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How dense would the atmosphere need to be to result in a cataclysmic chain reaction during a nuclear explosion? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/askscience

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Famously, Oppenheimer and co worked out how close a nuclear bomb test would be to causing a chain reaction of nitrogen fusion in the atmosphere. They made a lot of worst-case-scenario assumptions and still came to the conclusion that no, a nuclear bomb test wouldn’t scour the surface of the world.

But let’s say the atmosphere was twice as dense as it is. Or ten times as dense. At what point would that calculation turn very, very scary?

Obligatory xkcd

Edit: man, seriously, most of the people ‘answering’ this question didn’t even read it.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Try the save post button next time

[–] cm0002 -1 points 5 months ago

Yea but this plan worked, the notification from someone commenting that reminded me to come back LMAO