this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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For third degree burns from thermal radiation you need line of sight to the explosion. Since basically all strategic nukes are airbursts, that means if you can see the sky, you're fucked. But a sufficiently thick wall or a basement would probably spare you the worst of it
Ah, so the 3rd degree burns will come from light, not air temperature?
Yes, mainly. That's also the reasons why you get silhouettes of people and objects cast on concrete
The radiation is so hot that it absolutely wrecks the surface, vaporizing or charring paint and skin near the epicenter, and causing burns and blindness further out, but so short that the heat doesn't even have time to heat up the air to any meaningful amount, outside of the blast radius itself.
That's really fascinating. Thanks for the explanation