is no dlc what do you mean?
Its launch was 😬😬
5:48 You cannot fast travel when enemies are nearby. Even if it's funny.
It just works
Its modded, the thor character model shouldve Told you that
@@declaringpond2276 yeah
I thought as long as you're not detected and the enemies are not hostile you can still fast travel.
He has mods
Hi all!
It's been a while.
I'd like to remark that the critical mass of plutonium can be as low as 6.2kg when high explosives are used to compress it to over twice its density. It should yield about 12 to 15kT per kg, but small nuclear devices are incredibly inefficient and dirty. Less than 1% of the nuclear material undergoes fission. This means that 99% of the plutonium or uranium is just vaporised and dispersed into the environment.
Every small nuclear device is a 'dirty bomb'.
What's the fallout ratio for these small dirty bombs? What I mean is, how long is an area irradiated for and what is the fallout radius for different yields?
Yeah there is a limit to how small you can make a nuke before the reaction wont happen at all and all you have is a conventional explosive that spreads radioactive dust all over the place.
@@nhogan84 Impossible to give a simple answer, but if we take a 0.1kT device that releases 10kg of uranium over a 2km^2 area, then we'd get 5 milligrams of radioactive material per square meter. For comparison, the direct lethal dose of uranium is 8.5 grams for the average person, and the 5mg/m^2 would release about 402 Bequerels per second. It would remain radioactive for millions of years, but in reality, water from rain would dissolve it and wash it underground or into rivers.
Verdict: survivable, but unhealthy and possibly lethal if you grow food from that soil.
@@darkdragonsoul99 Perfectly correct. That limit depends entirely on the energy density and compression from the explosives. The minimum I've seen in some micro-fission designs for space propulsion is 40 grams, by using a more radioactive material (Californium) and replacing chemical explosives with z-pinch compression.
www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#zpinch
@@MatterBeamTSF I posted a longer comment about a passage from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Would like your thoughts on if such a warhead as described in the book would be possible and/if it would produce the described results.
I tried tagging you directly in it but I couldn't figure out how to without being able to click on a straight reply button.
When did they add Thor to Fallout?
new dlc
Why do people always make comments like this?
@@bennyoc714 because many people (50 at the moment) think it is campy and fun. I am not one of those people, however wanted to be helpful.
Stop it’s such an old comment
@@camerondunne2557 when somebody comments on something that you were planning to leave alone, but you can't because they told you to stop 🤣
5:26 "I'm just taking my pet nuke for a walk."
The Expanse has nukes about that size, and one of the characters got stuck with one that had a broken timer, leaving him with only the dead-man's-switch. He still needed to explore his situation, which resulted in the line above coming over the radio.
4:40 How dare that guy insult your luscious hair!
0:12 *GENERAL KENOBI*
Kyle’s so smart he found out how to fast travel with enemies nearby
#Likeaboss
So Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (first printing back in 1959) has a section in the first chapter that deals with what is essentially small nukes. I went and got the book off my shelf and (main character having just launched a pair of rockets at a group of buildings) reads as such:
"As I hit, the Y-rack on my shoulder launched two small H.E. bombs a couple of hundred yards each way to my right and left flanks but I never saw what they did as just then my first rocket hit - that unmistakable (if you've ever seen one) brilliance of an atomic explosion. It was just a peewee, of course, less then two kilotons nominal yield, with tamper and implosion squeeze to produce results from a less-then-critical mass - but then who wants to be bunk mates with a cosmic catastrophe? It was enough to clean off that hilltop and make everybody in the city take shelter against the fallout."
Based on the kiloton size and other details listed, where would these bombs get placed on the scale you listed? Would it even produce the results desired at that size?
The buildings being fired at are not given an actual size, merely "- a lovely big group of what looked like public buildings on a hill." and are located miles away from the main character who has been equipped and trained on how to deal with being too close or looking at such a blast directly. There's nothing else listed in that section about these bombs and without skimming through the entire book again I don't remember any other mention of any atomics during it.
When critical mass is mentioned on its own, it usually means the natural critical mass of the fissile material with no tamper or compression. For uranium 235 or plutonium 239, this is as much as 15kg. Put 15kg of that stuff in a sphere and the slightest disturbance will cause a reaction... which will immediately cancel itself when the sphere breaks apart and moves away from the critical mass.
A small nuke of 2kT yield sounds more like the W25 nuclear artillery warhead: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W25_(nuclear_warhead)
The first movie even had mini nukes fired from a bazooka. Like a L.A.W platform. To kill the brain bug.
