I'm watching a program on PBS America about the development of nuclear weapons. I nearly fell off the sofa laughing at how ridiculous some of this was in hindsight.
Talking to some of the scientists from the time, the first hydrogen bomb, when dropped was the equivelent of 50 million tons of normal explosive. The pilot after dropping the bomb returned to base and resigned immediately, stating the world had gone mad.
They developed a nuclear hand grenade. Or as the guy said, the development was no problem, finding somebody dumb enough to throw it was the problem
There
was some serious nonsense in there:
The first two atomic bombs each had the equivalent destructive power of 20,000 tons of TNT, not 50,000,000.
Neither of the two pilots involved (Paul Tibbets and Charles Sweeney) resigned after their missions.
No hydrogen bomb has ever been dropped on an enemy.
There are now thousands of individuals in Syria and Iraq who would be only too pleased to be given a nuclear hand-grenade to throw (now
there's a cheerful thought for this time of year) although it would probably be too heavy to pick up.
It's not the world that has gone mad - it's the lunatics who run it.
Merry Christmas everybody...
DM