Vsauce, I’m Jake and I’m glad you found
me. I was worried I wouldn’t see you again before the bombs dropped. Things have gotten...out
of a hand. Ya know, it’s estimated that there are over 10,000 nuclear weapons in the
world. 10,000. And depending on the size of the bomb, it could take as little as 2,500
to completely destroy all of North America and 13,000 more to destroy the planet. It’s
beautiful out here isn’t it? Well, we should probably get inside and start preparing...come
on. We’ve all seen footage of nuclear bombs
being detonated and it is jaw dropping, the force of it, the power. And we’ve seen the
damage it causes to anything in the surrounding area. But we tend to forget just how devastating
a nuclear bomb is, really. For example: Since 1923 there have been over 53,000 deaths from
airplane accidents. There have been over 220,000 deaths from nuclear bombs, and that’s only
from 2 of them. The shear amount of destruction and death
that a nuclear bomb is capable of, created a new unit of measurement in the 1950s...a
megadeath. 1 megadeath is equal to 1 million fatalities by nuclear explosion. To understand
just how incredibly large and impacting one explosion would be, we have to look no further
than the most powerful nuclear device detonated by the United States, Castle Bravo. Castle Bravo had 15 megatons of TNT and the
fireball it created was about 4 miles wide. The mushroom cloud went 24.6 miles high and
stretched for more than 60. But what we don’t see is what happens after
the initial blast. Once the cameras stop rolling, it no longer exists for us but the effects
of it are still there. In the case of Castle Bravo, two hundred billion
pounds of coral reef and sea floor were ejected. A large amount of debris is pulled up and
into the mushroom cloud, becoming radioactive, and creating fallout. As the cloud gets higher,
the winds get stronger and carry the fallout away from the blast site, like radioactive
seeds. Tiny particles of radioactive material can be pulled into the upper atmosphere and
travel thousands of miles from the initial blast. The Island of Rongelap was 115 miles from
the explosion and was evacuated 2 days after. White dust, fallout, rained down upon the
inhabitants. They couldn’t return for 3 years and then had to leave again because
the island still wasn’t safe. What’s scary about a nuclear bomb isn’t
just the initial blast, I mean, that we can see. It’s the things we can’t see like
the gamma rays or the radioactive dust that looks like any other dust. By the time you
feel the effects of radiation damage nothing can be done to reverse it. Strontium-90, is known as a bone seeker and
is released by thermonuclear explosions. It gets into the soil and is absorbed by the
plants. Then by the animals that eat those plants, and then by the humans that eat those
animals. Once inside it mimics calcium and starts to build up in our bones. Since it
has a half-life of 29 years, it keeps emitting radiation causing bone cancer and leukemia. And, to me, the most unnerving part of nuclear
war and fallout are the effects that are not immediate, that you don’t even know about
until it is too late. Or that you don’t even know about because they affect someone
further down your family line...after you’re already gone. There’s an obstacle course to recovery that
survivors of large scale nuclear attacks face: 1-2 days — Blast and Thermal and then all
the way to 2 to several generations withGenetic effects When it comes to these bombs, the intent isn’t
entirely just to destroy those within the blast radius or even those who die within
a few days from radiation poisoning. The intent is to destroy everything they have ever known,
to make their lives unlivable. As president Eisenhower said, “You can’t have this
kind of war. There just aren’t enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.” And there is actually something more frightful
than actually detonating a nuclear bomb...the idea of detonating it. During the Cold War
between the United States and the Soviet Union it was more about the capabilities and intentions
the enemy thinks you have. It becomes a war of persuasion over a war of action. But there
is another tactic, a doctrine of military strategy that boils down to if you shoot at
me, I’ll shoot at you. But in this case, if you fire weapons of mass destruction at
me, I will fire all of mine at you to make sure that neither side wins, that everyone
loses. It sounds crazy doesn’t it? But it’s not crazy, it’s MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). If something like that were to happen we could
be safe in underground bunkers, with cans of food and our own water filtration system.
But how long would you have to stay underground? And would you even be safe there? Because
you could always find yourself meeting a Nuclear Bunker Buster. I’m going to be honest with you...surviving
a fallout isn’t really the question. Of course you could survive given the right preparations,
humans are resilient and will perceiver through the toughest obstacles. A lethal dose of radiation
wouldn’t turn you into a ghoul, it would turn you into a corpse. So the real question
that you have to ask yourself in this situation isn’t if you could survive a fallout, it’s
if you’d want to. I guess it’s getting to be that time.
Einstein said something relevant to this.
He said “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will
be fought with sticks and stones.” Let’s lighten the mood a bit, shall we? Oh I love this one. This is “A beautiful
Day” from Madame Butterfly, and in it, she is singing about a dream she had where she
sees a puff of smoke on the horizon, and her future husband’s ship comes through. He
arrives to rescue her, to save her from the life she’s known. Unfortunately, we will
not be saved, we will not be rescued but I can guarantee that on that horizon we will
see a puff of smoke. And, as always, thanks for watching.
If you're interested in this kind of thing I recommend Radio Bikini, which is primarily about the test America carried out in the Bikini atoll. A lot of people say this is what Spongebob is based off since he is in Bikini bottom and he is a talking sponge.
Skip to about 30:30 for the explosion and some aftermath of the goats they tied up to the boats nearby.
That was a whole lot of zero information with good production.
Well... That was sobering.
If you are Indiana Jones and you have a fridge, yes.
He talk annoyingly like the other vsauce bearded guy. He keeps saying the same stuff. Yes you fear the things you don't immediately see. And albeit professional looking, the video they shot with the presenter doesn't add shit to the story and is just getting in between me and the message. I give this a 4/10.
Cool video but him saying "Nuke-yuh-ler" was getting really annoying...
If you guys are interested on the effect of nuclear fallout and the devastation it can have on human society, there was a very well researched moviementary done about this precisely. It's called Threads and it depicts what would have happened if the Cold War had gone ..differently. It shows just how fragile human society actually is and what could very easily cause extinction.
How does this vapid shit not get downvoted to Hell?
Don't watch. Not worth it. It's a guy who plays dress up and regurgitates a documentary he watched. Short answer to the titles question: Of course not.