Devices designed to create extremely large explosions by exploiting nuclear processes within atoms. Fission devices use energy released by slitting large nuclei; fusion devices use the energy released by merging small nuclei. Many devices use fission to trigger fusion.
Questions tagged [nuclear-weapons]
56 questions
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Does the President of the United States have the ability to deploy nuclear weapons at will?
I heard this claim back during the Bush years, and recently I've been hearing it again. For example:
Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All - The New Yorker
I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent…
Ten Bitcomb
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Did eight Jesuit priests survive the nuking of Hiroshima without serious injury?
It is being frequently claimed by Catholic sources (e.g. Catholic News Agency, Catholic Herald) and even Wikipedia that eight Jesuit priests survived the nuking of Hiroshima with very minor physical damages in spite of them being located very close…
gaazkam
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Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the United States' uranium?
Donald Trump made this claim in his February 16, 2017, press conference. Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the US's uranium? What is the source for this claim?
Transcript
Now tomorrow, you’ll say “Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia,…
ford prefect
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Do we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out all of humanity?
I have heard several claims that we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out all of humanity, but has anyone actually done an exact calculation of whether we do?
The claim includes:
All of the nuclear weapons which are currently built by the whole…
Casebash
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Was there a nuclear explosion in Germany during WW2?
According to this article at dailymail.co.uk and this article at news.com.au a declassified document "APO 696" (purportedly in the U.S. National Archives) includes testimony that indicates a possible nuclear explosion in Germany in early October…
Dee
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Does plutonium exist in the world, apart from being manufactured?
In reference to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, a mathematician, Peter Lax, described his time working there as "living science fiction". He said:
we were told essentially the basic thing: we are building an atomic bomb, that there are two…
D.Hutchinson
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Is the four minute nuclear weapon response time classified information?
In the the final Trump-Clinton presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said:
But here's the deal. The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. There's about four minutes between the order being…
Curious
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Did Oppenheimer quote the Bhagavad Gita after the Trinity test?
There is an often repeated story that Robert Oppenheimer, one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, quoted the Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the first nuclear test.
One version of the story is told here:
Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who…
matt_black
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Did a nuclear blast devastate Port Chicago on July 17, 1944?
On July 17, 1944 at the Port Chicago naval base, near the San Francisco Bay area, an explosion of epic proportions occurred on a dock handling munitions.
The Evening Independent, Jul 18, 1944, via Google News makes mention of the following:
~350…
Paul
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Can cockroaches survive a nuclear war?
I am sure most people will have heard this claim in some form or another:
Cockroaches are so resilient that they will survive the nuclear holocaust.
source
Is this true?
Sklivvz
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Do ~25% of Japanese people believe that USSR dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I have heard this claim a few times from some random people, and recently came across it in pravda.ru as well:
from "Japan will never forgive USA"
There is such a statistics: 25 per cent of young Japanese people
believe that the bombings were…
sashkello
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Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
According to TheTimes.co.uk, "Russian ‘nuclear tsunami’ will wipe out Britain, Kremlin-backed media threatens"
In his Sunday evening primetime show, the Channel One anchor Dmitry Kiselyov said a strike by Russia’s Poseidon nuclear underwater drone…
Evan Carroll
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Is plutonium the most toxic substance known to man?
According to "The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity" by Bernard L. Cohen:
Plutonium is constantly referred to by the news media as ``the most
toxic substance known to man.'' Ralph Nader has said that a pound of
plutonium could cause 8 billion…
Cees Timmerman
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Do only 49% of Americans know which country bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
From Alternet: Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?, July 1, 2008 (referring to polls conducted over the past three decades):
Which country dropped the nuclear bomb? Only 49% [of Americans polled] know it was their own
country.
Do (or did…
Andrew Grimm
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Was the US nuclear missile launch code set to 00000000 for 15 years of the Cold War?
Drudge Report had a headline on 12-1-2013 that claimed that the PAL security protocol was illegally bypassed from 1962 through 1977 by setting the launch code to 00000000 on all Minuteman missiles.
To give you an idea of how secure the PAL system…
Chad
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