Alex WellersteinVerified account

(It should be noted that while nuclear wonks are very picky about specific kilotonnage — was Little Boy 13, 15, or 18 kt? — because damage spreads as a cubic root, rough estimates are fine for damage assessment, fallout, etc.)

Luke and Alex, what are the odds that US servicemen, unprompted or prompted, could distinguish between a .5, 5, and 50 kt surface blast? Atmospheric blast?

The real unknown here is the serviceman question. I'd like to think that if you looked at detonations side by side, you can tell, even without a scale reference, that .5 kt is pretty small for a nuke.

But 5 and 50 kt are probably firmly enough in "definitely a rather large nuke" category that I don't know how easily people would distinguish intuitively under non-experimental conditions (e.g. without knowing the range first, or keeping track of the time, etc.).

My understanding is that about 70-100kt+ is when the double flash starts being visible to naked eye.

Guys. A bunch of soldiers (or any other random bunch of people), with or without traning, are going to OMG IT'S A NUKE! I'M GONNA DIE! Those differences in flash time are hard to see on film as I sit in my comfortable office.

I keep swearing to myself that I’m going to mute this thread BUT I CAN’T ESCAPE. “Men in ties arguing troops measuring the size of mushroom clouds”