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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

> The resulting explosion packed the energy of 700 1-megaton nuclear bombs

While not strictly on-topic, this wording is just weird, what's wrong with simply "700-megaton"?

The use of "nuclear" unnecessarily makes this a two-step relationship, too: an equivalence to the energy of a nuclear explosion that is itself being equated to a TNT explosion.

"The resulting explosion packed the energy of a 700-megaton bomb"

Most people don't realize how variable a nuclear bomb is, so they want a soundbite that makes people think "a lot of nuclear bombs".

For context, nukes range from about .000001 to 50 megatons. If you combine all the nukes ever detonated, I don't think it would top 700 megatons.

Total appears to be 635 megatons - 545 Mt atmospheric and 90 underground Mt. Quite a bit more than I would have expected!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_testing

As a species, we really enjoy blowing things up.

It's a bit unfair to blame the entire species when 2 countries are responsible for most of the nuclear tests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests

How weird that countries that develop a new technology would test it far more than others who simply copied their work...

I have never been responsible for a nuclear test, but as a member of the human species, I can confirm that I really enjoy blowing things up.

Because it was not 1 nuclears, but 700 nuclears! 700 nuclears AT ONCE!

Readers are likely much more familiar with the destructive power of a 1MT detonation (e.g. they can go watch one set off on YouTube). Nobody alive has seen a 700MT explosion.

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