Boom
Via Ralph Luker, here’s an animated recapitulation of the world’s nuclear tests since 1945. Even with every month reduced to a second, it takes several minutes to gain momentum; from the end of the 1950s through the end of the 1980s, however, the whole thing becomes rather bewildering and about as depressing as tiny beeps and flickers of light can be.
A few random observations:
- I can’t imagine most Americans are aware that the US conducted more nuclear tests than every other nation combined from 1945-1998. For whatever these figures are worth, the number of Soviet tests never eclipsed more than 70 percent of the US total. By the mid-1970s, when Team B was yodeling about a “window of vulnerability” in the US defense strategy, the US had conducted nearly twice the number of tests as their chief rival.
- The British apparently conducted several nuclear tests in the US. I’ve since learned that there were nine such events from 1983-1991, all apparently in connection to the Trident project. Didn’t know that.
- The most interesting period, in my view, takes place from the end of 1958 through September 1961. Nothing happens throughout 1959; France sets off a handful of bombs from early 1960 through the spring of 1961; then the Soviets go absolutely apeshit in September of that year, and things don’t really calm down again until the early 1990s. In this video, the erratic incidence of US and Soviet tests in the 1950s looks and sounds like a conversation. Afterwards, it’s an incoherent frenzy.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
My first reaction is, “how in the hell are we still alive?”
Beyond that, a few other observations:
1.) Curious that the Soviet Union didn’t test one bomb between mid-1986 and April 1987 (in what seemed to be the longest period it goes without a test since the 1950s). Why is this? Glastnost/Perestroika? Financial issues? Other?
2.) I always knew France tested a bunch, too, but I never realized they outstripped both England and China by almost 5 times.
3.) It makes sense, but I’m still a little surprised to see that (based on the size of the dot) the British tested a plurality of their bombs on U.S. soil.
2.) I always knew France tested a bunch, too, but I never realized they outstripped both England and China by almost 5 times.
Woulda been nice to put that money towards pensions, huh?
well the Soviet Union was busy in Afghanistan during the 1980s, so i presume they didn’t have enough funding and time to both nuclear testings and invade Afghanistan.
That makes some sense, but they apparently tested pretty regularly save for that 9-month(ish) period. Did it get particularly harrowing in Afghanistan for them between mid-86 and early-87? (Asking because I genuinely don’t know).
Possible answer for #1 – Chernobyl.
Detonating a warhead would contaminate measurements.
For quite a long time nuclear tests have been below ground, so I don’t see what the big deal is. We’ve moved a long ways from 1950s newsreel footage of GIs in the Nevada desert.
Besides, aren’t tests needed for QA and all that?
Nuclear Detonations are not needed for QA anymore. The independent panel of scientists who review our nuclear stockpile concluded that we are now sufficiently advanced in computer capacity to test all our weapons rather than just detonating random weapons and hope the test is indicative of the rest of the arsenal. We really should ban testing.
What was going on with the French in the mid-90s?
But, similar to Mr. Trend, I found the difference between French and British behavior to be even more interesting than the difference between US and Soviet behavior. Guess the British always were more comfortable relying on US extended deterrence than France was.
part of the French testing in the 80s – and most of it in the 90s – was simply as a global Screw You to Greenpeace, and those global superpowers Samoa and New Zealand for objecting to the French right to pollute their neighbourhood of the Pacific with radiation.
(along with, of course, terrorist acts like blowing up a Greenpeace* ship and murdering some activists while in harbor a thousand miles from the test site).
Just think of it as part of that charming Gallic insousiance :/
Like the most fucking sinister game of Simon ever.
I wonder if the large amount of French tests(including above ground testing as recent as the mid ’90s) has something to do with the fact that their nuclear power industry supplies 80 percent of the country’s electricity.
There is really no other explanation I can come up with. It’s not like Paris was everyone’s first target.
You do realize that, with the exception of the fuel used, those two don’t have a lot in common. You understand that detonating a nuclear bomb isn’t how nuclear energy is produced right? How does them testing nuclear weapons have anything to do with how they obtain electricity? That’s like saying a lot of people in Siberia are killed by wooden arrows because they have the highest number of wood burning stoves per capita in the world.
