Quote:
Originally Posted by blueshift
Daffy,
Read your whole quote again. They were "taking" bets not "making" bets. That means they were sure they weren't going to ignite the whole atmosphere. They alll had enough background in pryotechnics to know that the amount of atmosphere was too great to be ignited by those firecrackers. The atmosphere is not as volatile as the natural gas in a residence that, once left leaking with the windows closed will ignite with one flip of a light switch.
|
A very good point. By the time of the first test, they knew that this would not happen; see, for example, the
Wikipedia article on the Manhatten project (I've also read this in other sources, but Wikipedia is quick to link to):
Quote:
|
Teller also raised the speculative possibility that an atomic bomb might "ignite" the atmosphere, because of a hypothetical fusion reaction of nitrogen nuclei. Bethe calculated, according to Serber, that it could not happen. In his book The Road from Los Alamos, Bethe says a refutation was written by Konopinski, C. Marvin, and Teller as report LA-602, showing that ignition of the atmosphere was impossible, not just unlikely.[7] In Serber's account, Oppenheimer mentioned it to Arthur Compton, who "didn't have enough sense to shut up about it. It somehow got into a document that went to Washington" which led to the question being "never laid to rest".[8]
|
So, this is actually a good analog to the present situation with the LHC - the scientists involved in the project are well familiar with the physics and the risks (or lack there of) involved in it.