Tyson and modern hydrogen nuclear weapons.

[Daedalus X]

Is Tyson right when he says hydrogen bombs don't leave residual radiation. Did my High School teacher lie to me when he said H bombs are triggered by fission bombs?

If Tyson is wrong, how is it possible for someone of his stature giving out such blatant misinformation?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Daedalus X in post #1]

If Tyson is wrong, how is it possible for someone of his stature giving out such blatant misinformation?

Tyson is an astrophysicist, not a nuclear physicist or expert on nuclear bombs. If pure fusion bombs existed he may have a point, but these days they all include fission processes that do produce dangerous radiation. How modern nuclear bombs are constructed is no longer a secret, eg. see:

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb.htm

or good old Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon

Watching the video you linked ... it looks pretty clear that he realized he stuck his foot in his mouth when called out for specifics.

[Daedalus X]

Watching the video you linked ... it looks pretty clear that he realized he stuck his foot in his mouth when called out for specifics.

He may have realized that something was wrong but he did not make it clear to the audience.

Ever since the 1950's the peoples of the world have been lead to believe that a full thermonuclear exchange between the US and USSR would be a human extinction event. And now we have Mr. Face of Science telling us that it will only end the lives of people living in or near a target (mainly large cities and military assets), then a nuclear war is winnable and worth fighting if we can just stick it to Putin once and for all.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Daedalus X in post #3]

And now we have Mr. Face of Science telling us ...

Why would you consider Tyson "Mr. Face of Science"? Just because he does a lot of TV? Here is his CV:

https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/about/cv.php

Only 13 refereed journal publications in 31 years since his Ph.D, just 5 as first author (all 1988 - 1993), and the most recent one was 14 years ago. And all of these publications are in astrophysics with none related to nuclear weapons. He's got more books (19) than research papers, and the books are all related to astrophysics. He's a TV guy, and writes books for the layman ... not exactly someone to take seriously when he's talking about nuclear weapons, but apparently many people do just because he's on TV a lot.

[Daedalus X]

[Replying to Daedalus X in post #3]

And now we have Mr. Face of Science telling us ...

Why would you consider Tyson "Mr. Face of Science"? Just because he does a lot of TV? Here is his CV:

Tyson is just one.
And then there is Anthony Fauci "criticizing science, because I represent science."
Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Richard Dawkins semi retired.
Michio Kaku.
Lawrence M. Krauss, he ran into a "me too" problem.

But here we are, on the eve of a thermo nuclear war, and no body is talking about what such an event will do to the world. And Tyson gives his 2 cents worth of false information that even the average high school student knows is false.

But, then again, how do you inform the public about the real danger without inducing the fear that would cause the people to demand a bad solution to the problem? Like a world government that would enslave all the people of the world. I think that I would rather die in a nuclear blast, I would not even know that I died.

Here is what I think a nuclear war would look like. A nuclear "ice age" would certainly solve the global warming problem that we are all so concerned about.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Daedalus X in post #1]

I did not watch the video but no one really needs to if you understand nuclear fusion. It really does not matter if there is a fission reaction or not. But all hydrogen bombs so far use fission reactions to produce nuclear fusion. Simply because of the energy needed to create nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fusion fuses Deutrium Hydrogen-2 with Tridium hydrogen-3 to produce helium-4, notice one neutron is given off along with a huge amount of energy in the form of Gamma radiation. This would be considered more of a neutron bomb because of the release of neutrons. This type of bomb is considered best for taking out tank crews.

But all nuclear blasts no matter what type convert matter into energy in the form of gamma radiation.

So what I am saying is that Neils Degrasse Tyson's statement breaks the laws of physics. Because how can that much energy be converted to anything else but gamma rays? We could make a comparison of how light is produced by jumping electrons.

I am sure that Neil's mailbox was full of comments after he made this statement.