Nuclear fallout question

Isnt radiation supposed to make places unhabitable for hundreds of years? So why are japanese living back in those two cities?

I'm not sure, but the atomic bomb may not cause as much radioactive contamination as a nuclear. Otherwise I have no idea.

Originally posted by JBurns
I'm not sure, but the atomic bomb may not cause as much radioactive contamination as a nuclear. Otherwise I have no idea.

Isnt that the same thing?

Originally posted by Lecter
Isnt radiation supposed to make places unhabitable for hundreds of years? So why are japanese living back in those two cities?

its to do with the yield of the actual bomb its self
the bombs used these days are 100 times more deadly and would be more radioactive

i may be wronge

The atomic bomb deals with atoms, while the nuclear deals with nuclei.

bodrul, that does make sense. The bombs back in the early 1900's no where compared to the bombs we have today.

[edit on 1/6/2006 by JBurns]

Originally posted by JBurns
The atomic bomb deals with atoms, while the nuclear deals with nuclei.

ok my bad

Originally posted by JBurns
I'm not sure, but the atomic bomb may not cause as much radioactive contamination as a nuclear. Otherwise I have no idea.

??


to answer the thread starter


basically , they scrapped the top soil off , buried it and sealed and rebuilt the city.


The bombs dropped on the 2 cities were not that big in comparision to the city busters of today - yes they were big bangs , but the entire city wasn`t destroyed




it also depends on the radiation itself - there are many different forms of radiation - what was released from chernobyl is far more dangerous than the bombs in WW2.



randowm picture of someone vapourised in hiroshima


edit:


with an atomic bomb (nuclear weapon) the atom of U235 uranium is split , this starts a chain reaction (2 then 4 then 8 etc) atoms are split and the process continues uncontrolled


splitting an atoms releases a heck of alot of energy

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

the bombs dropped in WW2

en.wikipedia.org...

more about it

havea read around teh subject and use google


edit 2:

Thermonuclear or Hydrogen bomb are far more dangerous as they use an atomic omb as only the first stage - the *creates* (for want of a better word) teh conditions for fusion - fuseing tritium and deuterium .


fusion releases even more energy (by a large factor) than just plain atomic bombs.

[edit on 6/1/06 by Harlequin]

[edit on 6/1/06 by Harlequin]

Actually the difference between a A-Bomb and a Nuclear bomb is

Atom bombs are based on the fission process, where nuclei containing many neutrons and protons, such as uranium or plutonium, are forced to release neutrons and energy is released in the process. Civilian nuclear reactors are based on this method.

(In a nuclear bomb, the chain reaction is not controlled as it is in the reactor. Because of this, and because the uranium is more enriched, the chain reaction will take place
in a fraction of a second, releasing an enormous amount of energy in a short time.)

MediaLine




[edit on 6-1-2006 by kenshiro2012]

Harlequin, good read but I am still confused. In the link you provided it says that Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall was next to ground zero but it survived the blast and now its a museum. Wouldnt it be iradieted during the blast? Even if it supposed to be a "small" bomb by today standards wouldnt it leave enough radiation to cause health concerns?

Much of it was damaged
Here is a pix of it befoer the bomb


and here is one that was taken after



As you can see it did not make through the blast unscathed. I have been to Hiroshima and I have seen this building as well as the wall where there are 5 shadows of people that are still visable today. The shadows were burnt into the wall during the blast

First off, nuclear weapons an atomic weapons are the same thing, different name. However, they are divided into two groups, fission bombs and fusion bombs.

Fission bombs are the types dropped on Japan. They have a yield of 5-30 kilotons and have a relatively small blast radius. This means they throw up the least amount of fallout into the air compared with other bombs. There are very few of these left in militaries.

The modern warhead is a hydrogen bomb. It uses a fission bomb to ignite a fusion bomb and thus produce a much greater yield, 5-50 megatons, or 100 times more powerful than a kiloton. These weapons have very large blast radii, and thus throw up more fallout. Nearly all nuclear weapons of militaries use these.

An irradiation bomb is a fission or fusion bomb designed to limit its explosive yield and instead use that energy to produce more radiation. I am not sure exactly how this is done, but its only useful in special situations.

I hope I did not have any errors in that and cleared up some things, however i dont know any perfect details on these weapons.

I believe more importantly than the question of nuclear fallout than I do with orbital rotation and the earths axis. It has come to me attention that there is such a single nuclear weapon called the COLBALT OR KOLBALT Ton type weapon that if detonated on the surface of earth and depending upon the position of the earth in relation to its orbit around the Sun, the earth, hypothetically speaking, could either wabble into the grab of the gravitational force of the Sun or wabble away from the Sun. Either burn or freeze. Earth has already suffered flood. Praise to the Father and JC.LEGALCATALYST.

^^^ LOL, a cobalt bomb isn't any more powerful than a standard nuclear weapon. A cobalt bomb is a nuclear weapon salted ( added ) with cobalt to produce long term radiation when detonated.

Other materials which a bomb could be salted with is gold and tantalum. which produce radition with smaller half lives.

