151
votes
Did eight Jesuit priests survive the nuking of Hiroshima without serious injury?
Yes, they survived the blast. No, their survival was not unexplainable.
The Jesuits are at two locations: They reside at Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Nagatsuke two kilometers from the edge of ...
- 5,431
130
votes
Accepted
Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the United States' uranium?
This claim comes from Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash.
The Washington Post notes that the details mentioned above are correct:
The deal gave Russia control of about 20 percent of U.S. uranium
...
- 7,425
101
votes
Accepted
Was there a nuclear explosion in Germany during WW2?
Most likely not, at least not in the way these claims are suggesting. The article's claims are shaky at best, and go against both US and German reports regarding Germany's nuclear program at the time.
...
- 11.6k
95
votes
Did Oppenheimer quote the Bhagavad Gita after the Trinity test?
No.
In the 1965 documentary "The Decision to Drop the Bomb", Oppenheimer described the moments after the bomb's explosion:
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a ...
- 3,720
76
votes
Is the four minute nuclear weapon response time classified information?
No, this is not classified information.
There have been plenty of descriptions of the timeline to launch US nuclear weapons, most much more detailed than anything Secretary Clinton said, and none of ...
- 57.9k
60
votes
Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the United States' uranium?
Politifact evaluated a number of claims from Trump's press conference, including this one.
They referred back to a campaign fact check where they rated a similar claim Mostly False:
The ...
- 10.2k
57
votes
Accepted
Did the Manhattan Project scientists consider whether the first nuclear test could start a global chain reaction?
Did they consider the possibility? Yes, and they referred to it as "Atmospheric Ignition" and detailed their calculations in a paper.
Did they think it was likely to happen? No.
The topic is ...
- 3,269
56
votes
Did eight Jesuit priests survive the nuking of Hiroshima without serious injury?
There were 4 priests at the closest location to ground zero, but they were 1,400 yards from ground zero according to John Hersey's 1946 book Hiroshima . Other people (non-priests) survived being as ...
- 109k
27
votes
Did the Manhattan Project scientists consider whether the first nuclear test could start a global chain reaction?
The article changed "world" to "universe".
There's no doubt they considered destroying the world, see Entropy's answer. The whole universe tho? AFAIK there is no evidence for that ...
- 22.7k
25
votes
Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
No multi-megaton nuclear warhead ever has been exploded underwater, so the best we can hope for in the way of sources is "what is the research on this".
Wikipedia: Underwater explosion -- ...
- 19.2k
25
votes
In July 2022, did China have more nuclear weapons than Domino's Pizza locations?
Actually, I found the answer while writing the question. I'm going to declare this: probably false in July 2022 (when the video was released), but it was probably true back in early 2021; this is due ...
- 9,280
22
votes
Does plutonium exist in the world, apart from being manufactured?
Two billion years ago, conditions in an ore body in present-day Gabon were suitable for the creation of naturally-occurring fission reactors, based on the fission of U-235, which at the time made up 3%...
- 389
19
votes
Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
Well, nobody has tested really, really big nuclear bombs underwater. But we do have some underwater tests we can look at.
In 1946, the US tested a 21 kt bomb underwater in Operation Crossroads. You ...
- 7,090
18
votes
Is the four minute nuclear weapon response time classified information?
No.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/05/our-nuclear-procedures-are-crazier-than-trump/
The author bases his estimate on information gleaned from a 30-year old book, so it's not exactly new ...
- 215
17
votes
Accepted
Could a single nuclear EMP kill 90% of Americans within one year?
That number was mentioned in the statement of Dr William R Graham and Dr Peter Vincent Pry, chairman and chief of staff of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP attack.
...
- 7,144
15
votes
Accepted
Is Ukraine considering restoring nuclear weapons?
Well, Zelenskyy did not deny saying it, but...
The Ukrainian leader later clarified at a Thursday press conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that “we are not building nuclear weapons. ...
14
votes
Accepted
Did the fallout from American nuclear tests kill hundreds of thousands of American civilians?
Summary: This paper is emerging science, and it is too soon to know one way or the other.
"Has the fallout from American nuclear tests killed hundreds of thousands of civilians as the paper suggests?"...
- 12k
14
votes
Does plutonium exist in the world, apart from being manufactured?
I assume "the world" means Earth. It is likely that somewhere in the universe where a supernova (or a neutron star merger, see comment) has recently occurred during which the r-process prevailed, ...
14
votes
Accepted
Is the RS-28 Sarmat missile capable of destroying an area the size of France?
The original claim in English is from the 08 May 2016 article Russia's New ICBM Sarmat Can Penetrate Defense Shield, Wipe Out Texas which says:
The broadcaster added that the RS-28 is capable of ...
- 109k
13
votes
Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the United States' uranium?
According to a 2015 New York Times Article,
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian
mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable
endeavors of former ...
- 623
13
votes
Do modern nuclear weapons produce no nuclear fallout?
I think the claim is misleading in several ways. First, it's possible to design a "fusion bomb" that maximizes (neutron) radiation output, leading to substantially higher radiation than from ...
10
votes
Is the illegal nuclear waste at the Coldwater Creek Nuclear Landfill a risk to public health?
The Claim I'm challenging:
this article claims that an "expert" says it's fine.
Sasa Mutic is a PhD in radiooncology and the chair of the radiation safety committee at Washington School of ...
- 302
9
votes
Did India plan to get Pakistan's nuclear facility destroyed by Israel in the mid-'80s?
This is fraught with political spin, and in historical terms 'quite recent'. As this was a secret plan that touches on 'war', mostly lies are what go around in principle.
However, the claim in ...
- 44.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Was the tsar bomb ten times more powerful than all of the explosives used in WWII combined?
Well, there are a lot of statistics available regarding WW II, and the Tsar Bomb has simple math associated with it.
First, the Tsar Bomb: As a nuclear weapon, its yield is measured in megatons. 1 ...
- 9,297
7
votes
Accepted
Has China stated that their no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons doesn't apply to countries that possess territories that China claims as its own?
We should be clear that in terms of official policy statements, China uniformly expresses a clear and total commitment to its NFU policy. For example, a Chinese government website quotes Foreign ...
- 8,005
7
votes
Is the RS-28 Sarmat missile capable of destroying an area the size of France?
False
Claims are it carries 16 2.5 Megaton warheads (40Mt/16 if I read right). A single 2.5Megaton warhead has an airburst radius of 10km: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Resources/Calculators/...
- 470
6
votes
Did Khamenei issue a fatwa banning development of nuclear weapons?
From what I understand (which may be limited since I don't speak or read Farsi), Khamenei issued a fatwa according to the Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC17Ak02.html) but it can'...
- 61
6
votes
Did Ahmadinejad say that enriching Uranium to 20% made no economic sense?
It might refer to this Charlie Rose interview from 23 Sep 2011. To summarize, in this interview, Ahmadinejad said it made no economic sense for Iran to produce 20%-enriched uranium domestically ...
5
votes
Were nuclear weapons not effective in ending WWII?
There was never any question whether Japan could withstand total war with the US, the only question was whether the US would be willing to engage in total war against Japan. The attack on Pearl Harbor ...
- 2,865
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible