How many hydrogen bombs were tested?

Answer 1

Good question and a difficult one to answer. The main by-product of a nuclear explosion is radiation. Its effect may vary. At the site of the blast, the area is soak in radiation. So, even if people survive the immediate blast, heat, fires and physical destruction, they will absorb massive amounts of radiation that will give them "radiation sickness". It can even kill or alter the genes in the cells of their bodies. During a blast, the mushroom cloud sucks up a large amount of dust that absorbs the radiation. This dust cloud floats over long distances with the winds. As the cloud travels and the dust settles, it exposes more of the population to radiation. This is referred to as "Fall Out". Then if enough dust is thrown up into the air from several blasts, the dust will reach high altitudes and encircle the earth. This will block the sunlight and cause a "nuclear winter". No one knows how many bombs could cause this. A few bombs may result in just colder climate. Twice that much and every living thing could die. This effect has been seen in the study of ancient(pre-history) volcanic eruptions.

Answer 2

Not all in one go, probably ten or eleven hydrogen bombs would virtually destroy our planet.

Edit:

There is no conceivable way that ten or eleven bombs would be able to destroy the planet.

Power of most powerful bomb (Tsar bomb): 420 x 10**15 J

Earthquake 8.6: ~ 400 x 10**15 J

Hurricane: 5.2 x 10**19 J/day

Detonating ten or eleven bombs could conceivably cause mass destruction but they do not have enough power to destroy the planet. They wouldn't even have enough coverage to destroy most of humanity.

Answer 3

Assuming you would want to do such a stupid thing, estimates have placed the value at around 30 trillion megatons.

The largest nuclear bomb, so far, is the Tsar Bomba at around 50 megatons.

The Tsar Bomba is about 10 times the amount of explosives used during the second world war.

So if you saved up, and could actually buy enough, then you would need around 600,000,000,000 or 600 billion.

**Please do not try this **

Answer 4

During the Cold War, over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests were conducted worldwide. Many of these tests involved hydrogen bombs, the most powerful type of nuclear weapon. The exact number of hydrogen bomb tests can vary depending on the source, but around 500-600 tests have been estimated.

Answer 5

The attached link has information about the Soviet atomic bomb program. Anyone want to offer up info on other countries?