Nuclear Weapons and Explosions : Environmental Impacts and Other Effects

Contents: Preface. Glossary of terms. 1. Nuclear weapons and explosions: multiple effects and impacts. 2. Nuclear blast and radiation: impacts and injuries. 3. Nuclear fires, fireball, bust and fallout: effects and damages. 4. Electromagnetic and other impacts of nuclear weapons. 5. Combined injuries, damages and fatalities: model case studies. 6. Health, genetic and environmental effects of nuclear weapons. 7. Global safeguards to prevent nuclear proliferation. Bibliography. Index.

""Nuclear Weapons and Explosions - Environmental Impacts and Other Effects" is a unique book in terms of coverage, scope, elaboration, usefulness and futuristic prospective. It covers the subject area of major impacts of nuclear weapons and explosions in its totality and gives a detailed fact sheet on nuclear weapons and accidents.

A nuclear weapon derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fission or fusion, thus making even a nuclear weapon with a relatively small yield significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives. Consequently, a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city like Hiroshima. Nuclear explosives have been tested and used for various non-military uses.

Nuclear explosions produce both immediate and delayed destructive effects such as blasts and radioactive fallouts. The impacts and injuries caused by nuclear blasts and resulting radiation effects causing cancer, congenital defects, mental retardation, immune destruction, cancer, stillbirths and other health problems is discussed in detail. Besides the blast and radiation damage from individual bombs, a large scale nuclear exchange between nations could conceivably have a catastrophic global effect on climate and pollute vast amounts of soil and water.

The book is divided into seven chapters and is a must read and addition for all concerned with nuclear safety."