Starship Troopers was my first thought.
A big group of public buildings sounds like it would be some sort of campus or business park. Likely 1-4sq city blocks
If I'm remembering correctly the shoulder fired nuke more resembled an RPG-7 than a bazooka but was based on a rocket propelled grenade nonetheless
Also in that section, they apparently get bitched at if they return with ammo still unexpended.
3:33 Is it just me, or does that actually look like an eye?
I saw that at just the right time to understand
36 Deathclaws disliked the video.
38 deathclaws
Vaas Montenegro gidfytteyeuwueueusysheydhdudududhdudududheyeyeeueerrrururryeyejsvxndjs
136 @@jeffjom279
@@ironjavelin7482 154
359
Hey Kyle do you know the F.U.N song?
F is for Fire that burns down the whole town.
U is for Uranium......... Bombs.
N is for No survivors!
Does in the deep blue sea
That is the fallout world🎶🎵
WHEN YO...
Plankton! -- kH
down here deep waste land.
"I'm not dropping those papers... I might need them!"
This video was cool, Fallout 76.... not so much.
Fallout 76 is playable now
Not up to fallout standards
Just playable
@@thestoobers7084 and the only thing they needed to fix the game was to get raged on by the entire multiverse! Fucking Bethesda...
@@thestoobers7084 not facts anymore guy
Aw, not one Metal Gear Solid 3 reference.
As soon as he mentioned Davy crockett warheads, i couldn't think of anything other than volgin being a strong sonuvabitch to carry and fire one...on a moving helicopter of all things.
Kuwabara Kuwabara..
When a large video game company sponsors your video, they tend to not like references to other large video game franchises -- kH
@@becausescience I knew it!
Because Science lol
Kyle: 5:52
Fallout: "Can not fast travel while enemies are nearby"
'Physics, Physics Never Changes'
You Sure About That? You gonna have to meet my friend SCP-536
Thou will be removed from the mortal plane
Definitely one of the most interesting episodes I've watched in a long time. Highly informative and entertaining. This man deserves a subscription.
Dearest Kyle!
I'm warning you!
You use either only metric units or only imperial units. Please do not use one in one scene and the other at the next scene! You shall obey this unwritten codex or there will be unforeseen consequences!
Love from City 17!
But... the codex isn't unwritten anymore.
Well, It's not certain that are bringing a CURSE of misguided NASA orbiter falling onto your head at several kilometers per hour and instantly blasting you into smithereens miles away... just saying. Mwahahaha.
*Gordon Freeman is on his way to your location*
I was like, what are those distances in km? :P
You won't like it in the UK. Units are used interchangeably, drives me bloody nuts
You cannot fast travel when enemies are nearby
@3:12 big missed opportunity to add a “+1 cap” in the top left corner.
Mini nukes: I'm about to destroy this man's whole career!
RadAway: I'm gonna stop you right there
Loved the Fallout loading screen lol
Haven't watched the video yet, but I predict it's about the M-388 atomic round (used by the insane M-28/M-29 Davy Crockett weapon system).
Correct~
Ofc even I haven’t watched the video and I knew about that
Ya I made a similar prediction in the comments of the last foot notes😋
I don't think it can possibly be a coincidence that the game and real-life weapon systems look so similarly. I always assumed the M-388 (and M-28/M-29) was the direct inspiration for the mini-nukes (and launchers) in the Fallout universe.
Don't forget the totally ridiculous nuclear artillery shell the W48.
Nuclear bomb: Bringing atoms close enough together until something bad happens.
I love all the editing and visual effects for this video. You (Because Science) did an excellent job, along with providing something educational, too.
Iiiiii don't want to set the wooooorld. On fireeeeee!
Raydeus I do
Just want to start a flame in your heart!
I’ve been marathoning the Ink Spots and other singers of the same era. Good music all around.
Well I do where's the matches.
Les do dis! th-cam.com/video/JRNRp3JoNls/w-d-xo.html
or this th-cam.com/video/h67JpMyrOVE/w-d-xo.html
Nice costume it's like you just came back from trick or treating and started filming
6:00 “You cannot fast travel while enemies are nearby.”
Thank Interplay for having done all of this research back in the 90's, laying the foundation for this video today.
Changed your hair? Did it start to fall out? :D
you deserve some pun-ishment for that.
