Nuclear wars of the distant past?
Since I wrote an article about “what if the Earth is not flat,” I’ll probably tell you about another conspiracy theory.
We live in an amazing time and constantly find out amazing things. That the Earth is flat, that Nero and Napoleon are one person, that not only the Americans did not fly to the moon, but in general no one flew anywhere, and even that Antarctica does not exist. And more and more often I have to answer the question: is it true that at the turn of the XVIII and XIX centuries there was a nuclear war and there were such wars before - archaeologists regularly find signs of ancient nuclear disasters, but this is not customary to talk about?
And before answering this question, let's see what signs of an unfolded military conflict with the widespread use of nuclear weapons will persist after three hundred and three thousand years.
This is what the first comes to mind. And “highly radioactive remains of humans and animals” is a favorite argument of the supporters of this hypothesis. Indeed, ancient bones are often noticeable, and sometimes quite radioactive. Could this radioactivity be related to a nuclear disaster? No, and that's why.
First, it’s enough to bring these bones to the gamma spectrometer (or vice versa, bring the gamma spectrometer to them) to see that this radioactivity is due to the daughter products of uranium-238 and thorium-232.
Secondly - as you know, the radiation level after the explosion decreases quite quickly. As a result of the fission reaction, many different fission products are formed, the amount of which is approximately the same within certain mass ranges of the nucleus (86-100 and 134-145) - several percent for each isotope. Among them, there are those that break up right away, that live seconds, minutes, hours ... There are those whose half-lives are measured in years and decades. There are thousands and millions of years, and even stable ones. But stable isotopes are a narrow strip in the NZ diagram, so their yield is negligible. And the farther away from it - the isotope decays faster - and therefore, shouts louder about itself with its beta and gamma radiation. But it will “cool down” faster. Can say
For a period of time comparable to human life, such main dose-forming nuclides are cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have a half-life of about 30 years (28.9 years for strontium-90 and 30.16 years for cesium-137) . It is they who currently give “dosimeter readings” on the streets of, for example, Pripyat.
And after three hundred years their number will decrease by a thousand times. And that famous Chernobyl bucket, in which the crazy visitors of the ChEZ like to take pictures, will almost cease to “fonit” them. Other isotopes will come to the fore, but the overall level of radioactivity will drop hundreds of times. And it will become so low that it will not be easy to detect it with a radiometer.
And the radioactivity of bones, which are from thousands to tens of millions of years old, is certainly not related to nuclear explosions.
Does this mean that an atomic explosion that occurred 300, 1000, 10,000 years ago would not leave any detectable radioactive traces at the moment? No, it doesn’t. Short-lived isotopes would decay, but long-lived ones would remain.
Firstly, these are transuranic elements. The half-life of the main isotopes of neptunium, plutonium, americium makes it possible to detect these nuclides even after hundreds of thousands of years. Their "background" content, due to the activation of uranium by spontaneous fission neutrons and cosmic rays, is negligible, so that they will reliably mark the fission chain reaction.
There are long-lived nuclides among fission products. In relatively fresh ones, it is difficult to see them, because their initial amount is the same as everyone else, but because of the longer half-life, their activity is much lower. And after the decay of strontium-90 and cesium-137, they will be perfectly visible.
By the way, radioactive isotopes are an excellent “clock”, and by their ratio you can usually determine whether their origin is ancient or whether they were introduced due to modern contamination of the sample.
So in the past, a nuclear explosion would leave a radioactive trail that, if looked for, would certainly be detected.
But maybe they didn’t look for it, didn’t come to mind?
No, they were looking for - but for other purposes. When samples of sediments accumulating in a stratigraphic sequence (for example, silt at the bottom of lakes or seas) are taken and the contents of the radionuclides in them are studied in layers, two characteristic peaks are always found. One - deeper and larger - these are nuclear tests in the 60s-70s. The other is smaller and closer to the surface - Chernobyl. And from a certain depth radionuclides disappear completely. Or they don’t disappear - but the culprits of this are by no means atomic bombings, but ordinary bottom inhabitants, for example, polychaetes. They shovel the top layer of sludge, dig holes in it and bring surface material to the depth. And then we discover at a depth corresponding to two hundred years, cesium-137 and plutonium. Moreover, their ratio is characteristic of modernity - and if the sample were really 200 years old,
The same applies to annual tree rings. We reached the end of the forties - everything, beyond that there were no traces of fission products and transuranium elements.
Another characteristic trace of a nuclear explosion is the fusion products of what meteorites call “target rocks”. When nuclear weapons are used against people, not only earth and stone, but also bricks, concrete, metal, bones of people and animals become “target rocks”. In the heat of a nuclear explosion, they form a melt rich in silicon oxide, which then solidifies in glass.
These should be the funnels from nuclear explosions, and not those for which the supporters of the "nuclear war of 1812" usually give out karst failures. Where are these funnels with layers of melting glass? They are not here.
And here we recall (read the voice of the announcer of the radio "Star"):
We collect the data further and find:
In fact, about Mohenjo-Daro everything was perfectly painted by Stanislav Ermakov in his article [Ermakov S. E. “The Nuclear Nightmare” of Mohenjo-Daro // Anomaly 2013. No. 2. S. 3-16] , to which I refer the reader. The only thing is that the author mentions measurements of the background radiation at the excavations, but they only make it possible to reveal the lies of myth-makers about the allegedly terrifying radiation at this place. And to identify or refute the fact of a nuclear explosion at this place, they are useless. In fact, of course, it was necessary to study the very melted glassy peels found there on transuranic elements.
A well-known picture illustrating the so-called “bomb effect” is the result of irradiation of the atmosphere by neutrons from numerous nuclear explosions, in which stable nitrogen-14 is converted into radioactive carbon-14. The one that historians use to determine the age of their finds. The massive use of nuclear weapons in the past would lead to a similar “bomb effect" in the past. And this effect would not go unnoticed.
The fact is that the radiocarbon dating method would not have been so accurate without calibrating it. One such calibration method is dendrochronological. Trees are known to grow in annual rings, and counting them is a reliable way to determine their lifespan. Moreover, changes in conditions under which a tree grew were recorded in a sequence of annual rings. And we can continue the “chronicle” of one tree with another, more ancient, if at a certain period of time these two trees grew in parallel: the sequence of wide and narrow annual rings for this period in these two trees will be very similar. So you can get a lot of wood samples, whose age is known with an accuracy of a year for several thousand years! And according to the deviations of the content of radiocarbon with increasing age from the theoretical decay exponent of carbon-14, associated with changes in the intensity of cosmic radiation can correct the errors of the radiocarbon method. Therefore, the “bomb effect" would not pass by scientists: it would be visible on this curve in the form of a clearly noticeable jump.
And the most interesting thing is that there are such leaps, and there are even two: in 774 and 992 (other, weaker ones were found), they are called the “Miyake events”. True, they are much (several orders of magnitude) weaker than the leap of the mid-20th century, but their peculiarity is that they are observed in wood samples around the globe - and moreover, synchronously. And they coincide with the jumps of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 - other cosmogenic radionuclides that are formed in the upper atmosphere under the influence of cosmic radiation - in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica.
But they are unlikely to be associated with something artificial. Scientists explain them by powerful solar flares, similar to the Carrington event of 1859, but even more grandiose. But even the explosion of a single atomic bomb such as Hiroshima would give a much larger radiocarbon anomaly.
There is no reason to believe that until the middle of the 20th century nuclear weapons generally existed on Earth. There are no signs of its use. You can, of course, say “you are all lying”, that you didn’t find it because you didn’t search, and if you did, you found it and kept it secret ... But you can think of and “prove” anything. Which, however, is done by such lovers of world conspiracies.
We live in an amazing time and constantly find out amazing things. That the Earth is flat, that Nero and Napoleon are one person, that not only the Americans did not fly to the moon, but in general no one flew anywhere, and even that Antarctica does not exist. And more and more often I have to answer the question: is it true that at the turn of the XVIII and XIX centuries there was a nuclear war and there were such wars before - archaeologists regularly find signs of ancient nuclear disasters, but this is not customary to talk about?
And before answering this question, let's see what signs of an unfolded military conflict with the widespread use of nuclear weapons will persist after three hundred and three thousand years.
Radiation
This is what the first comes to mind. And “highly radioactive remains of humans and animals” is a favorite argument of the supporters of this hypothesis. Indeed, ancient bones are often noticeable, and sometimes quite radioactive. Could this radioactivity be related to a nuclear disaster? No, and that's why.
First, it’s enough to bring these bones to the gamma spectrometer (or vice versa, bring the gamma spectrometer to them) to see that this radioactivity is due to the daughter products of uranium-238 and thorium-232.
Secondly - as you know, the radiation level after the explosion decreases quite quickly. As a result of the fission reaction, many different fission products are formed, the amount of which is approximately the same within certain mass ranges of the nucleus (86-100 and 134-145) - several percent for each isotope. Among them, there are those that break up right away, that live seconds, minutes, hours ... There are those whose half-lives are measured in years and decades. There are thousands and millions of years, and even stable ones. But stable isotopes are a narrow strip in the NZ diagram, so their yield is negligible. And the farther away from it - the isotope decays faster - and therefore, shouts louder about itself with its beta and gamma radiation. But it will “cool down” faster. Can say
For a period of time comparable to human life, such main dose-forming nuclides are cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have a half-life of about 30 years (28.9 years for strontium-90 and 30.16 years for cesium-137) . It is they who currently give “dosimeter readings” on the streets of, for example, Pripyat.
And after three hundred years their number will decrease by a thousand times. And that famous Chernobyl bucket, in which the crazy visitors of the ChEZ like to take pictures, will almost cease to “fonit” them. Other isotopes will come to the fore, but the overall level of radioactivity will drop hundreds of times. And it will become so low that it will not be easy to detect it with a radiometer.
And the radioactivity of bones, which are from thousands to tens of millions of years old, is certainly not related to nuclear explosions.
Does this mean that an atomic explosion that occurred 300, 1000, 10,000 years ago would not leave any detectable radioactive traces at the moment? No, it doesn’t. Short-lived isotopes would decay, but long-lived ones would remain.
Firstly, these are transuranic elements. The half-life of the main isotopes of neptunium, plutonium, americium makes it possible to detect these nuclides even after hundreds of thousands of years. Their "background" content, due to the activation of uranium by spontaneous fission neutrons and cosmic rays, is negligible, so that they will reliably mark the fission chain reaction.
There are long-lived nuclides among fission products. In relatively fresh ones, it is difficult to see them, because their initial amount is the same as everyone else, but because of the longer half-life, their activity is much lower. And after the decay of strontium-90 and cesium-137, they will be perfectly visible.
By the way, radioactive isotopes are an excellent “clock”, and by their ratio you can usually determine whether their origin is ancient or whether they were introduced due to modern contamination of the sample.
So in the past, a nuclear explosion would leave a radioactive trail that, if looked for, would certainly be detected.
But maybe they didn’t look for it, didn’t come to mind?
No, they were looking for - but for other purposes. When samples of sediments accumulating in a stratigraphic sequence (for example, silt at the bottom of lakes or seas) are taken and the contents of the radionuclides in them are studied in layers, two characteristic peaks are always found. One - deeper and larger - these are nuclear tests in the 60s-70s. The other is smaller and closer to the surface - Chernobyl. And from a certain depth radionuclides disappear completely. Or they don’t disappear - but the culprits of this are by no means atomic bombings, but ordinary bottom inhabitants, for example, polychaetes. They shovel the top layer of sludge, dig holes in it and bring surface material to the depth. And then we discover at a depth corresponding to two hundred years, cesium-137 and plutonium. Moreover, their ratio is characteristic of modernity - and if the sample were really 200 years old,
The same applies to annual tree rings. We reached the end of the forties - everything, beyond that there were no traces of fission products and transuranium elements.
Melting glasses
Another characteristic trace of a nuclear explosion is the fusion products of what meteorites call “target rocks”. When nuclear weapons are used against people, not only earth and stone, but also bricks, concrete, metal, bones of people and animals become “target rocks”. In the heat of a nuclear explosion, they form a melt rich in silicon oxide, which then solidifies in glass.
