Word: megatons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1953-1953
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...they reported, weighed about eleven tons, and could destroy a square city block. The old-fashioned atomic bombs (i.e., uranium and plutonium) are measured in "kilo-tons," or thousands of tons of TNT; the Hiroshima blast rated 20 kilotons. The H-bomb, by comparison, is measured by the "megaton"-a million tons...
would send a heat flash sufficient to ignite combustible material, or to cause killing third-degree burns on exposed skin, within an area of 300 square miles."- Said the Alsops: "We can no longer doubt that men can make . . . the ten-megaton bomb with a force of 10 million tons of TNT." Air Secretary Thomas Finletter was just as gloomy as the Alsops. He said: "The destructive power of atomic weapons includes not only explosive blasts of force and heat but also the gamma ray-a ray which is deadly to human life. The gamma ray is, as it were...