Ayyyyyyy
I think it looks Rad
* Does a lunge-punch at Wim Ten Brink for that pun * 😂
Throws a mini-nuke back. With Kyle's hair... :P
Hey Kyle, nice hair, but you can't fast travel when enemies are nearby, because Bethesda!
I just realized
He writes backwards
The video is probably mirrored
Probably flipped video
Very interesting. I had discovered the Davy Crocket's existence while poking around the Fall Out wiki. I am surprised and gratified at the level of detail that you went into about the weapon, and the side by side comparison was most impressive and convincing. Keep up the good work!
two things, first you can't fast travel when enemies are close. Second during the testing footage of the Davy Crockett they look awfully close, like too close.
The Davy Crockett had the drawback that its maximum range wasn’t greater than the blast radius. The shooter was supposed to dig a trench, shoot the thing, then jump into the trench to protect themselves from their own weapon.
anti-gravity or grav-suspension activators would make this easy and more practical....dua!
@@PitFriend1 In practice, operational usage was more to use it to stem the tide of Guards divisions streaming West from Fulda, and give NATO time to complete ReForGer. A team would have set it up on the back of an APC (for preference, a Jeep if pressed) at the top of a ridgeline, then gunned the engine once they had fired. The few seconds of flight time would give them time to put a few more metres and a few hundred metres of dirt between them and the detonation, giving them a pretty good chance to escape with little more than a big but probably not really damaging dose of rads
I just watched a video on Shoddy cast about mini nukes. Great job Kyle. It's good to see your channel growing.
Austin's video was really good
Oh i forgot to watch that on o: thx for reminding
I enjoy both of the presenters styles, but shoddy is more nsfw :)
I made sure to check that the topics were different enough -- kH
Two interesting things about the Davy Crockett weapon system: the explosion doesn't create a mushroom cloud, and the direct radiation danger zone range is greater than for heat or blast (the reverse is true for larger yield devices).
They must be giving them a considerable amount for him to put on a mask and that costume... interesting.
Hello Kyle! Amazing video as always! I would have loved if you talked about isotopes with low critical mass, such as californium or neptnium, which even thought they are hard to come by, requiring some form residue processing and controled nuclear reactions, are still quite amazing due to the fact that spheres made with these elements may go over criticality with less than 10 cm of diameter, maybe just as little as 7 centimeters (roughly 2,75 inches for imperial guys).
Exotic isotopes also make good power sources for thermoelectric generators, another quite interesting fact, and also very likely to be a common power generation method in advanced nuclear scenarios :)
Ok I love this episode and it has me asking all kinds of questions in my head. First off I imagine a mini nuke would be pretty cost inefficient compared to conventional weapons. I wonder how much it would cost a unit compared to say an equivalent mortar or shoulder fired weapon. Saying that though I also acknowledge that it is not about the money or feasibility it's about the science, oh yes that yummy yummy science. Also I went to compare its yield to conventional armaments and no surprise the yield of even a small nuclear load dwarfs anything conventional. The next equivalent bang comes from the MOAB at 22,000 lbs of tnt. Which uses 9.35 tons of high explosives not counting the bomb casing. A bit big in other words. Although reading about yields brought me to an interesting article on good ole Wikipedia about TNT equivalent which goes all the way from one food calorie up to two black holes colliding that released 5.5x10^47 joules of energy. Also rad is rad, okay I'm done.
For those that love fallout and want a new fallout game now, check out New California for New Vegas. It will give you a good amount of fallout goodness until the next fallout games, like Fallout Miami, Fallout Cascadia, Fallout Frontier, and Fallout 4: New Vegas.
I've heard a lot about the davey crocket but I appreciate the level of detail you go into
"phisics never changes"...
floating yaoguai: hi
Great vid, love the voice overs. The military also made, and deployed in action, tactical Air to Air missiles like sidewinders. Blew my mind when I learned they actually had those. The idea was since the Russians were so far behind us and Rocket Tech at the time the main fear wasn't intercontinental missiles, but was flocks of atomic bombers coming across the Arctic. And similar to our air campaign during ww2 through their sheer numbers some would make it through to bomb us. Hence the need, they thought, to have the ability for one fighter interceptor to take out massive quantities of Russian bombers.
This has been one of my favorite videos Kyle!
Super awesome, but a real scare at the same time.
Thanks!
funny, everyone forgets the complexity of compression fission bombs, if detonators are not absolutely precisely placed, fission does not occur, it just makes a conventional explosion and throws radioactive cack everywhere.
