03-04-2003, 12:31 AM
Hi,
I'm no expert on the issue, but would anyone be able to react fast enough to drop to the ground before the shockwave or heat blast hits?
You don't even need to react that fast. The atmosphere is very transparent to visible light. It gets there first. It is a lot less transparent to infrared (IR), so while some of it gets there directly, much of it is absorbed and re-emitted. And it is over pretty fast. The shock waves, being material waves, travel a lot slower. At a couple of kilometers, you have about half a second to react before the ground swell hits you. The air blast is even slower.
A lot of this information was declassified years ago. It is available from the US Government Printing office. See http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/nukeffct/enw77.htm It is a most informative book, dispelling some of both side's inaccuracies.
--Pete
I'm no expert on the issue, but would anyone be able to react fast enough to drop to the ground before the shockwave or heat blast hits?
You don't even need to react that fast. The atmosphere is very transparent to visible light. It gets there first. It is a lot less transparent to infrared (IR), so while some of it gets there directly, much of it is absorbed and re-emitted. And it is over pretty fast. The shock waves, being material waves, travel a lot slower. At a couple of kilometers, you have about half a second to react before the ground swell hits you. The air blast is even slower.
A lot of this information was declassified years ago. It is available from the US Government Printing office. See http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/nukeffct/enw77.htm It is a most informative book, dispelling some of both side's inaccuracies.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?