Questions tagged [nuclear]
For questions about atomic nuclear phenomena and their effects on the world. For heat and power generation applications of nuclear phenomena, use [nuclear-power]. For weapons relying on nuclear phenomena, consider [nuclear weapons] and [weapon-mass-destruction]. Compare [radioactivity], [weak-force] and [strong-force].
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Are nuclear weapons useful in space?
On Earth, nuclear weapons can wreak enormous damage to a country and for that reason, large-scale wars between nuclear powers don’t happen. But what would happen if humanity progressed just enough to ...
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How disarmed does a nuclear bomb get by shooting it? [closed]
A Simple scenario; you have a guy with a gun (a very big and loud gun), and a ticking nuke with seconds left. All the controls, buttons, and wiring on the thing are in a different language, and he’s ...
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Could we reach the earth's core using today's nuclear arsenal?
The setting is basically earth. Our planet is unfortunately on a collision course with a large asteroid. However, humans have discovered and decoded a message from an ancient, advanced alien race (our ...
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Best places to be on Earth when an all out nuclear World War III breaks out?
This is a world building question in a preventative context because those people or countries would be left fully functional while others are gone and the safe areas are where the world building would ...
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Spaceflight without transistors and nuclear power - how to bend the history of physics?
As stated in the topic: I would like to have Project Olympus-style space stations served by Apollo-like spacecraft in a world where neither nuclear power (and weapons) nor transistors were developed ...
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Nuclear Piston Engine - Is it possible?
While researching unique methods of nuclear energy generation and propulsion, I encountered many things, both in rocketry and aerospace. For instance, the nuclear thermal jet engine. However, I found ...
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Nuclear magic: Surviving your own spells
TLDR: Portals to other places; wizards use them to make nukes-as-fireballs/anti-personal level attacks, how do they survive?
In a system of magic that functions around opening portals, what ...
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Practicality of a thorium-powered, superheated-steam car?
At the beginning of the 1900s, the Doble Steam Motors Company built steam cars. Their engineers solved many of the problems steam cars had until then by using superheated steam and a condenser to ...
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Is it safe to grow and eat food on post-nuclear-war land?
Follow-up of Could the entire world have been destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal in 1962?
Is it safe to grow food on land that was hit by nuclear bombs? Or will such food kill/fatally sicken ...
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Can one nuke reliably shoot another out of the sky?
A quick glance at real world anti-missile systems seems to show that they do work, but imperfectly. The problem naturally gets harder when the incoming missile is extremely high-velocity.
If your ...
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What could cause a post-apocalyptic, rapid desertification of vast areas of the world, similar to the land in Mad Max: Fury Road?
I apologise as this will be vague - but I am building a world set in the future (late 21st century) and looking at realistic ways for rapid desertification of huge land areas, say America, and ...
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How much alteration would be needed for the Cuban Missile Crisis to go nuclear? [closed]
My story takes place centuries in the future, in the year 2567. Over 600 years ago, during 1962, an all out nuclear war broke out. Most modern day historians believe it to have occurred in autumn, but ...
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How would nuclear fallout affect the oceans?
I'm trying to build a setting in which humankind would have no other choice than to live underwater to survive.
Suppose there was a nuclear war in which a huge part of the human population died, and ...
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Why would a nuclear powered spaceship needs to wait a few days before restarting the reactor engine?
Set some 50 years in the future, every spaceship in space is powered by a nuclear powered reactor and most of them came equipped with an ion propulsion engine for acceleration. I noticed that every ...
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Could the entire world have been destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal in 1962?
Considering the nuclear arsenal that existed in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, could it have destroyed the entire world, following the events below?
Edited question a bit:
Considering the ...
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