A shaped atomic weapon charge to stop tsunami

Aren't shape charges using a solid in combination with the explosive to make a more concentrated focus of energy? I can't find a way in which you could focus just the blast itself without getting a opposite reaction (2nd law), and we're talking having to move large volumes of water, not punch holes into anything.

Best way I can think of is to create a directed wave in the same way an earthquake fault movement does, through displacement, but you're talking enormous energies to move that much mass.
 
Could the heat from the fault line itself be tapped somehow to evaporate the water, turn it into (through another artificial process) clouds spread out over a very large area that will produce normal rain?

(just speculating)
 
Even a small amount of water takes a lot of heat to make it boil.
Consider how long it takes to boil a saucepan of soup.
Lava flowing under water doesn't boil it at all.
It looks quite pretty.
url
 
As I pointed out earlier, the OP is an SBI. (silly bugger idea).

There is no way that it would be possible to set up a second tsunami to exactly counter the first. The very best you could hope for is a single point where the two sets of waves cancelled out - possibly a city?

But for the rest of the world, it is just a doubling of the devastation.

To counter a tsunami, you build very high and strong sea walls, well ahead of the incident (the Fukushima nuclear problem came because their tsunami walls were not high enough), and where that is not possible, you run for your hairy life to get the hell out of its path!
 
Just remember what "Deep Thoughts" author Jack Handey says:

"If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone!"

It is a pretty pic, though.
 
Captain Kremmen said:
Even a small amount of water takes a lot of heat to make it boil.
Consider how long it takes to boil a saucepan of soup.
Lava flowing under water doesn't boil it at all.
Click to expand...

Lava doesn't boil the water???? wow.
So the sea wall (destroying tropical beach sunsets) is really the only thing that can be done? What about the OP's suggestion - even if it cant cause a reversal, can it potentially diffuse the power of the tsunami , at least?

Regarding the very short notice, just wondering, what about what animals can tell us?

I read somewhere (on a health shop's bulletin board actually) that days before the 2004 tsunami, the (Maldives?) coastline was totally empty of animals. That no wild animals died - they had fled long before the tsunami hit. It was a random report though, with no reference . Wonder if anyone else heard about that/ can give links to better sources?
 
Lila

Like many reports, that one was exaggerated.

There are a small number of animals, typified by elephants, who have the ability to hear infra-sound. Humans cannot.

A tsunami creates a lot of infra-sound, and it is entirely possible that some animals may hear that, and flee inland shortly before the tsunami reaches land. It appears that elephants may have done this in the Boxing Day tsunami.

However, it is only a few animals, and it is only just literally minutes before the tsunami strikes. Nothing paranormal here.
 
Captain Kremmen said:
I think the total energy in a Tsunami would be many Atom Bombs worth.
Not sure.
Click to expand...

Actually not. In fact the wave energy in a tsunami is much less than that released by an atomic bomb. But that's not a good comparison - a better comparison would be to compare with the energy released by the seismic event that caused the tsunami. And it turns out that a 9.0 earthquake releases about the same amount of energy that your average modern nuclear warhead does.

So I think the problem is that you can't really direct the energy of an atomic bomb into countering a tsunami. Keep in mind that tsunamis themselves propagate radially in all directions - so even if you could create a "counter-tsunami" that would cancel out the wavefront that is approaching you, the portion of that tsunami that would travel in the opposite direction (towards you) would be just as bad as the original tsunami, and closer to boot. Both earthquakes and tsunamies are characterized by energy released at a point source, and propagating away from there. I don't see, in principle, how you can combat that by introducing more of the same.
 
What if a nuke caused the Tsunami? Who really knows?

cosmictraveler said:
Could they design a atomic shaped weapon that could be discharged in the front of an oncoming tsunami that would create a counter tsunami to cancel the effects of the first one? They could drop this device in time if they could get it there by fighter jet .
Click to expand...

I was thinking about something like this JUST today! What if a large underwater nuke CAUSED the Tsunami? Would that be possible too?
 
Skeptical said:
Lila

There are a small number of animals, typified by elephants, who have the ability to hear infra-sound. Humans cannot.

A tsunami creates a lot of infra-sound, and it is entirely possible that some animals may hear that, and flee inland shortly before the tsunami reaches land. It appears elephants may have done this in the Boxing Day tsunami.

However, it is only a few animals, and it is only just literally minutes before the tsunami strikes. Nothing paranormal here.
Click to expand...


Ok, with land animals I guess that makes sense. But I get the impression now (after googling since i last posted) that that is expecting too much from their senses anyway - what about subterranean species? I didnt find any articles focusing on these.

I read something about snakes having a higher survival rate than dogs etc so what about animals that live deeper in the ground?

I remember my parents once woke up in the middle of the night to find the underside of their mattress covered with strange ant-like creatures. My dad immediately concluded the 'dormant' volcano was going to erupt and they packed up and left. They were at our country house which is near a volcanic lake. Three days later the government announced smoky emissions from the volcano. It was weeks before there was a minor eruption.


Before , I found it hard to accept that we simply cant do anything about tsunamis but this thread is getting me nearer to doing so.

However I'm still not convinced about the short notice part re tsunamis. Maybe it's only minutes notice if we're looking for tremors, but if we're tracking deepwater species maybe we could get at least half a days' more of evacuation time.


As I pointed out earlier, the OP is an SBI. (silly bugger idea).
Click to expand...

ha, most of my ideas probably fall under SBI but if I dont ask, they will haunt me forever so, so far, any mockery has been worth the trouble .
 
Rhaedas said:
Aren't shape charges using a solid in combination with the explosive to make a more concentrated focus of energy? I can't find a way in which you could focus just the blast itself without getting a opposite reaction (2nd law), and we're talking having to move large volumes of water, not punch holes into anything.

Best way I can think of is to create a directed wave in the same way an earthquake fault movement does, through displacement, but you're talking enormous energies to move that much mass.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of using the sea floor somewhere that could be like the land base explosions, they all go "up" so directing the blast under the sea floor then tilt it to only go left or right when it detonates would be the way to try it. A problem is that it could cause another earthquake as well, so that's a thing to consider as well.
 
The heat goes up. The force goes in all directions. I haven't heard of any atomic bomb being directioned, ever.
 
It'd be like a giant "Claymore" mine...hopefully it would be marked according:

fronttowardenemymine.jpg


Wouldn't want to get that mixed up. :)
 
Dywyddyr said:
Not exactly a bomb for blowing things up, but still a shaped nuclear charge...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
Click to expand...

Ok, this is interesting but I would bet the yield for a directed atomic explosion would have to be very very small. For the force to be directed the shielding used to direct the force has to withstand the temperatures of an small scale thermonuclear explosion. Is this possible?

They didn't actually successfully build and test a directional atomic bomb though did they?

This does have more potential to work for the spaceship than for the tsunami as the required explosion for the tsunami would be too large? Could many small charges be used directionally?

Remember that in space there is no resistance and that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For the explosion to be directed it must be supported by something that can withstand the force in the undesirable side directions and opposite direction. The casing would, if it could resist the temperatures (diamond?), then regardless shoot off in the opposite direction. Plus an equal amount of energy and force must find a way out in all directions unless deflected in one direction; but the opposite of that one direction will also be subject to equal forces, even more so in a vacuum with nothing to interfere. What does that equate to? I am not sure as I am not a physicist, but I would assume that equal force/material/energy must go in the opposite direction to the directed direction?

So does this work for a tsunami scenario? I doubt it.

Though, I am not an expert. Do we have anyone with pertinent knowledge in the house?
 
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