The wonderful film “Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” essentially posited the possibility of a Russian ultimate Doomsday Device had the US and Russia continued their pursuits of more destructive devices. In the vein of Dr. Strangelove, I decided to ask, Jim “Strangeman” Strange, a mathematician, to calculate the distance as if the U.S. government was still secretly creating more and more powerful weapons over these past few decades. Keep in mind we are both aware this is a bogus and somewhat spurious calculation, but I couldn’t help asking Jim to speculate for me.
Here is Dr. Stangeman’s response:
“If we assume linear growth starting at 15 feet, then this is growing at a rate of 1.33314 miles per year. Thus after 63 years we would have 83.9909 miles. (Spock! Round it!) OK, 84 miles.
However, technology is said to grow exponentially. Using a simple exponential model with the numbers you gave, we get the height being 22,738,282,663,818 miles after 63 years.”
Nice work, Dr. Strangeman! [cue wonderful 1950’s educational film music]
Plus, a quick reminder about the scale mentioned on the August 6th post:
Hiroshima: 15 feet (or, 0.002 of a mile)
Ivan: 20 miles
Dr. Strangeman's calculation: 84 miles
If you’d rather see this all in feet, then:
Hiroshima: 15 feet
Ivan: 105,600 feet
Dr. Strangeman: 443,520 feet
Dr. Strangeman highly caffeinated: 1.2005813 e¹³ feet
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