Beware of Gamma Particles This post is probaly off topic so I have edited out my reply.

[George Dowell]

This post is probaly off topic so I have edited out my reply.

George Dowell

[Carl Willis]

Hi George,

What's funny is that the neutrons go unmentioned. These will promptly frag anyone close enough to the explosion, and the gamma / beta doesn't hold a candle to their ability to tear you a new one.

The question would also have to be qualified a bit more in order to even make sense. Alpha particles are effectively harmless outside the body, yet if their precursors are ingested and get taken up in bone for instance, one's goose is cooked!

The best way to survive a nuclear attack is to (A) be a "God-fearing" non-commie-pinko-scum American and (B) duck-and-cover under your school desk when the siren sounds.

-Carl

[StephenY]

I'm doomed. I'm Canadian.
Carl Willis wrote:
> The best way to survive a nuclear attack is to (A) be a \\"God-fearing\\" non-commie-pinko-scum American and (B) duck-and-cover under your school desk when the siren sounds.
>
> -Carl

I'm doomed. I'm Canadian. I'm out of school and my office desk underside is jampacked with cabling
++
@

[George Dowell]

This post is probaly off topic so I have edited out my reply.

George Dowell

[Chris Bradley]

If one is signed up to the corpuscular theory of light (as the USN in the 60's might well have been?!) then it makes sense.

I think this is from the "if in doubt, put a paper bag over your head" school of Naval training to help the ratings think they are doing something useful long after all useful responses have been exhausted.

[StephenY]

George Dowell wrote:
> It's OK. you get free health care!
>
> George Dowell

Which makes us "commie-pinkos..."!

[Starfire]

Chris - where can I get a suitable paper bag?

[Chris Bradley]

I've used up my Navy-issued paper bags, but will think up a suitable substitute...

[Richard Hull]

Duck and cover could surely work and save lives in the early fifites when micro atomic fission bombs (20-50kt) were all that could be slung at your class room and limited in number by attrition and only surviving bomber delivery and then only in really big cities.

Once the 1-10 megaton fusion weapons came on line and were coupled to ICBMs and with the added indignity of MERVs on each, they just gave up and and went MAD. No need for shelters or evacuations, etc.

I was figured that those who lived, lived, and those who died, died, either instantly or over a delightfully protracted period of days, months and years. Lots o' sufferin' all round. Somebody decided this was really bad.

Thank goodness for MAD and the protracted arms race, It's the only thing that saved our butts.

With no clean, clear win and only wasted territory left to march into and takeover, why start anything?

The super powers at least had a load of educated, thinking, nutballs at the helm who expected something to be theirs at the end of the battle. MAD made everyone a looser and no one would get a prize, whether in offensive or defensive positions.

Today, we are dealing with religious nutballs who don't need to win a darned thing! Merely taking out a load of godless infidels is a big win regardless of your own losses.

We have some chance of being back to "duck and cover" in the near future. Probably not a matter of if, but when.

Woe betide the first slinger of an atom weapon! The world has lived under that gun too long to suffer religious idiots actually using such a device.

Richard Hull

[Starfire]

[Pascal Dennerly]

I know this is getting slightly off topic but here's what the Russians did to make the West safe - build a deterrent that scare them so much it gave them 'peace of mind'.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ ... ntPage=all