These should be the funnels from nuclear explosions, and not those for which the supporters of the "nuclear war of 1812" usually give out karst failures. Where are these funnels with layers of melting glass? They are not here.
And here we recall (read the voice of the announcer of the radio "Star"):
Among the ruins there are scattered pieces of sintered clay and green glassThis is about Mohenjo-Daro. Is there really an atomic catastrophe?
(whole layers!). In all likelihood, sand and clay, under the influence of high temperature, first melted and then instantly hardened. The same layers of green glass
appear in the desert of the state of Nevada (USA) every time after a nuclear explosion. An analysis of the
samples, carried out at the University of Rome and in the laboratory of the
Italian National Research Council , showed that the melting occurred at a temperature of 1400-1500 degrees. Such a temperature in those days could be obtained in the hearth of a metallurgical workshop, but not in a vast open territory.
We collect the data further and find:
Another mystery to researchers remains the very high level of radiation in the area of the explosion. Back in 1927, archaeologists found 27 completely preserved human skeletons. Even now, their background radiation level is close to the dose that the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki received.And this makes it clear: this radioactivity is definitely not of a "nuclear" origin. Why - see the previous section.
In fact, about Mohenjo-Daro everything was perfectly painted by Stanislav Ermakov in his article [Ermakov S. E. “The Nuclear Nightmare” of Mohenjo-Daro // Anomaly 2013. No. 2. S. 3-16] , to which I refer the reader. The only thing is that the author mentions measurements of the background radiation at the excavations, but they only make it possible to reveal the lies of myth-makers about the allegedly terrifying radiation at this place. And to identify or refute the fact of a nuclear explosion at this place, they are useless. In fact, of course, it was necessary to study the very melted glassy peels found there on transuranic elements.
Radiocarbon anomaly
A well-known picture illustrating the so-called “bomb effect” is the result of irradiation of the atmosphere by neutrons from numerous nuclear explosions, in which stable nitrogen-14 is converted into radioactive carbon-14. The one that historians use to determine the age of their finds. The massive use of nuclear weapons in the past would lead to a similar “bomb effect" in the past. And this effect would not go unnoticed.
The fact is that the radiocarbon dating method would not have been so accurate without calibrating it. One such calibration method is dendrochronological. Trees are known to grow in annual rings, and counting them is a reliable way to determine their lifespan. Moreover, changes in conditions under which a tree grew were recorded in a sequence of annual rings. And we can continue the “chronicle” of one tree with another, more ancient, if at a certain period of time these two trees grew in parallel: the sequence of wide and narrow annual rings for this period in these two trees will be very similar. So you can get a lot of wood samples, whose age is known with an accuracy of a year for several thousand years! And according to the deviations of the content of radiocarbon with increasing age from the theoretical decay exponent of carbon-14, associated with changes in the intensity of cosmic radiation can correct the errors of the radiocarbon method. Therefore, the “bomb effect" would not pass by scientists: it would be visible on this curve in the form of a clearly noticeable jump.
And the most interesting thing is that there are such leaps, and there are even two: in 774 and 992 (other, weaker ones were found), they are called the “Miyake events”. True, they are much (several orders of magnitude) weaker than the leap of the mid-20th century, but their peculiarity is that they are observed in wood samples around the globe - and moreover, synchronously. And they coincide with the jumps of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 - other cosmogenic radionuclides that are formed in the upper atmosphere under the influence of cosmic radiation - in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica.
But they are unlikely to be associated with something artificial. Scientists explain them by powerful solar flares, similar to the Carrington event of 1859, but even more grandiose. But even the explosion of a single atomic bomb such as Hiroshima would give a much larger radiocarbon anomaly.
* * *
There is no reason to believe that until the middle of the 20th century nuclear weapons generally existed on Earth. There are no signs of its use. You can, of course, say “you are all lying”, that you didn’t find it because you didn’t search, and if you did, you found it and kept it secret ... But you can think of and “prove” anything. Which, however, is done by such lovers of world conspiracies.