I once calculated the failure rate and realized just how many on the law of averages would be duds.
still even duds would make a radioactive mess, perhaps even causing cherenkov effect meltdowns like the elephant foot of chernobyl.
A franchise built by the power of the atom, and destroyed through hubris.
"They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."
Love the idiot in sunglasses.
The Davey Crockett was made off the recoilless rifle. And was the basis of a first strike and siege weapon. Designed to launch, eliminate forces, and the fallout would clear out within 2-3 days… making it the ideal First Strike/Siege weapon and a precursor to an invasion.
Just pause that and think about the fact that _CARS_ in the Fallout Universe (mostly Fallout3) produced _the very same explosion_ when shot with a few bullets (even 200+ years later!). I bet that made for some fun police chases back before the war, eh?
Dhalin I can’t ever remember seeing a cop car in fallout. Must’ve encouraged safe driving when you’re piloting a half ton catapult with a nuclear engine
@@magicoofmac8904 There are police vehicles in Fallout: New Vegas. Go south of Goodsprings and you'll come across the Highway Patrol Station (I forget the exact name of it). It's about halfway between Goodsprings and that big NCR outpost, right along the road with a bunch of raiders in it.
So they called it M42... The Answer... for any apocalyptic problem.
Hoopy...
42 is the answer to the ultimate question. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Holy shit, the auto-subtitles are practically flawless! It even got the science words right! Your accent is perfect, apparently. Usually I get frustrated when people just have auto-subs, since it usually gets stuff impossibly garbled at least a few times per video... but dang, this is awesome! I can actually understand what you're saying! The content is wonderful, but I am blown away by the sub quality.
I'm sorry, this wasn't super on-topic, but I just wanted to thank you for speaking in such a clear American accent and thank the autosub people for getting closer to a good program.
The Air 2 genie missile is a Nuclear missile to be mounted of fighter jets because it was a nuclear Air-to-Air missile or though more accurately it’s a rocket because it is unguided.
just notice hes always looking around everytime he goes to the next screen probably to check for the NUKES
Ok so I’m being SUPER nit-picky however you used the term “critical” in referring to what happens when a uranium (u-235) atom splits and release app. 2.5 neutrons further causing more fissions... WELLLLL, not 100% true.
In a nuclear reactor going “critical” refers to a constant power output. So even though each uranium atom release more then 1 neutron per fission, not all neutrons go on to cause more fissions as you described in your branching diagram. If power output is rising the term is called “Super critical.” That is the number of fissions occurring in the next generation is higher then the previous. Sorry for the long comment. LOVE THE SERIES!!!!
The correct term is 'supercritical'.
How sensitive to impact shock are nukes, anyway?
Is it one of those movie-tropes that everyone buys into or are these things like an old farm truck you can dump into an irrigation ditch and come out fine?
JeffV
Just about every nuke, even Little Boy and Fat Man, uses barometric and radar fuses to ensure they go off at a set altitude, usually calculated to maximize blast damage. Impact fuses are also installed, but only as a back-up in case the other fuses fail. The fuses themselves also aren’t usually armed until the weapon is already in flight. The only exceptions I’m aware of are nuclear torpedoes and nuclear demolition charges which use electrical signals sent to the detonator via a wire.
So, they’re far more robust than movies and books like to portray them, though there is serious risk of the fusing mechanisms getting damaged if handled roughly, risking turning it into a dud.
Short answer, they have to be armed in order to go off. Damaging beyond use I defer to @TriNova
I saw a vid a while back talking about the mini-nukes not being big enough to contain a large quantity of material to reach critical mass (and, subsequently, go boom) but it did say that the explosion (ignoring the mushroom cloud (just artistic)) was only the size of 2 grenades. So filling a metal rugby ball with high explosives and some radioactive ooze should work just as well, right?
They tested the delivery system for the DC at Fort Knox, KY before testing active warheads in New Mexico.
Hi Kyle, great episode as always. I have a question, where the Russian suitcase nukes smaller the Davy Crockett? They would not look like the mini nuke from Fallout but that’s just semantics.
Is it possible to reverse radiation or remove it, what I mean is have we discovered a way to make an area impacted by nuclear radiation habitable again in a short amount of time? (half-lives are very long, much longer than I can live...I think)
Jacob Fuller No method that has been discovered so far. Are only method so far has been just to wait
It's not possible to stop radioactive materials radiating. The only way to clean up contaminated areas is to remove the radioactive material, but this can be extremely difficult because there is a lot of it and the particles are very small. It's not practical at the moment, however it's possible that in the not too distant future chemical processes might be found to separate certain materials, allowing them to be safely removed. But the process required would depend on the type of material to be removed, and there are many different types of radioactive contamination, so there's definitely no quick fix. I would guess that even if such processes are possible, it will be at least a decade or two before we can start reclaiming contaminated areas, maybe much longer.
