Talk:Nuclear weapons in popular culture

message: Where would we mention Xenu? He's getting mentioned in just about every recent press article about Tom Cruise - David Gerard 00:45, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nuclear weapons in religious scripture

message: Is the new series of Battlestar Galactica the only TV series so far to show nukes as viable, effective weapons in space? I've just edited the main page to add the show's depiction of nuclear war, including that it's the show with the largest quota of weapons used (depicted or alluded to). Do we add a mention about how casually nuclear weapons are used in this series? - Sentinel75 10:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm unsure it would add to the article.  In space, nuclear weapons are one of the few reliable ways to "kill" a hardened structure (such as a "Battlestar") because of, well, among other things, the vastness of space and the degree to which a conventional chemical detonation would dissipate in vacuum.  During most of the 1960s, nuclear-armed missiles were maintained by the US Air Force to knock down enemy satellites in time of war, so there is real-world precedent for use of nuclear weapons in space.  In Battlestar Galactica, nuclear weapons are shorthand for "extremely powerful weapon that can't be defended against easily." - loupgarous (talk) 00:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Nuclear weapons in ''Battlestar Galactica''

message: What about the Fallout game series?  If Mad Max is going to be mentioned, I'd think that Fallout deserves one as well. - Gargantrithor 02:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear Weapons in Computer Games 

message: Shouldn't there be some mentioned? The Hulk (comics) at least? --24.46.164.83 04:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bruce Banner only became the Hulk after an exposure to gamma rays - no nuclear weapons involved. -- loupgarous (talk) 00:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Nuclear Weapons in Comic Books

message: The text just added by justaperson117 seems to me heaviliy biased, but I am not certain enough to simply remove it myself. See History for the text he added. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 06:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It really would require a lot more qualification to be NPOV, as how "extreme" nukes are depends on 1. who you talk to, and 2. in what specific contexts you are referring to. Nobody doubts that a full-on nuclear exchange between nuclear countries would have immense social and environmental effects, though the question of whether smaller exchanges would have similar effects or whether or not you would ever have "world-killing" scenarios is up for debate. In any case I think the overall impression of the sentence is not one which is POV. --Fastfission 18:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV question 

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Dayafter1.jpg

message: This article.... I'm not sure it deserves to be called an article. After the first two sections, the whole article essentially becomes a list of every bit of pop culture ever to feature the idea of a bomb, with no attempts to establish the relative notability of the examples quoted, and no attempt at critical analysis (surely there is someone who has written about this and can be referenced). -mattbuck (Talk) 17:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on article 

message: Can we add a section about Jerhico TV Show, its about nuclear war 142.77.229.84 (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Jericho (TV series), to save anyone the 2 seconds looking for it. MickMacNee (talk) 22:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't seem to find any RS on the idea that :Jericho (TV series) damaged a lot of the understanding the International_Physicians_for_the_Prevention_of_Nuclear_War established. Charles Juvon (talk) 22:35, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Jerhico'

