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Impearls: 2003-08-24 Archive Earthdate 2003-08-25
Doomsday!
Commenting on “doomsday” scenarios such as illustrated in the 1950s film On the Beach, in a discussion on a science fiction mailing list, several people argued that human extinction instigated by thermonuclear warfare, caused directly by either a "nuclear winter" (a result of kicked-up dust blocking sunlight for extensive periods) or ionizing radiation from fallout, is just not in the cards. The thread went this way:
There are at least three modalities of human extinction that should be considered here (more, if say extraterrestrial sources such as asteroidal impacts are to be included) — only a couple of variants of one of which have been discussed so far: 1. a. Extinction due to a “nuclear winter,” instigated by dust thrown up by a thermonuclear exchange based on present nuclear arsenals, or those which existed during the cold war. 1. b. Extinction due to radiation spread around the world by fallout, due to a thermonuclear exchange based on present nuclear arsenals, or those which existed during the cold war. 2. Extinction due to a thermonuclear exchange based on nuclear arsenals contemplated around the time of On the Beach. 3. Extinction resulting from the triggering of a “Doomsday Machine” a la Dr. Strangelove. I agree with commenters that 1a & b above are unlikely to result in anything like human, much less biosphere, extinction. As an aside, however, the effects on the protagonists themselves of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons going off in essentially all population centers in the land would still be extreme. I heard once (I've lost the reference, sorry) that those tens of thousands of weapons were directed so broadly that at least one nuclear bomb was targeted on a vacant lot that might have been used as an airfield in an emergency. It's hard to survive that, unless you're far from any, even the very smallest, populated centers. That's still not extinction for the human race, however. Physicist Freeman Dyson discussed the nuclear arsenals contemplated during the late 40s and 50s in his thought-provoking book Weapons and Hope: 1
The last possibility (literally) to be considered is that of a “Doomsday Machine.” Dyson went on to discuss this: 2
From what I've seen, in Dyson's book and elsewhere, a Doomsday Machine is technically not all that difficult, but would as “Ambassador De Sadeski” said, probably cost much less than the Pentagon's current strategic budget repeated year after year, decade after decade.
Postscript. Since I find myself in the astonishing position of being one of Freeman Dyson's publishers (and for my favorite work of his!), I shared the above exchange with him. Freeman graciously sent back a response, to wit: 3
P.P.S. After getting the above kind note from Freeman, I forwarded the following back to him, which I believe with conviction:
The vital, flickering flame that Dyson's Weapons and Hope encouraged and sustained during those blood-curdling days of the cold war (as indeed was its intent) was hope — hope that there could be a non-cataclysmic end to the terrifying nuclear standoff, which frankly makes anything nowadays seem trivial. (Take the India-Pakistan faceoff, for example. A handful of Hiroshima-style bombs threaten in that theater, versus in the cold war tens of thousands of precisely aimed, super-powered hydrogen bombs. There's virtually no comparison.) Freeman Dyson the savior of civilization? Certainly, credit for the safe ending of the cold war must be spread widely. I'm convinced, however, that Dyson's effect was significant and enduring, and even without actual human extinction having been at risk, many people might reflect that, to an appeciable extent, they owe a debt to Freeman Dyson for their lives. Am I being too melodramatic here?
Perhaps.
One thing is for certain, however: now we have the opportunity to spread out to the stars, and grow the
Big Trees
that Dyson envisioned — on comets!
4
References 1 Freeman Dyson, Weapons and Hope, Harper & Row, New York, 1984, ISBN 0-06-039031-X (U.S. and Canada), LOC U21.2.D94 1984; pp. 32-34. 3 Freeman Dyson, personal correspondence, 2003.08.14. 4
Freeman Dyson,
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil,
Impearls,
2002.11.12
(originally presented 1972.05.16).
UPDATE: 2003.09.03 22:16 UT. See follow-up article Doomsday postponed (permalink). UPDATE: 2003.09.04 18:30 UT: Reader M. Simon comments that this “neglected to mention the effect of improved ICBM accuracy on bomb size.” He's perfectly correct, that was an important factor in the decline in required megatonnage (or should we now say kilotonnage) for nuclear weapons. UPDATE: 2003.09.10 16:52 UT. See follow-up article Doomsday debated (permalink).
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