I heard that there is a bacteria that eats radiation, wich decreases the time an irradiated area is dangerous
No, not yet afaik. But there are bacteria that are very resistant to radiation. It could be possible in the future to use crisper to figure out a way to genetically alter our cells to do the same thing. (would be quite difficult though as it has more to do with relative levels of zing and manganese then with repair mechanisms with in the cell)
There is one thing though that you should know. The longer the half life, the less radioactive the material and the less dangerous it is too you. The shorter the half life, the more radiation it will emit and the more dangerous it is, but it will last much shorter. This is why you can hold uranium in your hand and be fine, since it has an astronomical half life so it does not radiate very much.
0:12 *GENERAL KENOBI*
The look you presumably gave yourself at the end was hilarious.
How exactly do you split atoms? I've never been able to grasp it
Watch the chernoble episode
Use a neutron source to irradiate the bomb. I don't know specifically how those work, but... Well, good luck: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source
Thanks for dumbing things down so plebs like me can understand kyle 🙌
Not dumbing down, just trying to help understand! I'm not an expert in any of this either. I'm learning too -- kH
"Physics... Physics never changes" pure gold
In the 80s I ran a Top Secret/SI role-playing game. The secret weapon utilized was the "Californium Bullet", a fission micro-nuke that is an atomic explosive round bullet. Each bullet cost the agency a quarter of a million dollars (80s price) and basically had the boom of a howitzer artillery shell. The bullet's Californium core was "atomically frozen" (not decaying) until the bullet was fired. I made it so that the explosion turned its radioactivity into mostly conventional explosive power. So, Because Science, did I come close to making it realistic in what that tiny a-bomb would be like?
While this may be accurate as in a explosion sense, it is not the same in a size and useability sense. During President George E. Bush's campaign he wanted a weapon capable of destroying bunkers and the ground beneath them. This was the first creation of nuclear weapons since the cold war and is still used by U.S. forces today. It's size can be comparable to that of a shoulder mounted RPG. And again, while it's destructive power was only around a third of that caused by the "Fatman" and it significantly less fallout, the portability and design are far more similar.
Yeah that's also kinda what they do with suitcase nukes. The few they make for delicate and important ops that we never hear about
Who is George E Bush?
@@nickk6501 I think he's the one who is slightly to the right of George W Bush
@@talltroll7092 Who can be more to the right than George W. Bush..? Oh, well, perhaps Mr. Trump? :D
What weapon are you referring to?
The US has manufactured and stockpiled no new weapon designs since the cold War, only mods of earlier weapons.
Several new designs have been drawn up, but never put into production.
Hello Kyle, great video!
How far can a person launch a 12 pound mini nuke from a shoulder mounted launcher without recoil powerful enough to throw the shooter backwards? It seems to me like the game is pretty generous.
I appreciate the “super critical” pun at the beginning lol
I understand there were designs for micro nuclear weapons down to hand grenades or small cannon shells using californium as the fissile material
A fusion reaction actually gives less energy per cycle(hydrogen to ditrium to tritium and finally helium) than what a fission reaction liberates but the energy to mass ratio is where fusion shines since a fusion cycle has 8 amu (not quit shure about this) and all fission reaction neading atoms of at least 200 amu of mass and whith the energy of the fusion being 4 times less than that of fission bringing the same mass of hydrogen and uranium and letting each do his respective reaction the energy output of the fusion will be way bigger that that of the fission but we can not use it right now to produce energy because we can not controll it but we can controll fission
If this doesn’t get me to footnotes i don’t know what will
Depending on which isotopes you use, Nuclear fusion is about 4-5 times more powerful per pound than Nuclear fission.
6:12 I do some research and Davy crockett have yield between 10 to 20 tons tnt,not 10.000 to 20.000 lbs tnt.
10 tons is 20,000'bs, 2,000lbs = 1 ton.
Lmao halim daffa 10 tons is 20,000 lbs ... do some research
Love your videos. Can I know how the drawing effects are created?
This episode was great!! Funny and informative. You generally do a good job but today was quire good.
I love doing fat man rocket jumps =D 'I come in pieces!'
