Time lapse of every nuclear explosion ever undertaken.

[Al R]

Scary, beautiful too. Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. It starts slowly but if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — the buildup becomes almost overwhelming.

No cold war medal anyone? Damn, that just came out..

Time lapse map of every nuclear explosion ever on Earth | memolition (http://memolition.com/2013/10/16/time-lapse-map-of-every-nuclear-explosion-ever-on-earth/)

[Wensleydale]

It doesn't show the reaction caused when I forgot to record Downton earlier in the year!

[500N]

Very interesting.

I didn't realise just how many different places they had been detonated.
France's first one for a start. Will have to look up exactly where that was.

And how many explosions had occurred in Aus.

[newt]

Wensleydale!!

I can only imagine the fallout!!:ok:

[clicker]

I was surprised at how many France has let off.

[SASless]

Cold War? Seems we did a very good job of bombing ourselves. How many were detonated as a way of sending some "signal" to the other Powers?

[Squirrel 41]

France's first one for a start. Will have to look up exactly where that was.

It was in southern Algeria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Saharan_experiments_c enters_.281960.E2.80.931966.29) in 1960. This became more serious in 1961 when there was a test at the time of the 1961 Algiers putsch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers_putsch_of_1961) - the concern being that the rebels may have a live nuclear weapon on their hands.

Given the brutality of the Algerian War of Independence, it is also interesting that French nuclear testing was allowed to continue in Algeria until 1966/67.

I was surprised at how many France has let off.

After the resumption of US-UK nuclear cooperation in 1957, the UK was using US bomb designs and, presumably, US test data. As such, the UK total of 45 is abnormally low given our warheads and stockpile, rather than the French's being that high. Full details of UK testing, and US/UK joint tests in Nevada, are here (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKTesting.html).

Hope this helps,

S41

[dallas]

Amazing. I'd have guessed at maybe inside 100 nuclear detonations across the world, but 2053! Blimey...

[500N]

Squirrel

Thanks for that. I thought it might be Algeria but at the time couldn't think of the name of their colony.


Dallas
I thought it might be a couple of hundred but over 2000 :rolleyes:

I once looked at the holes in the ground / depressions in Nevada.
Was surprised how many in such a small area. Not talking hundreds
by any means but a few.

[Squirrel 41]

Amazing. I'd have guessed at maybe inside 100 nuclear detonations across the world, but 2053! Blimey...

It's a little more than that, Dallas - this cuts off in 1998, so it misses the end of the Pakistani series (and NB, China allegedly conducted some tests for Pakistan in China in the 80s, which would make sense given that Pakistan uses Chinese bomb designs). It also leaves off the North Korean tests in 2006/09 and earlier this year.

Wiki is pretty good (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests#Pakistan) on this, actually.

Oh, and in omitting it, the movie also decides that the "Vela incident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident)" off of southern African in 1979 definitely *wasn't* a joint Israeli / (apartheid) South African test.... :hmm:

S41

[rjtjrt]

Cold War? Seems we did a very good job of bombing ourselves. How many were detonated as a way of sending some "signal" to the other Powers?
SAS
You in US and those in Russia and China can say that as a good proportion of the ones you let off were on or under your own soil.
Europeans can't as they were very careful not to bomb themselves - they carefully made sure they only let them off somewhere where others lived.

[Robert Cooper]

You bastards should have been on Christmas Island in 1957/58, then you might have seen what a nuclear explosion was all about. Some of us are still trying to get recognition of what we when through, despite UK government opposition.

Bob C

[500N]

I noticed that in Russia, one dot appeared to be right up north on
the coast of Russia. I think it was an early explosion.

Not sure how old all of you are but in the 70's and 80's, nearly every study in my school was adorned with photos of at least one above ground Nuclear Explosion Mushroom cloud.

[Robert Cooper]

70's and 80's was a bit late. Most of it was going of in the 50's.

Bob C

[500N]

Yes, but the Posters of the Explosions, when did they proliferate ?
I thought it was in the 70's.

[rjtjrt]

500N
Tha Russian way up north I think was the Tsar Bomba, the biggest one ever.

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

John

[500N]

Wow, that was some bomb.

[TBM-Legend]

What about South Africa and Israel?

