The Day We Almost Set the World on Fire

While humanity has a better understanding of nuclear science now, when the first nuclear weapons were being developed, there were some serious questions about what the scientists were dealing with. Particular, would the first nuclear explosion test ignite the Earth’s atmosphere with it? Kyle terms back the clock to take a closer look at this question and more in this episode of Because Science!

Learn More:
Reference paper: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/docs/00329010.pdf
Factor of safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety
The weight of a butterfly: https://thebulletin.org/2015/02/the-weight-of-a-butterfly/
Nuclear war as a global catastrophic risk: https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs1866/f/downloads/GW%20Reg%20Studies%20-%20Nuclear%20War%20as%20a%20Global%20Catastrophic%20Risk%20-%20JScouras.pdf
Inverse Compton scattering: http://venables.asu.edu/quant/proj/compton.html
The impossibility of atmospheric fire: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/chung1/
Bethe, Teller, Trinity, and the End of Earth: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/bethe-teller-trinity-and-the-end-of-earth/
Radiative processes in plasmas: https://www.lehigh.edu/~eus204/teaching/ME362/lectures/lecture05.pdf
Bremsstrahlung main losses: http://www.ira.inaf.it/~ddallaca/P-Rad_2.pdf