Russia talkin' Shit
America not havin' it...
*Country Roads Intensifies*
Russia actually does not give a damn at all, being preoccupied with internal stuff.
America intensifies nonetheless.
Soviet-time war music rocks on...
WTF!?
Explosions insues
A while back on Shoddycast (I think it was Shoddycast), they went over the mini nuke and determined that a it may be possible to make one of that size with Californium.
One of my first sergeants in the Army reserves was at two atomic tests maneuvering after the blast. I have instructions in an NCO handbook how to arm the Davy Crockett warhead and set the height of burst timer.
Okay so an interesting point, even the biggest fusion weapons, (except for Tsar Bomba, which was a special case) produce most of their energy output in... fission?!
How does this work? Well, ya see when you enrich uranium for making plutonium, you end up with a bunch of barely radioactive uranium that's just not at all suitable for using in a bomb. It's called 'DU' or DPU' for Depleted Uranium. But it has several useful properties: It's really really hard, really really dense, it makes a great heat shield, and most importantly, it can still fission and release energy. It just doesn't sustain a reaction well, it tends to trap all the neutrons that break it into smaller atoms and not emit large quantities of them.
So for a big multistage weapon, you get the following:
First of all, they 'prime' the fission core by squirting lithium deturide powder into the center of the hollow sphere of plutonium. They can also use tritium but it doesn't have as much of a shelf life. then the chemical explosives surrounding the core detonated. Now the core is actually 'levitated' inside a near-vacuum 'pit' in the center and the explosives slam down onto a shell of beryllium and something being used as a neutron source. Something with a 5-10 year half life.
Beryllium is a neutron reflector, it helps contain the neutrons and bounce them back and forth through the plutonium, you see.
The vacuum just gives the explosion a little more oomph when it slams into the plutonium sphere. The core for the Trinity test was roughly the size of a tennis ball. It was compressed to roughly the size of a walnut by the explosion. We do a much better job now. So the neutron source fissions first and scatters neutrons around, which then start hitting plutonium which fissions at just the right rate, not too slow and not too fast, to generate a big big boom. As it heats up and compresses the interior, the primer 'fuel' inside the core can't fuse, it's not compressed enough, but it will reach energy states that let it throw off a lot more neutrons.
At this point the physics is how long can you push/hold the core together while getting repeated doublings of output. At some point the core starts coming apart because it just can't handle the energy. Now we're ready to make the fusion explosion happen!
Using various methods that are mostly classified, the energy is directed to slam into the outside of a cylinder of fusion primed material, and buried down the middle is a rod shaped fissile core called a 'spark plug'. The most direct energy from the warhead that just detonated is able to set off the spark plug, and about 60 percent of the energy bouncing off the inner casing, neutron reflectors, x-ray reflectors, etc are compressing the outside of the lithium deturide core.
It gets hotter than the Sun.
No really, a fusion bomb is hotter than the Sun. There's a real simple reason for that; fusion needs a level of temperature and pressure to occur. We can't, even in a nuclear bomb, reach the pressure that fusing core of the Sun generates. We can get a decent fraction, but we're still short. But, for the purposes of the 'energy needed to cause fusion' you can substitute heat for pressure. So we make the bomb hotter than the Sun
Fusion bombs release a massive amount of neutrons. They're just sloppy with them. They go all over the place. Now if you want a really really big bomb, like the Tsar Bomba was, you can use this fusion bomb to trigger ANOTHER fusion bomb. The Tsar Bomba had iirc 8.
But at some point, faster than you can blink since the whole process started, the pressure and temperature are dropping as the bomb loses cohesion. In fact it's so fast that if they triggered the bomb on your eyelids beginning to descend, you would not have closed them yet.
However, they came up with one, last, gasp for generating energy. The final fission cycle.
Remember Depleted Uranium.
That's what the case is made out of. And millions of free neutrons are streaming through it right now. Enough that the final fission stage increases the power output of the bomb one, final time, between 1.5-3.5 times depending on design. The material can't sustain an explosion, if you stuck this stuff in the core, it would simply make a radioactive mess at a sub kiloton yield. But out here, it still improves things, splitting and releasing energy. The Tsar Bomba replaced that tamper with lead. Lead won't fission, though it will do the other job of helping hold the expanding plasma together a little longer, roughly halving the design yield but also making it one of the cleanest weapons ever detonated.
