Okay, let's ask, how many of you that came here reading this series knew about how the shockwaves of a large scale explosion far away would hit?

Demundo said:

Okay, let's ask, how many of you that came here reading this series knew about how the shockwaves of a large scale explosion far away would hit?

I was genuinely surprised that Reimu...Rei...didn't know. And the better question is, why the hell was that plane carrying a nuke?

I_before_A_except_after_K said:

I was genuinely surprised that Reimu...Rei...didn't know. And the better question is, why the hell was that plane carrying a nuke?

Considering how big that plane is, it can a ridiculous weight. And just to say a fact, a stone of 100kg falling from 5km in height can easily surpass what a nuke can do in explosion. The number might not be correct because I don't quite remember it myself though.

Demundo said:

Considering how big that plane is, it can a ridiculous weight. And just to say a fact, a stone of 100kg falling from 5km in height can easily surpass what a nuke can do in explosion. The number might not be correct because I don't quite remember it myself though.

That number is definitely incorrect. For a 100kg rock to hit with even 15 kilotons (about what the Little Boy nuke had), it would need to hit the ground at 1,122,497 meters per second (~4040989 kilometers per hour), and it wouldn't get anywhere near that speed in a mere 5 kilometers of dropping, even if you ignore the fact that terminal velocity is a thing. More realistically:

...In the case of the system mentioned in the 2003 Air Force report above, a 6.1 m × 0.3 m tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach 10 has a kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 11.5 tons of TNT (or 7.2 tons of dynamite). The mass of such a cylinder is itself greater than 9 tons,...

A 9-ton object dropped from orbit would only have 11 *tons* of TNT. Granted, the smallest nuclear explosive I'm aware of is the W54 with a mere 10-ton warhead, so it's still a very big boom from a 'mere' kinetic impactor.

SilverBlade said:

That number is definitely incorrect. For a 100kg rock to hit with even 15 kilotons (about what the Little Boy nuke had), it would need to hit the ground at 1,122,497 meters per second (~4040989 kilometers per hour), and it wouldn't get anywhere near that speed in a mere 5 kilometers of dropping, even if you ignore the fact that terminal velocity is a thing. More realistically:

A 9-ton object dropped from orbit would only have 11 *tons* of TNT. Granted, the smallest nuclear explosive I'm aware of is the W54 with a mere 10-ton warhead, so it's still a very big boom from a 'mere' kinetic impactor.

Well. I only remember seeing/reading about it. Not the numbers and that experiment's condition. SO yeah, sorry providing incorrect info.