Nuclear weapons are made from the waste derived from nuclear reactors.
2000 bombs — not only enough to wipe out civilization, but half of them were fired off on the west coast of America. Amazing the hippies survived.
The resulting radiation cause the emergence of the X-Hippies, coming soon to a wingnut blog near you.
By the way … how many of these events were for capping undersea oil wells? I seem to recall hearing on FOX news about the Russians stopping spills with nukes. It must be true…
About french tests in the mid-nineties: from what I remember, there was a protocol in place with several tests left to do when President Mitterand called for a halt in all nuclear testing. President Chirac decided that it made more sense (?) to complete the protocol rather than having, you know, detonated some bombs for nothing at all.
Didn’t make much sense at the time, doesn’t make any more now.
[...] Boom – [...]
[...] Boom. July 13th, 2010 | Category: [...]
As someone previously quite ignorant about this stuff, I was struck by the amount of French testing, too; also, it seems that even though the USSR tested many fewer bombs than the US, they used a lot more different sites. Why is that?
Well, they weren’t all tests. Some of them were “peaceful” detonations–like the creation of Lake Chagan. That, and there’s a whole lot of empty expanse in the former Soviet Union, and there were way fewer people bitching about the testing in their backyards.
As a side note, if you’re going to build a quality radiation detector, you need pre-WWII steel–the testing and other detonations have measurably increased the background radiation on the Earth, and steel that was produced prior to the advent of nuclear weapons has a lower concentration of radioactive isotopes, giving you a more sensitive instrument. It’s not about material deposited on or in the ore/metal–it’s about the air that you use to make the steel.
To add to Jude’s point, and bring in a battleship link: one of the best sources for this steel is the German High Seas Fleet, scuttled in Scapa Flow in 1919. Bits of this fleet were used in the Pioneer probes.
Well, that was a fun hour wasted on Wikipedia. Thanks for the info.
Has it been established that neither South Africa or Israel ever actually tested one?
Yeah, I was disappointed that they didn’t include Vela…
[...] An animation of every atomic/nuclear explosion in history. Via davenoon at LGM. [...]
Would be interesting to see the countries (suspected of) having doen research on building nukes. That list would be quite long. Sweden for example had a secret nuclear program in the 50’s and 60’s.
thc for all
I’d be interested to know the real numbers for Chinese nuclear tests. They can’t seriously expect anyone to believe that the ridiculously low figures shown in this video are accurate for China today.
I’m pretty sure that they can; even the Chinese can’t hide nuclear tests.
My understanding is that large explosions (like those from nuclear tests) leave a distinct seismic signature detectable by seismographs the world over. So – yeah, it should be impossible to hide a successful test.
45 isn’t ridiculously low, is it? They haven’t had nuclear weapons for as long as the others, so they won’t have needed as many stockpile-assurance tests, and they may not have designed as many different types of weapon as the US – no nuclear artillery shells or ADMs or mines, perhaps – so that would mean fewer designs to be tested.
The Chinese have a similar doctrine to France (or the UK) – minimal deterrence – but France had a tactical capability up to the late 90s, like the UK. However, I don’t think the French used the same dial-a-yield warhead for all their systems like the UK did.
[...] A cool animation showing the frequency of nuclear weapons’ testing worldwide since 1945 via Lawyers, Guns & Money: [...]
I think the reason Soviet testing was so big starting in September 1961 was that they had received news of Obama’s birth and were celebrating the future communist POTUS
Interesting that they had such good intelligence assets in Kenya at the time.
[...] Boom : Lawyers, Guns & Money Very cool visualization of nuclear weapon tests 1945-1998 (tags: visualization) [...]
[...] A utterly fascinating animated recapitulation of the world’s nuclear tests since 1945. [...]
How about a nice game of chess?
[...] Hat Tip: Lawyers, Guns, And Money [...]
My God. I am numb.
My god.
whoops – didn’t think that last comment went through. Sorry for double post.
When it’s time for the fall out,
good saint peter will call us all out,
and the party will be…come as you are~Tom Leher (we will all go together when we go)
This make me think of Tom Leher’s songs.