My emphasis was focused on the rotation of the earth in sequence with the other planets in our system vs. terra forma radiation which plasibly be remediated for inhabitability.

Secondly, if the earths axis were to break under such concussion, the earth would then have to reshape itself resulting in envirnmental catastrophies. Like akin to taking an inflated basketball and sucking the air out of it, it will begin to collapse.LEGALCATALYST.

Intrresting replys on this thread.

There are two forces at work here in the matter of nuclear energy.

The source of the initial blast and radiation.

then the fallout or contamination it produces.


In addition to the initial blast damage there is the initial radiation damage...very high depending of course on the formula of time , distance and shielding from source. This initial radiation exposure is often fatal.


After the initial blast and exposure has settled down there is the contamination spread from the radioactive particles..which will permeate much of the surrounding area. These particles remain long after the initial blast has subsided.THey can be hazardous to health especially if you get them internally. These contaminated particles often enter the atmosphere and even get caught up in the jet stream to be deposited who knows where....even the other side of the world. This is obviously what happened in the case of the Chernoybyl incident in the 1980s.

Weather alone will over time weaken much of this fallout. Simple washing away and dillution. This has happened more than most people are aware.
Up to a point many items can be decontaminated. Beyond that they just get rid of them. Bury them.
Harlequin is correct in their post that they scrape of the top layers of soil. This was done also in Spain when a couple of Hydrogen bombs fell from a mid air refueling accident over the Atlantic Ocean on to Spanish soil. The surface of the soil was scraped up and overturned ..burying it. I seem to recall a tennis court being built over this site. The bombs did not go off but obviously the bomb case ruptured and material in the bombs spilled out. This is not what the public was told but it is obvious. Well done Harlequin.
Locally here a contaminated pump was being shiped out by tractor trailer. A error was made in the heigth of the load and it struck the underside of a overpass knocking the pump off the truck bed and onto the concrete road. Latent water spilled out of the pumb onto the roadbed.The area was sealed off and when they got the equipment together the concrete was broken up by pnuetmatic jackhammer and hauled off to be buried...concrete rebar and all. New road surface was poured into new rebar.
This was not made clear to the public per se..but having worked in the nuclear field it was clear to me what was happening.
As part of my job..I am often required to wear Radiation dosimetry. This is how I know about some of this.
I have also seen the videos of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents from a view not heard or known by much of the public. Other indicents within the trades.
Good question ..by the first poster on this thread...well done also to Lecter.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999
Harlequin is correct in their post that they scrape of the top layers of soil. This was done also in Spain when a couple of Hydrogen bombs fell from a mid air refueling accident over the Atlantic Ocean on to Spanish soil. The surface of the soil was scraped up and overturned ..burying it. I seem to recall a tennis court being built over this site.

The soil was never turned over, it was physically removed back to the US, about 4000 tonnes if my memory serves me. Turning over plutonium and other radioactive elements would just allow radiation to seep into the water table and leak out elsewhere.

Thanks for the correction. I am assuming you are talking about the accident in Spain??

Thanks,
Orangetom

The common fallout basically is kicked up dirt contaminated with radioactive particles. Due to the "small" yield of Little Boy and Fat Man this fallout was much less than what is anticipated for modern nuclear weapons - less particles in the air -> less area contamination. Today the contamination is still higher than usual, but considered to be below hazardous levels.

Still the contamination was enough that very many people died afterwards as a direct result of the latent radiation and poisoning (Uranium is also highly toxic) - estimates are that up to 5 times more people died later than in the initial blasts. And even more were badly damaged by the effects of the contamination, in many cases shortening life expectancy and cancer risk.

The reason that the cities were not abandoned was that at first there was no knowledge about the long-time effects of fallout (had those been known the bombs probably would never have been used), and ironically because the bombs were not strong enough to level the whole cities. Especially Nagasaki, although there was a higher "bodycount", was less damaged because it lies in mountaneious terrain, and that saved large parts of the city from the immediate effects. The Japanese just didnt think of abandoning a city that to a considerate part was still intact.

To the people who say that the first bombs were small = less dangerous than new ones - it's only partially true. Indeed those bombs had smaller effect than todays thermonuclear weapons but they were very "dirty" that means they released much uran and plutonium in fallout. Actually modern hydrogen bombs are "cleaner" (in long term effects) than the first two, although they are much more powerfull.

A very intresting book on how hydrogen bombs are made as compared to atomic bombs...

The Secret that Exploded

by Howard Morland.

Available on the web.
This book was taken to the Supreme Court to stop its publication and ironically the court said publish it.
This book details the manufacturers of the specific components how they are laid out ..and how the hydrogen enhancement is done with the spacing of layers of Poly or plastic to let the hydrogen molecules in just brief nano seconds before other particles resulting in Hydrogen enhancement.
Howard also goes on to explain that for a given amount of fissionable material the power can be enhanced or not by adjusting the spacing of the poly material for a specific target as needed and hence the hydrogen effect...it is called "dial a yeild".
A very intresting book for those intrested in this kind of stuff. However remember these designs must be out of date by at least twenty years.

Thanks,
Orangetom