message: The passage "Diagrams of the bombs' internal workings have only been available in the last few years: the design of nuclear weapons has been the most closely guarded secret until long after the secrets had been independently developed—or stolen—by all the major powers and a number of lesser ones." is not only unsourced, it's inaccurate.
The Federation of American Scientists's Web page containing Hansen's letter to Sen. Percy reproduces a letter from nuclear historian Chuck Hansen to US Senator Charles Percy describing the disclosures of nuclear weapons functional details in the years leading up to the trial of Howard Morland and  The Progressive magazine versus the US Department of Energy to prevent the publication of Morland's article in The Progressive describing Morland's understanding of how the hydrogen bomb works.
Howard Morland later published the entire story of how he researched his article, the article itself, and the story of the trial in The Secret That Exploded, Random House, 1981.
Correspondence between nuclear weapons designers Ray Kidder and Hans Bethe provide several examples of how Morland might have gotten the "secret" that radiation implosion is necessary for thermonuclear fusion to proceed; Kidder cited several open literature sources for the information; Bethe disagreed that any of them were informative enough to give a would-be nuclear proliferator the needed information to produce a thermonuclear weapon, and that Morland's information was derived entirely from interviews he held as a journalist with officials at several Department of Energy nuclear weapons contractors' facilities.
(The Federation of American Scientists Web page on the Kidder-Bethe correspondence)
There have been at least two encyclopedia articles, one by Hans Bethe, one by Edward Teller, giving either descriptions or diagrams of how thermonuclear weapons work; these date back at least as far back as 1969.
Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer, technical director of the Manhattan Project, famously maintained from near the beginning of the Atomic Era that as far as weapons depending entirely on nuclear fission, there was no secret to protect - that the mechanics of both gun-type and implosion fission weapons were not defensible technical secrets.
Wikipedia itself, in its article "Teller-Ulam design," describes the situation with respect to public knowledge of nuclear weapon design:
"Public knowledge concerning nuclear weapon design
Detailed knowledge of actual fission and fusion weapons is classified to some degree in virtually every industrialized nation. In the United States, such "knowledge" can by default be classified as Restricted Data, even if it is created by persons who are not government employees or associated with weapons programs, in a legal doctrine known as "born secret" (though the constitutional standing of the doctrine has been at times called into question, see United States v. The Progressive). "Born secret" is rarely invoked for cases of private speculation. The official policy of the United States Department of Energy has been not to acknowledge the leaking of design information, as such acknowledgment would potentially validate the information as accurate. In a small number of prior cases, the U.S. government has attempted to censor weapons information in the public press, with limited success...
...Most of the current ideas on the workings of the Teller–Ulam design came into public awareness after the Department of Energy (DOE) attempted to censor a magazine article by U.S. antiweapons activist Howard Morland in 1979 on the "secret of the hydrogen bomb". In 1978, Morland had decided that discovering and exposing this "last remaining secret" would focus attention onto the arms race and allow citizens to feel empowered to question official statements on the importance of nuclear weapons and nuclear secrecy. Most of Morland's ideas about how the weapon worked were compiled from highly accessible sources—the drawings which most inspired his approach came from none other than the Encyclopedia Americana. Morland also interviewed (often informally) many former Los Alamos scientists (including Teller and Ulam, though neither gave him any useful information), and used a variety of interpersonal strategies to encourage informational responses from them (i.e., asking questions such as "Do they still use 'spark plugs'?" even if he was not aware what the latter term specifically referred to).
Morland eventually concluded that the "secret" was that the primary and secondary were kept separate and that radiation pressure from the primary compressed the secondary before igniting it. When an early draft of the article, to be published in The Progressive magazine, was sent to the DOE after falling into the hands of a professor who was opposed to Morland's goal, the DOE requested that the article not be published, and pressed for a temporary injunction. The DOE argued that Morland's information was (1) likely derived from classified sources, if not derived from classified sources, itself counted as "secret" information under the "born secret" clause of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, and was dangerous and would encourage nuclear proliferation.
Morland and his lawyers disagreed on all points, but the injunction was granted, as the judge in the case felt that it was safer to grant the injunction and allow Morland, et al., to appeal, which they did in United States v. The Progressive (1979).
Through a variety of more complicated circumstances, the DOE case began to wane as it became clear that some of the data they were attempting to claim as "secret" had been published in a students' encyclopedia a few years earlier. After another H-bomb speculator, Chuck Hansen, had his own ideas about the "secret" (quite different from Morland's) published in a Wisconsin newspaper, the DOE claimed that the Progressive case was moot, dropped its suit, and allowed the magazine to publish its article, which it did in November 1979. Morland had by then, however, changed his opinion of how the bomb worked, suggesting that a foam medium (the polystyrene) rather than radiation pressure was used to compress the secondary, and that in the secondary there was a spark plug of fissile material as well. He published these changes, based in part on the proceedings of the appeals trial, as a short erratum in The Progressive a month later. In 1981, Morland published a book about his experience, describing in detail the train of thought which led him to his conclusions about the "secret".
Morland's work is interpreted as being at least partially correct because the DOE had sought to censor it, one of the few times they violated their usual approach of not acknowledging "secret" material which had been released; however, to what degree it lacks information, or has incorrect information, is not known with any confidence. The difficulty that a number of nations had in developing the Teller–Ulam design (even when they apparently understood the design, such as with the United Kingdom), makes it somewhat unlikely that this simple information alone is what provides the ability to manufacture thermonuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the ideas put forward by Morland in 1979 have been the basis for all the current speculation on the Teller–Ulam design."
It's clear that this information has been out for more than just "the last few years."  I'm going to edit the passage in question to make it reflect available information.loupgarous (talk) 23:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need to revisit passage on the lack of publicly-available information on and diagrams of how nuclear weapons work 

message: Invented? 
The line cited can be found in a songtext of the Beastie Boys. Perhaps it is covered or cited. Or vice versa?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.0.17.238 (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  rx bandits 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: I am doubtful Deplorable Word has stand-alone notability, but it could be discussed here. In fact, it is, but the bullet point  here is unreferenced. Such bullet points lists are bad style, but merging the tiny DW here, with its references and such, could be a start of rewriting this from poorly sourced list of trivia into a proper, paragraphs of prose based, article.  Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:20, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose, on the grounds that Deplorable Word is a well-referenced and well-written article that is worthy of independent coverage as a distinct topic. I note from the edit history that Jonathunder also objects, but hasn't commented here. Klbrain (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

text: Oppose: this article is such a dog's breakfast that merging something else here wouldn't improve either topic. Jonathunder (talk) 00:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Deplorable Word]] 

message: I am currently taking a cold war science class and need to add to a Wikipedia article. I am very interested in this page however I'm not sure what is appropriate to talk about. The title is "Nuclear weapons in popular culture" however some media such as movies only get a passing remark such as Dr.Strangelove. I was thinking about talking about Godzilla and the fear of nuclear war/attacks and other such movies possibly ordering by year. Would this be appropriate to add? If not please point me in the right direction. Thank you Ventas Servitas (talk) 20:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movies and the Fear of Nuclear Annihilation  

message: — Assignment last updated by Ventas Servitas (talk) 16:12, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science