Former GiveWell researcher Jonah Sinick has expressed optimism on the issue:
In the Manhattan project, the “will bombs ignite the atmosphere?” question was analyzed and dismissed without much (to our knowledge) double-checking.
Argh. This is a myth. (It is especially frustrating in its most dire form, when it’s implied that the concern was chemical ignition, i.e. ordinary fire. The concern was actually about nuclear ignition. Other retellings often say “set fire to” which implies ordinary fire.)
I had totally forgotten about that post. (Probably because I learned about the history of the Manhattan Project long before reading anything from EY.) Thanks for the reminder.
There were calculations done before the bomb was tested, which confirmed people’s strong priors against an atmospheric ignition effect. But the report is dated August 1946, after the first nuclear tests and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Presumably the report is elaborating on the earlier calculations, but the analysis before the first nuclear detonations is more important than the analysis after.
I suspect, without any evidence, that the analysis was carried out to a sufficient extent to convince all of the physicists involved, saving the formal writeup for later. There was a war on, you know.
Nowadays, as I understand it, most areas of science are carried out through informal circulation of preprints long before papers are formally published for the record. I imagine the same thing went on at Los Alamos, especially given the centralization of that community.
I suspect, without any evidence, that the analysis was carried out to a sufficient extent to convince all of the physicists involved, saving the formal writeup for later.
Based on the evidence of reading about the Teller story, yes the calculations were enough to settle the issue internally. Indeed, others thought it a bit silly in the first place. The procedure clearly had a very low expected failure rate in general, and the danger was low prior. OTOH, it’s not clear what p “convincing” translated into.
In any case, those calculations eliminated most of the subjective expected value of atmospheric nuclear ignition risk, as asteroid searches have eliminated most of the expected value of asteroid extinction risk.
(It is especially frustrating in its most dire form, when it’s implied that the concern was chemical ignition, i.e. ordinary fire. The concern was actually about nuclear ignition. Other retellings often say “set fire to” which implies ordinary fire.)
I’m peeved by the fact that stellar nucleosynthesis processes are usually called “burning” rather than “fusion”, BTW.
Stars are awesome (in the old-school non-diluted sense) which naturally makes it tempting to use more evocative language when talking about them. And you could think of ‘burning’ in such usage referring more to incandescence rather than rapid oxidation.
I was going to object to the idea that “fusion” isn’t evocative enough, but I guess that whoever first named stellar nucleosynthesis “burning” hadn’t been exposed to Dragon Ball Z, Gillette advertising and repeated claims that “thirty years from now” fusion power will solve all of our problems.
Argh. This is a myth. (It is especially frustrating in its most dire form, when it’s implied that the concern was chemical ignition, i.e. ordinary fire. The concern was actually about nuclear ignition. Other retellings often say “set fire to” which implies ordinary fire.)
See Wikipedia’s article on the Trinity test, which links to Report LA-602, “Ignition of the Atmosphere With Nuclear Bombs”, where this was carefully analyzed.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/rg/la602_vs_rhic_review/
I had totally forgotten about that post. (Probably because I learned about the history of the Manhattan Project long before reading anything from EY.) Thanks for the reminder.
There were calculations done before the bomb was tested, which confirmed people’s strong priors against an atmospheric ignition effect. But the report is dated August 1946, after the first nuclear tests and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Presumably the report is elaborating on the earlier calculations, but the analysis before the first nuclear detonations is more important than the analysis after.
I suspect, without any evidence, that the analysis was carried out to a sufficient extent to convince all of the physicists involved, saving the formal writeup for later. There was a war on, you know.
Nowadays, as I understand it, most areas of science are carried out through informal circulation of preprints long before papers are formally published for the record. I imagine the same thing went on at Los Alamos, especially given the centralization of that community.
Based on the evidence of reading about the Teller story, yes the calculations were enough to settle the issue internally. Indeed, others thought it a bit silly in the first place. The procedure clearly had a very low expected failure rate in general, and the danger was low prior. OTOH, it’s not clear what p “convincing” translated into.
In any case, those calculations eliminated most of the subjective expected value of atmospheric nuclear ignition risk, as asteroid searches have eliminated most of the expected value of asteroid extinction risk.
I’m peeved by the fact that stellar nucleosynthesis processes are usually called “burning” rather than “fusion”, BTW.
Stars are awesome (in the old-school non-diluted sense) which naturally makes it tempting to use more evocative language when talking about them. And you could think of ‘burning’ in such usage referring more to incandescence rather than rapid oxidation.
I was going to object to the idea that “fusion” isn’t evocative enough, but I guess that whoever first named stellar nucleosynthesis “burning” hadn’t been exposed to Dragon Ball Z, Gillette advertising and repeated claims that “thirty years from now” fusion power will solve all of our problems.
(And, of course, the real question here is whether Jews are allowed to operate fusion reactors on Shabbat. ;-))
Don’t look at this Wikipedia article, or your head will explode.
For some reason that doesn’t bother me as much.