There’s no hard limit to increasing thermonuclear weapon yield by increasing the number of stages, but you’d have to proportionally increase the bomb size. The Taylor limit of ~6 kt/kg means that a 10 Gt bomb would need to weigh at least ~2000 t. Could easily fit on a cargo ship but an OOM larger than the largest airplane.
Naively the damage radius scales with as yield^(1/3), so you’d need a ~17 Tt bomb to shatter windows on the other side of the planet. For comparison, the Chicxulub impactor that probably killed the dinosaurs released about 100 Tt; smashed windows at the antipode are probably the least of your concerns at that point.
Shouldn’t the scaling be yield^{1/2} if you’re considering energy radial flux? But also, on these scales we should consider whether the atmosphere “channels” the energy as it bounces between the ground and the upper terminal points thus achieving something more like a ~yield scaling?
Thermal radiation goes as yield^{1/2} for the reason you’ve suggested but pressure goes as yield^{1/3} because the region of overpressure expands and therefore maximum pressure is 1/volume. I’m not sure how this interacts with the curvature of the Earth but would generically expect this to make things more benign at the antipode, not less.
I thought we were talking about a shockwave, so ultimately a pressure front? That’s the part that travels several times around the world. I mean obviously with plenty of volumetric loss/dispersion on the road.
There’s no hard limit to increasing thermonuclear weapon yield by increasing the number of stages, but you’d have to proportionally increase the bomb size. The Taylor limit of ~6 kt/kg means that a 10 Gt bomb would need to weigh at least ~2000 t. Could easily fit on a cargo ship but an OOM larger than the largest airplane.
Naively the damage radius scales with as yield^(1/3), so you’d need a ~17 Tt bomb to shatter windows on the other side of the planet. For comparison, the Chicxulub impactor that probably killed the dinosaurs released about 100 Tt; smashed windows at the antipode are probably the least of your concerns at that point.
Shouldn’t the scaling be yield^{1/2} if you’re considering energy radial flux? But also, on these scales we should consider whether the atmosphere “channels” the energy as it bounces between the ground and the upper terminal points thus achieving something more like a ~yield scaling?
Thermal radiation goes as yield^{1/2} for the reason you’ve suggested but pressure goes as yield^{1/3} because the region of overpressure expands and therefore maximum pressure is 1/volume. I’m not sure how this interacts with the curvature of the Earth but would generically expect this to make things more benign at the antipode, not less.
I thought we were talking about a shockwave, so ultimately a pressure front? That’s the part that travels several times around the world. I mean obviously with plenty of volumetric loss/dispersion on the road.