Nukemap

Main article: Nuclear weapons

2022: Service Launch

At the end of September 2022, it became known about the work of the "nuclear bomb simulator" Nukemap. We are talking about a service developed by the historian of nuclear weapons, associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken Alex Wellerstein.

The Nukemap service is designed to demonstrate the consequences of a nuclear explosion anywhere in the world. It consists of a map where users can select a location and simulate the local consequences of an explosion, while taking into account various factors, such as the power of the weapon and whether it will explode on the surface (or near it) or in the air. The original version was created in February 2012, with a major upgrade in July 2013.

A service has been launched that simulates the consequences of a nuclear strike anywhere in the world

The project was originally conceived as a partially pedagogical device to illustrate differences in the size of nuclear bombs. As of 2012, more than three million people have detonated about 30 million virtual nuclear warheads. After the popularity of the site increased, it took a transition to new servers. Simulations estimate the potential number of dead and injured from any explosion, as well as an approximate model of the spread of nuclear fallout and the size of the mushroom cloud.

In a description of the simulator, Alex Wellerstein said the purpose of this educational tool is to help people visualize the effects of nuclear weapons in simple terms to help them gain insight into the scale of these explosions. Being able to visualize consequences at randomly selected geographic locations could help people understand how nuclear weapons will affect places they know, the creator said. Accurate modeling of nuclear fallout in particular is very difficult, according to Wellerstein, since there are so many variables, including the type of terrain on or over which the explosion occurred and weather conditions. The service is available at the link.

Nuclear fallout is short-term radiation, defined here as radioactive remnants of an explosion that remain active for the next few weeks or months (as opposed to years) that fall out of the mushroom cloud after a bomb detonation.^[1]

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