>>347847Fun fact: underground nuclear detonations create a ring of radiation on the surface rather than a filled circle.
>>347850>>347848A thermal nuclear explosion compared to a fission nuke is a fart as compared to a regular bomb. Those 3.2 megawatts that, unchecked, caused Chernobyl to flip its 3000-ton lid? That's single digits tons of TNT. Not kilotons, just tons.
>>347851No shit, Sherlock, uranium is an alpha emitter with an insanely long half-life, it'll kill you through chemical toxicity (it's a very reactive heavy metal) rather than radiation or decay products.
>>347872>he's right thoughMostly.
Okay, let's give y'all foals a radiation 101. Radiation comes in four forms: alpha (helium-4 nucleus), beta (high-energy electron or positron), gamma (high-energy photon) and neutron (guess). You don't really need most of the scientific mumbo-jumbo, just the way to protect yourself from it, so here it is:
>AlphaDon't let it get inside you, it has no penetrating power but if it gets inside it will absolutely wreck your day by turning all the guts fallout dust contacts into poison. Wear a basic bitch N95 respirator while in alpha-emitter-contaminated area, don't touch or adjust it in any way until you're safe, optionally close-fitting goggles if the area is especially contaminated and/or dusty. Once you're safe, remove and dispose of ALL your possessions and wash yourself.
Know that Litvinenko guy who got assassinated with polonium-210? He swallowed a dust-sized speck of it. Now, polonium-210 is an extreme alpha emitter, so it won't be anywhere this dramatic, but regardless you really don't want any alpha-emitting dust inside you.
>BetaSame as alpha, but also wear goggles and don't touch beta emitters, because it's strong enough to cause radiation burns that are a bitch to heal.
>GammaRun. Run fast, run far. There's no individual protection from gamma radiation short of driving around in a tank, the only defense is putting as much distance between emitter and yourself as fast as possible because intensity is inverse square of it.
>NeutronSame as gamma, except the tank is worse than useless and you need to run much faster - neutron radiation is only shielded by water and waxes (goes straight through nearly everything else), and it turns everything it touches radioactive - no going back to that RD plushie you forgot.
The good part? There are only three plausible ways for you to meet neutron radiation: you work in nuclear industry, a nearby nuclear reactor melted down and all protections have failed to do their job (not even Chernobyl and Fukushima had noticeable neutron fallout, it's mostly in corium), or your place was valuable enough to neutron-nuke it. The former two are easily avoidable, and the third will kill you faster than you can do anything, so you might as well ignore neutron radiation. Just don't go diving in Cherenkov-glowing shielding pools.
Alpha is an absolute bitch to detect due to how low-energy it is and beta with neutron require specialized detectors, so whatever junk or non-junk detector you have will be detecting gamma radiation. Just assume that if gamma level is elevated, then the rest are elevated too and act accordingly.
There's no magic radiation-removing vodka IRL, and no medicine that can remove the merry clusterfuck of poisonous broken-up organic molecules and damaged DNA you get from getting irradiated past the level that the body can repair by itself
which varies person by person, but just assume it's 400 roentgen across entire body by gamma. If you know you've been overexposed, you will die. Either quickly via suicide or heroism, or slowly and painfully if you're so much of a coward you can't do either.