Sometimes I wonder if things would have turned out better if the Manhattan project scientists had done their calculations about if the nuke would set fire to the atmosphere and discovered that it in fact would. At that point, you wouldn't do any nuclear weapons testing unless you wanted to run the risk of killing all humans, and I wonder if that would have completely stopped nuclear weapons development, as you could never test if they actually worked without significant risk.
I know that there are discussions about how the war in Japan would have ended if the US hadn't dropped the nukes on them, I've heard that it would save a lot of lives, and also that it would end a lot of lives, so I don't really feel like I know enough to weigh in on that discussion :/
Do you not think that nuclear weapons were a significant net gain for conflict avoidance (keeping the cold war cold)?
Nuclear power also arguably saved lots of lives by avoiding fossil emissions/air pollution (probably significantly more than were killed in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and all nuclear accidents combined; https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html estimates ~2M).
Personally, I'll gladly take a small risk of global nuclear war over a larger risk increase for a conventional WW3, but this might be a matter of taste...
The nuclear bombs were quite deadly to civilians compared to "traditional" firebombing-- Hiroshima alone had 2-3 times more victims than the extensive Tokyo firebombing campaign (200k-300k vs ~100k), despite the Tokyo area being much larger (=> >1M homeless).
But it is reasonable to assume that less starvation from a slightly earlier end of the war compensated for the higher lethality of nuclear bombs.
A potential land invasion (with lots of death Americans) is also often cited to "justify" the nukes, but I'd be careful with that argument because it is unclear that it would've been necessary (in a no-nuke timeline). The US post-war strategic bombing survey said on this: "it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
> you wouldn't do any nuclear weapons testing unless you wanted to run the risk of killing all humans
My first guess would be that the scientists involved would look for creative ways to test while minimizing that risk. test underground or under water (if that would make a difference), test in space (when possible), test smaller yields, etc.
Humans go to extreme lengths to create world ending weapons, and we still do it despite this danger. Even if the danger is slightly less acute, we're developing biological weapons and dangerous pathogens that if release accidentally would still have a realistic chance to wipe out humanity.
I suppose doing it underwater would probably work, given that it isn't exposed to atmosphere. I'm not sure if smaller yields would help, since if larger yields have a higher chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, we've set off some pretty big bombs and AFAIK the margin for devastation was already not huge for Trinity (not an expert though)
Sometimes I wonder if things would have turned out better if the Manhattan project scientists had done their calculations about if the nuke would set fire to the atmosphere and discovered that it in fact would. At that point, you wouldn't do any nuclear weapons testing unless you wanted to run the risk of killing all humans, and I wonder if that would have completely stopped nuclear weapons development, as you could never test if they actually worked without significant risk.
I know that there are discussions about how the war in Japan would have ended if the US hadn't dropped the nukes on them, I've heard that it would save a lot of lives, and also that it would end a lot of lives, so I don't really feel like I know enough to weigh in on that discussion :/
Do you not think that nuclear weapons were a significant net gain for conflict avoidance (keeping the cold war cold)?
Nuclear power also arguably saved lots of lives by avoiding fossil emissions/air pollution (probably significantly more than were killed in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and all nuclear accidents combined; https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html estimates ~2M).
Personally, I'll gladly take a small risk of global nuclear war over a larger risk increase for a conventional WW3, but this might be a matter of taste...
The nuclear bombs were quite deadly to civilians compared to "traditional" firebombing-- Hiroshima alone had 2-3 times more victims than the extensive Tokyo firebombing campaign (200k-300k vs ~100k), despite the Tokyo area being much larger (=> >1M homeless).
But it is reasonable to assume that less starvation from a slightly earlier end of the war compensated for the higher lethality of nuclear bombs.
A potential land invasion (with lots of death Americans) is also often cited to "justify" the nukes, but I'd be careful with that argument because it is unclear that it would've been necessary (in a no-nuke timeline). The US post-war strategic bombing survey said on this: "it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
> you wouldn't do any nuclear weapons testing unless you wanted to run the risk of killing all humans
My first guess would be that the scientists involved would look for creative ways to test while minimizing that risk. test underground or under water (if that would make a difference), test in space (when possible), test smaller yields, etc.
Humans go to extreme lengths to create world ending weapons, and we still do it despite this danger. Even if the danger is slightly less acute, we're developing biological weapons and dangerous pathogens that if release accidentally would still have a realistic chance to wipe out humanity.
I suppose doing it underwater would probably work, given that it isn't exposed to atmosphere. I'm not sure if smaller yields would help, since if larger yields have a higher chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, we've set off some pretty big bombs and AFAIK the margin for devastation was already not huge for Trinity (not an expert though)
This is an excerpt from "Always/Never" from Sandia.[1]
[1] https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/always_never/