The age of nuclear warfare began with the explosions of Little Boy over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, and ended three days later with the Fat Man detonation. As of March 31, 2016, the Japanese government estimated that the number of explosion-affected people, the "hibakusha," stood at about 650,000, with about 174,000 still alive.
The Hiroshima bomb created a blast equivalent to 16,000 tons (16 kilotons) of TNT. The Fat Man explosion over Nagasaki, generated a blast yield equivalent to 21kilotons of TNT.
Weapons improvement has continued since 1945, of course, just as small protohuman and human boys continued to refine their throwing sticks, javelins, slingshots and other death-delivery devices over the past 3 million years.
The culmination of this activity occurred on Oct. 30, 1961, when the Soviet Union detonated the largest man-made explosion in history. The Tsar Bomba thermonuclear (hydrogen fusion) blast was estimated to be 50 million tons (TNT equivalent), or, 1,570 times the combined energy of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Notwithstanding nuclear non-proliferation treaties, other refinements of nuclear weaponry include such jewels as dirty bombs, suitcase bombs and neutron bombs, the latter being specially designed to destroy humans with neutron radiation while preserving infrastructure such as golf courses and hotels.
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No, Donald Trump, nuclear weapons are not on the bargaining table.
George Spangler
Chatfield