The problem with a bomb like the Crockett's was that it's very very compact and lightweight, and as such a lot of the tricks they use for improving yields (levitated pits, high mass tampers, tritium priming) were not usable at that scale, so it was really, really dirty. Add to that the fact that if you want a dirtier bomb (more fallout) you detonate it at or near the ground so it sucks dirt into the cloud to attach radioactive particles to, and it wasn't a realistically usable weapon. Sure it was deployed but they'd have been crazy to use em.
Jeez. -- kH
@@becausescience OK to write fast to Copper Hamster - You sum up making the fusion Bomb greatly, did you check Scott Manley's channel? He's astronomer/astrophysicist, but also made (IDK if he will make more chapters) series on how to make a nuclear Bomb. As far As I Remember, the Tsar Bomba had lead instead of U238, for the sole purpose of making the Yield smaller, so it was 'only' 50MT. And You are right. The more fissile material you (fiss? Split?) use, the cleaner the bomb is. In terms of radiation that is left behind. I will also send this as a reply in the Your original Post.
Kyle - From some period in the 50's people didn't want to make bigger and bigger bombs. They wanted to make smaller and smaller, tactical nukes. It is one of the reason that variable yield was used, as well as MIRVs etc. Also there is a difference between Fusion Enhanced Nuclear Device and a full fledged Fusion Bomb. And yes in those strongest, most of energy is from fissile material being fissed ;) VERY effectively.
English is my second Language, and though I love Nuclear Physics, I always forget what is the verb for fission.
@@jannegrey593 Yes I've seen Scott's channel. Fission is the verb. To fission. The reason for shrinking bombs is ease of delivery and accuracy. You don't get much more destruction out of a bomb twice as large because it's destructive radius increases with the inverse square rule. If your accuracy gets better, you can just use smaller, more efficient warheads. The variable yield bombs (you may wonder how they vary the yield? Change the amount of Lithium Deuturide you pump into the core before detonation. For the lowest yield, dump a small amount of boron inside. (boron is a very aggressive neutron absorbing material. It's really good at trapping stray neutrons, so it really slows a reaction down a lot. An interesting difference between Pressurized Water reactors, like TMI, and Boiling water reactors, like Fukashima, is that since the core is in normal operation never uncovered, they inject boron containing fluid into the cooling loop when they scram a PWR. In a BWR on the other hand, boron solutions will damage the core if exposed to steam and the cladding, so BWR's only use boron for emergencies as it's pretty much a 'now we have to decommission this reactor' after it is used. )
Chains made of boron metal stored inside the core of the bomb, to be withdrawn at the last stage of arming, were a safety measure for many years.
The US's current primary warhead used on it's missiles is currently capable of about 400 Kt, and there is supposedly a plan to possibly upgrade them to near megaton each. How is classified but some people think the only feasable upgrade path would be to replace the U238 tamper with enriched U235. Which is terrifying, but might work.
Considering your comment you are probably aware of this, but I still feel like I have to make this point, sorry.
Anyway, my point simply is "you end up with a bunch of barely radioactive uranium" Oh, so you mean "you end up with a bunch of uranium". I know that you meant that it isn't good at sustaining a reaction, but when all naturally occurring uranium has a half life of at least 100 000 years and the most common(~99%)have a half life of 4.5 million years. Even the type of uranium that is used to sustain fission in both weapons and reactors(U235, though I'm sure you knew that)has a half life of 700 million years. The reason I felt like I had to type this is that people often treat uranium as if it's as radioactive as something like Pu238 or RN222, when, functionally speaking, uranium isn't even radioactive(in the sense that the small amount of radiation it emits doesn't affect its environment in any meaningful way in most situations).
@@copperhamster +Illoney Also some reactors use U233, or at least there were such experimental reactors. What people mostly don't get is that most of the radiation is in form of Alpha particles (Helium), which unless you don't have a skin, or swallow it etc. is quite safe. Obviously you wouldn't want to keep it in your pants all year, even though pants offer a lot of protection against alpha radiation. Beta and Gamma (duh) are the ones that are dangerous. So after handling uranium ore (hopefully without open wounds), remember to wash your hands before idk. biting your fingernails ;)
Also Copper Hamster, I admire your knowledge and possibly Security Clearance ;) enough, that I will ask only one question? Isn't it Inverse Cube Law? I mean people are mostly interested in destroying what is on the ground, and you are creating 3D Sphere in an explosion. I know that a detonation is in the air, and when it comes to radiation it's strength is with inverse square law, but destructive properties would be somewhere in the middle. They would scale up with power between 2 and 3. That's why I said that MIRVs where also one of the proofs, that Military didn't go with MAXIMUM POWER, but with 'decent', and able to choose more targets. Most Powerful bombs became almost obsolete, when Ground or Bunker Piercing Bombs where introduced.
