No, it's nothing like HIV. HIV is a statistical thing: It's random chance if an infective particle travels.
A nuclear bomb like this is deterministic. Based on the distance, altitude, size (power), and type (fission, fusion, specifics of the design - especially the tamper) of the bomb you can calculate exactly what and how dangerous the effects will be.
The military was trying to show that they are able to make these calculations correctly, and that used appropriately, this type of bomb an be used without undesired damage.
It didn't work for them though, because people have an irrational fear of anything nuclear and are not interesting in hearing about any calculations.
It's one of those paradoxes similar to how people are completely unable to correctly calculate how risky an action will be. For example people are scared of flying but not crossing the street (a common event comes to be seen as less risky) or driving a car (if you are in control it seems less risky).
> It's amazing how these men have went on to live such long lives.
No, actually it was completely expected. If you can manage to internalize this, and actually believe inside your head that these men were quite safe then you will have gone a long way toward conquering an irrational fear.
PS. You may be thinking of Cancer when comparing to HIV which is indeed a random thing.
You can calculate some effects, like intensity of radiation and pressure waves, but others, like lethality, and trickier. Within a certain range of radii, your chances of survival depend strongly on where you are and what you're doing. Are you in a building sturdy enough to not collapse on you? Is there anything heavy that might fall on you? Are you near a window? Will the building catch fire?
A lot of this stuff made its way into building codes, after some nuclear tests to figure out what worked.
There's a lot less that can go wrong when you're trying to contain an explosion by distance, then when you're trying to contain it with dirt in the way.
Here was another oops moment, from an airborne test:
"Shot Harry was detonated on a 300-foot tower. The 32-kiloton explosion heaved a vast amount of earth into the air, much of it vaporized, most of it as a fine powder, all of it radioactive..."
My point is simply that it's hard to stay safe when within a couple miles of an energy release of that size, no matter what your model tells you. Downvote if you like; this seems pretty non-controversial.
A nuclear bomb like this is deterministic. Based on the distance, altitude, size (power), and type (fission, fusion, specifics of the design - especially the tamper) of the bomb you can calculate exactly what and how dangerous the effects will be.
The military was trying to show that they are able to make these calculations correctly, and that used appropriately, this type of bomb an be used without undesired damage.
It didn't work for them though, because people have an irrational fear of anything nuclear and are not interesting in hearing about any calculations.
It's one of those paradoxes similar to how people are completely unable to correctly calculate how risky an action will be. For example people are scared of flying but not crossing the street (a common event comes to be seen as less risky) or driving a car (if you are in control it seems less risky).
> It's amazing how these men have went on to live such long lives.
No, actually it was completely expected. If you can manage to internalize this, and actually believe inside your head that these men were quite safe then you will have gone a long way toward conquering an irrational fear.
PS. You may be thinking of Cancer when comparing to HIV which is indeed a random thing.