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from the Pay-it-Forward-/-Grok-/-TANSTAAFL dept.
The Joplin Globe reports that Missouri lawmakers have inducted science fiction writer Robert Heinlein to the Hall of Famous Missourians to a cheering crowd of fans who call themselves "Heinlein's children."
State Rep. T.J. Berry says Heinlein encouraged others to "strive for the stars, for the moon" and "for what's next." Donors to the Heinlein Society and the Heinlein Prize Trust paid for a bronze bust of Heinlein, which will be displayed in the House Chamber at the Capitol where it will join 45 other Missourians honored with busts in the hall including Mark Twain, Dred Scott and Ginger Rogers, as well as more controversial Missourians such as Rush Limbaugh.
"Our devotion to this man must seem odd to those outside of the science fiction field, with spaceships and ray guns and bug-eyed monsters," Heinlein Society President Keith Kato said. "But to Heinlein's children, the writing was only the beginning of doing."
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:57PM
I somehow missed reading Starship Troopers -- it's going on my "gotta read it" list right now.
As for your bolded text "two Kilotons nominal yield", I'd like to point out just how massive a bomb that is. I grew up in the era of A-Bomb and H-Bomb testing and so I grew used to the use of the terms: kiloton and megaton. Upon reflection, those are huge units of measure!
A single stick of dynamite is something I do NOT want to be near when it goes off.
One (short) ton of TNT is 2,000 pounds. So, "two kilotons nominal yield" is, effectively, two-thousand tons, i.e. 4,000,000 pounds (approximately 1,800,000 kg) of TNT!
Going one more step, according to Wikipedia, TNT [wikipedia.org] has a density of 1.654 g/cm^3. A rough calculation tells me that is a cube of TNT more than 10 meters on each side.
That's just 2 kiloton; the Tsar Bomba [wikipedia.org] was estimated at 50 megaton:
That just totally boggles my mind.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday August 25 2016, @07:22PM
Yes, 2 Kilotons of TNT is a big blast. It would be (leaving aside any radiation/fallout issues) about 2/3 he size of The Halifax Explosion [wikipedia.org] in 1917.
This article [wikipedia.org] gives a good overview of the destructive power of varying amounts of TNT equivalents -- with examples.
My point to GP was not that two kilotons was *small*, but rather that the weapons described in the novel aren't what we would normally think of when someone mentioned "nuclear weapons," but rather something with enormously less destructive capability than what folks generally think about when someone uses that term [wikipedia.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday August 25 2016, @08:08PM
Thanks for the link! Apparently, I made a mistake in my assumption that a kiloton was 2,000 pounds of TNT; apparently, from your link [wikipedia.org], it's 1,000 kg, or closer to 2,200 pounds. Later on that page, they state: "A kiloton of TNT can be visualized as a cube of TNT 8.46 metres (27.8 ft) on a side." Learned something new today — thanks again!
Wit is intellect, dancing.