Also if Antman shrunk a nuke would it have a larger energy out put or a smaller energy output. Nice job on the Episode!!!
nano-nukes... that's scary stuff
Just image throwing like a pocket sized nuke.....crany stuff.....right
@@demonofrage4314 Neither since the amount of material remains the same, but it would detonate instantly
Thanks so what would it do
@@demonofrage4314 The distance between nuclei would shrink, causing criticality (the reason nukes explode). Actually, since the distance would shrink so much, the degree of criticality would be higher, giving a cleaner burn, and you would end up with a slightly higher energy output (only very slightly, I think, though. The absolute amount of fissionable material present would still be the main limiting factor)
4:58 "Remember the Alamo...!" Volgun, MGS3 Snake Eater
Bear in mind too that a weapon of this nature would be quite useful for holding back the truly massive Warsaw Pact army in East Germany, via an immediate danger zone of 300 metres, and a fatal in a few days zone of abut 600 metres, and a dangerous zone of about 800 metres, enough to secure important vantage points, valley chokepoints, bridges, and similar, let alone creating rubble and probably destroying a bridge of building to begin with.
Fallout related question, In a world where almost everything is powered by nuclear energy would shooting a car cause it to detonate?
As far as the game goes. Yes. It even leaves traces of radiation.
Yep, car crashes must be catastrophic
No, but running out of coolant would cause it to explode.
They run on nuclear reactors so imagine shooting one and what the subsequent a breach would do
If you hit the coolant allowing the reactor to have a meltdown, the car should explode however there wouldn't be anything like what happens in the game as most of the danger would come from the lethal radiation released into the immediate area.
Physics doesn't change... Look at laser weapons in the fallout universe, they have recoil.
that could be due to the rapid expansion of the atmosphere when the laser is created, or the exhaust from a cooling mechanism upon discharge. it would make sense due to the extreme temperature change required to produce such power in such a small package.
Moving back 1/4th of a mile: *Not great not Terrible*
We had tactical nukes in the 60’s down to 155mm howitzer rounds. Davey Crockett had issues with the propellant increments. Sometimes it did not get far enough from the launcher before touching down and going boom.
Finally an episode to do with the sponsor thanks producers.
Do you need the sponsors to always line up? Because you're going to be disappointed more often than not. It's just the business -- kH
@@becausescience sorry ment it as a joke
Hey Kyle
Great episode as always :)
Your 'over encumbered' jokes, I was wondering, physically how many guns could one person carry and still be mobile? I mean, if you strip everything off a character in Fallout and load them with nothing but guns, once you are weighed down to moving slowly, would you even be able to draw and use a gun effectively?
Take Care and Be Well
Handguns, quite a few if you have decent holsters for them ("THERE WAS A FIIREFIIIIIIIIGHT!" anyone?), long guns very few. They're heavier, move around a lot when slung, and even just having one slung can be very inconvenient. Having multiple slung compounds things, especially if you have to actually move around and aren't just punching paper standing in one position. If you're in a situation where you need 6 guns, 1) leave, and 2) you don't need six guns, you just need to reload more.
I'm guessing it wouldn't be all that much, probably less than 100% of your body weight, kind of like we talked about in the Goku's weighted clothes episode -- kH
@@becausescience I understand the weight restraints are the same as the Goku episode. However that is just adding weight. With Fallout, you have the weight, but you must also have the room to lift and use the weapon and use it accurately, as well as reload it. Using a weapon takes mobility, dexterity, and the room/space to manipulate the gun accordingly. You may end up with the number of weapons not being able to be used correctly/safely lower than if you were only going by how many guns you can carry before becoming 'over encumbered'. Dead weight vs. usable weight.
Take Care and Be Well
@@koeryn Respect to anyone who can slip in a Boondock Saints quote :D
And the more thought about it, Mythbusters did an episode on carrying multiple guns in a video game :D
Kyle and Koeryn O'Conner, Take Care and Be Well :D
thats why its good to have shielded power armor with a jet pack just in case. which leads to a question. how safe are you in power armor when exposed to the fallout from a mininuke? the lead shielded armor can provide some resistance, but how much?
Our mini nuke works like artillery and 0.3 miles is super short for artillery. They usualy use those to shoot from many miles distance