Autzoo.1630 net.games.emp utzoo!henry Tue May 4 18:44:38 1982 nuclear effects The orthodox rule of thumb is that the radii of bomb effects scale as the 1/2.7th power of energy release. Bomb effects are somewhere between volume and area effects, hence between cube and square roots, and 1/2.7 is a good empirical fit. If you want more definite info, check the graphs in "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons", published by the AEC and found in most sizeable libraries. It is definitely true that several modest-sized bombs are better at destroying an area than one big one. The energy of a large nuclear bomb is too concentrated; much of it gets spent re-re-re-blasting the already-devastated central area. This is why there are no hundred-megaton bombs in actual service; the biggest bombs actually in the arsenals are 10-20 megatons, and most missile warheads and so forth are a few hundred kilotons at most. This is also a major reason why the Oppenheimer committee argued (about 1950) that there was no valid military requirement for the hydrogen bomb. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.