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How dense would the atmosphere need to be to result in a cataclysmic chain reaction during a nuclear explosion?

Famously, Oppenheimer and co worked out how close a nuclear bomb test would be to causing a chain reaction of nitrogen fusion in the atmosphere. They made a lot of worst-case-scenario assumptions and still came to the conclusion that no, a nuclear bomb test wouldn’t scour the surface of the world....

bluGill ,

for fission, nothing in the atmosphere is fissable and so it can't. Fusion would be possible but that starts spontaniously via pressure.

at least that is how I read wikipedia, I await a real phyiscist to tell me how close I am.

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