timberlandko wrote:I think what you are missin' is the effect of a thermonuclear blast. The first one-megaton yield thermonuclear blast occurred in 1952 at Bikini Atoll. The fireball was over a mile in diameter, and it is estimated some 80 million tons of earth, plus a similar-if-not-greater volume of water, was vaporized - not blown around, VAPORIZED. What recondensed into materially substantial - if still near-microscopic - matter fell as thousands of tons of "fallout" over tens of thousands of square miles through a period of several months. It took that long for much of it to make its way back to the surface of the planet from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, so insubstantial was it. A good bit of it still is in the upper atmosphere.
Edit to add - for reference, a cubic meter of crushed iron ore goes about 2500kg, natural sand and gravel weighs around 1650-1800kg/cubic meter.
Oh Timber, I think I understand what is going on.
You think that "obliterating" or "VAPORING" or "destroying" something gets rid of it. Like it goes away, or becomes pretty much nothing. But, "Conservation of Mass"! Please oh please oh please look it up.
It comes out so visibly here:
"some 80 million tons of earth, plus a similar-if-not-greater volume of water, was vaporized"
That mean 160 million tons of mass (material) went up. And then ...
Quote:"matter fell as thousands of tons of "fallout" over tens of thousands of square miles through a period of several months. It took that long for much of it to make its way back to the surface of the planet from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, so insubstantial was it. A good bit of it still is in the upper atmosphere."
That just means all that matter was distributed across a larger space. That's all.
If 160 million tons went up, but only thousands of tons down . . .
then over 159 million tons of debris is still up in the air.
Nothing disappears. You can blow it up. You can smash it. You can VAPORIZE it to smithereens ... but it's still actually there. Think: vapor means vapor. It's the same exact substance, in the same exact quantity, except now it's swirling around instead of sitting still. That's all. That's the ONLY difference when you vaporize something.
"not blown around, VAPORIZED" -- THOSE ARE SYNONYMS! A vapor is anything that keeps blowing around. The molecules don't stay in one given place.
You can't get a rope on it. You can't put a shovel onto it, or grab it with two hands. It's a vapor. It still has a mass (NOT a weight) of 159 million tons, like the massive amounts of smoke that comes from chimneys. But it's still a mass. It still has momentum. And you can still propel it at very high speed to create the same exact thrust. Solid or gas, it's still the same damn molecules.
A "coherent" state is for laser beams. Coherence doesn't matter a whit to the 159 million tons we're talking about. It's still 159 million tons of stuff that carries momentum.
It's always interesting to see how vocabulary gets in our way sometimes . . . If we can find the
right words to say it, then so much understanding comes together all at once.
