Declassified videos of atmospheric nuclear tests (2017)
llnl.gov
llnl.gov
This is so interesting. I've always noticed the iconic double flashing in nuclear detonations but I never knew why it happened.
> Software developed by LLNL computer scientist Jason Bender scans each frame of the films to automate the measurement process. Bender’s software notes the timestamp of both pulses of light, as well as the darkest frame between them. With this data, Spriggs can calculate the test’s yield.
Sounds like a fun project, writing algorithms to parse 50yr old classified films of nuclear detonations.
I realize perhaps the intention of uploading to YouTube was more to advertise this project, rather than actually archiving it.
Distribution should be done via a website with links to files, e.g. ESO's gigapixel mosaic of the central parts of the Milky Way, a full size of 24.6 GiB [1]
Unless it is licensed under Creative Commons, in which case they themselves provide a download button.
Vimeo specifically has an option for allowing the viewer to download the video. I use this frequently when sending videos to clients. They can download the original file, and I don't have to use dropbox. Win-win
I used to work for a company that had a 16-bit film recorder that did this. The recorder was very finicky to environmental conditions especially related to humidity.
MAD has kept the peace better than anything so far. It may be uncomfortable for a variety of reasons but the fact of the matter is that nuclear powers don't get in shooting wars with each other and nobody picks a fight with a nuclear power no matter how small.
All four of these countries are under the US's nuclear umbrella and so don't need nuclear weapons. Which suits their politicians just fine: they get to have the safety of a nuclear deterrent without having to take the PR hit of supporting a nuclear weapons program.
But take note of groby_b's comment that America's commitment to the nuclear shield is suddenly looking very shaky. While they're still very much the minority for the moment, a few politicians on the Japanese right are gently bringing up the possibility of Japanese nuclear weapons, and if Trump keeps snuggling up to Putin, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Germany, Italy and Spain started seeing the same thing.
Can't they just snuggle up to their close neighbor and EU/NATO partner France? France is a nuclear power too, don't forget. UK is one too, and still part of NATO.
European nations have nuclear neighbors (France, UK) they can rely on if need be. Japan has the US to shield it from China (even still China pushes them around a little) and both China and the US to shield it from NK. South Africa is the dominant power in the region (Zimbabwe won't be annexing them anytime soon) and they have friends that like intervening in matters on the other side of the world (US, UK).
Ain't nobody with half a brain giving up their nukes after what happened to Libya. I'm surprised that Iran is disarming as much as it supposedly is. Quite frankly I'd like to see more proliferation among smaller nations because it keeps regional powers from acting like jerks. Look at how well nuclear weapons have kept the peace between India and Pakistan. Would Russia would have pushed around a nuclear Afghanistan, Georgia or Ukraine? Would Iraq picked a fight with a nuclear Iran or Kuwait? Would the US have invaded a nuclear Iraq?
Nuclear disarmament is a lot like gun control. The people who have reason to feel the most secure tend to be the first to tell everyone else to give up their arms and the guy in a neighborhood the police respond to "when they get around to it" who's upstairs neighbors are probably cooking meth wonders what kind of lunatic wouldn't want the ability to defend themselves if the need arose.
Your proposal to promote peace through nuclear proliferation would probably work great for a while. Then twenty or fifty or a hundred years down the line, something will go wrong and civilization will die. That doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff to me.
South Africa only did it because the right-wing white minority regime knew it was falling to internal opposition that was not only racially different but perceived to be of diametrically opposed ideological and, at least potentially, geopolitical orientation, and didn't want to supply nuclear arms to a hostile group. I suppose if the British government expected to fall to, say, a domestic Chinese-aligned quasi-Maoist opposition and had sufficient lead time to do so, it might disarm, too.
If you don't know why most nations don't voluntarily disarm in any other circumstances, the example of one of the few that did—Ukraine—might clear that up.
It's a pretty good deterrent in case Russia gets a bit too cocky in Europe.
The US has lost and continues to lose huge amounts of credibility over the last two years. The damage is bad enough that even if we fix the current problem, any reasonable person will assume that we'll just repeat a similar wave of stupidity at some later election.
Combine that with the fact that Russia is actively trying to cleave Eastern Europe from Central Europe, and you really can't propose unilateral disarmament without also suggesting Europe pledge fealty to Putin.
