I don\u2019t remember ever having drills when I was in school in case of a bomb attack, but Claire, being a little younger remembers the old \u201cduck and cover\u201d drills that were popular during the Cold War. The fire alarm would go off and the students would get under their desks and curl into a fetal position. I\u2019m not sure what great scientific minds thought that the desks would provide protection during a nuclear attack, but I\u2019m sure a lot of thought went into those procedures.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But anyhow, back then the threat of nuclear war seemed very real and I remember seeing lots of posters than featured the mushroom cloud. I remember reading that after the first nuclear tests in the 1940s, there were various names suggested to describe the cloud produced by a nuclear blast, like cauliflower cloud or raspberry cloud \u2014 but mushroom cloud won out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When a nuclear device is detonated, an almost incomprehensible amount of thermal energy is released and that creates a massive fireball that incinerates everything below it. As the fireball rises into the air, convection currents rush after it, sucking up debris into a column. Eventually, the fireball reaches the peak of its upward movement and expands outward, creating the mushroom-shaped head. That physical process occurs in other forms of explosions too, like volcanic eruptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not sure if the risk of a nuclear holocaust is more or less today than it once was, but from what I\u2019ve seen, school desks don\u2019t seem a sturdy as they were when I went to school\u2026\u2026
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t remember ever having drills when I was in school in case of a bomb attack, but Claire, being a little younger remembers the old \u201cduck and cover\u201d drills that were popular during the Cold War. The fire alarm … Continue reading