[VIProds]

Great time lapse. I used it on a video that I recently finished, filming a Valiant Technician talking about the Atomic Tests at Maralinga, Aus. & the Grapple series at Christmas Island.

I had noticed that some of the British tests that were flagged up, appeared in the Nevada Desert in the early 60's.

[gr4techie]

I take it the Americans did not like Nevada!

It's interesting to look at a satellite photo of Nevada on Google Maps and explore how many nuclear bomb craters they are.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lohqjdm9U51qzss4xo1_500.jpg
yes, I know this is not a satellite photo

[FJJP]

Scary. I spent many years atop Blue Steel and WE177 flying the tin triangle.

Didn't realise that there were so many tests by so many countries.

Lets hope that there are no more...

[500N]

gr4

That was what I was talking about before re Nevada.
Although I had forgotten their were so many.

[Lonewolf_50]

Whenever I go to Nevada, I only get bombed in Las Vegas. :cool: Good thing I wasn't around for all them nukes, I might not be here.

[gr4techie]

For those who want to see the craters on Google Maps. Search for Yucca Flat airport and zoom in, the craters are on the north east side of the airport and they run north for quite some distance.

[MAINJAFAD]

Tha Russian way up north I think was the Tsar Bomba, the biggest one ever.

Biggest four ever done were in that area in 1961. Biggest US one was Castle Bravo at Bikini in 1954 at 15Mt and that one was the fifth biggest. The histroy of most of them can be found at

The Nuclear Weapon Archive - A Guide to Nuclear Weapons (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/)

With photos and some video.

[onetrack]

The scary part of the nuclear test programs was the U.S. and USSR high altitude nuclear test explosions, in what was virtually, Space.
Numerous nuclear test explosions were carried out at altitudes of 150 to 540kms.
The Kármán line, at 100kms out, is generally regarded as the height where Space officially starts.

High-altitude nuclear explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosion#List_of_high-altitude_nuclear_explosions)

Fortunately, to some degree, the U.S. and France have been leading the way from the mid-1990's, and have built very large inertial confinement fusion facilities.
These facilities enable the detailed study of the ignition process of thermonuclear explosions.
With these technologies it is possible to conceive and test new weapons in the laboratory, without large scale explosions being needed.

But - even though the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has tried to prevent all nuclear tests - and failed - there is nothing to stop the development of even bigger and better nuclear weapons, without any actual test explosions.

The Doomsday Clock is still at 5 minutes to midnight, even though it has retreated a little from the 2 minutes to midnight, reached at the height of the Cold War.

[Agaricus bisporus]

It is worth remembering that "only" some 500 or so of the 2000 total were atmospheric tests so in the vast majority the radioactivity was contained underground.

It also rather scarily illustrates that even large numbers of these things doesn't wipe out life on earth, or anywhere near it (from the radiological point of view)

For me the most fascinating and in a way eerily beautiful images are those taken with the Rapatronic cameras microseconds after detonation, some displaying the weird "rope tricks" effect from the cable-stays that supported the shot-cab and tower vapourising in the flash. The physics of what is going on there is simply amazing.

?First Milliseconds of Nuclear Bomb Test Fireball? - YouTube

There are some amazing pics of the fireball emerging through the side of HMS Plym in the "Hurricane" test at Monte Bello (Aus) but I've only seen them in a book - can't trace them on the web. Maybe someone else can.

[reds & greens]

Crikey, just watch that western American seaboard light up!
I've seen less flashes in a photographic stroboscopic studio.
I'm sure it's done the San Andreas fault line a power of good....

[Pontius Navigator]

500N
Tha Russian way up north I think was the Tsar Bomba, the biggest one ever.

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

John

I was in initial training then and remember being outside one dark night and looking to the north in the vague hope (dread) that we might see something.

[ShyTorque]

It somehow shows the "unexplained" legacy of increasing numbers of cancer cases in a different light.

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

2000+ sounds like an awful lot...I wonder how many of them are nuclear trigger tests without the aid of the surrounding uranium/plutonium casing?

[melmothtw]

Europeans can't as they were very careful not to bomb themselves - they
carefully made sure they only let them off somewhere where others lived.


Sounds eminently sensible to me.