Disarmament requires stability. We (the US) shat a giant orange turd onto that idea.
And not only is disarmament not happening, as non-proliferation policy continues to crumble, nuclear armament will more and more move to smaller states who need a credible threat of "Well, then we'll take you with us" to larger regional forces. After Iran gets there, the next Domino in that region is likely Turkey.
This is a much bolder claim than I think people outside of the NBC world would realize and seems to have insider knowledge. Especially given the UK and France are nuclear powers.
Can you provide any Open Source documentation of this attitude being the trend? I'm not disagreeing I'm just curious.
If there were credibility problems then, when America was on a much more martial and pro-free-europe footing, the situation is hardly any better now. Although there is a lot less fear of Russian tanks entering Paris, certainly!
Quoth: The Strategic Review focuses on preserving France’s strategic autonomy, which is centered on maintaining and updating a credible maritime and air-based nuclear deterrent
Will France say publicly that they don't trust the US? Not in so many words, no. But given that Trump refused to reaffirm article 5, read the following sentence: At the Warsaw and Brussels NATO summits, France decisively and unambiguously reaffirmed its commitment to NATO’s Article 5 and mutual assistance.
Unless you subscribe to the reality TV school of diplomacy, this is quite clear.
> Disarmament requires stability. We (the US) shat a giant orange turd onto that idea.
One could reasonably argue this goes back to the Ukranian conflict. The previous administration hardly bolstered the notion that the US would hold up to promises and supposed red lines.
The US need not, contractually, support the Ukraine but it makes one realize that the US isn't the World's Police and a defender like some have believed. Nations need fend for themselves.
That, of course, is not the only foreign policy / military issue which highlighted US pullback from global policing actions. At least overt, in-the-news, type actions, as various special forces type operations are going on all the time.
The point is, the US populous is seemingly tired of the forever wars and politicians and their supporting media have grown wise to keep things under the rug as much as possible.
You immediately followed the Ukraine reference with “The previous administration hardly bolstered the notion that the US would hold up to promises and supposed red lines.” But there were no promises or red lines. Was that intended as a separate point?
The US has been regularly accused of playing "World Police." We literally have major studio films parodying that fact.
> But there were no promises or red lines.
Syrian chemical weapons use?
To be frank, I cannot tell if you're being needlessly obtuse in order an attempt to draw me into some sort of rhetorical noose to prove me wrong, or if you're simply ignorant of post-WWII history.
> that Ukraine was some sort of turning point.
I would argue that it is, that history books paint that as a turning point, of America turning away from the world stage should the trend continue.
After all, it wasn't that long ago the US (via NATO) was involving itself in peace keeping missions in Eastern Europe.
Of course this is contrasted with the rise of JSOC and drone missions (and our forever war in the Middle East), so perhaps not a full turn-away but a shift to a more muted, discrete influence? The US no longer overtly "going to bat" for "Democracy".
> I just thought you were still taking about Ukraine there, since the whole point of your comment
The point was more so that to provide a counter-point to the groby comment that the current administration marks the turning point away from the world stage, policing and protection, etc. We've arguably done that for most of this decade.
I'd heard that during the war the US exaggerated the power of nuclear weapons but this is the first time I've seen evidence to substantiate the claim. Was the data high or low? I perused the article twice and couldn't find clarification.
What?
> What?
The projector uses a hot lightbulb to display the frame in the film onto a wall or screen. The film sits just in front of this bulb, and of course the heat can risk damaging or melting the plastic film if the film is not quickly accelerated past the bulb (as is the case for watching a video - a sequence of frames).
Keeping one frame visible on a wall is to measure the visible size of the fireball, but doing so means one frame stays in front of the bulb long enough to risk it melting.
http://www.atomcentral.com/atomic-smoke-trails.aspx http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/SmokeTrails.html
WW2 was 60 million.
It's not about disparaging the importance of Vietnam and all, but the war could have been way hotter than what is was.
Proxy wars every decade are basically world peace compared to any realistic scenario as to how a shooting war between the major powers would have played out.
Nah, it was oxygen-frozen-solid most of the time. Once it got a bit tepid near Cuba, but that was about it; good thing it didn't boil over.