Can we blow up the world?

Disclaimer: I'm no expert and I didn't try too hard.

Sometimes you'll hear people say that with the world's nuclear arsenal we have enough weapons to blow up the world a few times over. When I did the math in my head, it didn't seem quite right to me. I don't like it when the math in my head doesn't match up to what people say, so I decided to look into it.

I wrote a simulation that took 20,000 nukes (the whole world's arsenal) and placed them in the locations with the highest population density. I did a very rough estimate that had every nuke completely destroying approximately 27x27 kilometers. I chose that number because it seems like a good approximation and it was easy to program. The estimate is rough, but it seems like it's on the bigger side according to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

Calculating all the effects including fallout would be difficult, so I went with those very approximate numbers. In the picture, you can see the areas that were nuked in bright blue. My simulation didn't manage to physically blow up the whole world. Not even close. It did manage to destroy most of the world's population. The population started at our current world population of 6.8 billion and ended up at 1.6 billion after my best attempt at destroying everyone. Of course, with all the population centers destroyed, it would probably be difficult to sustain the remaining 1.6 billion, but that's another thing that's too hard to simulate. Word on the street is that nuclear winter would have a devastating effect on the climate, which means those lucky 1.6 billion are going to have an even more difficult time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

In case you're wondering about the colors on the map, it's a population density map of the world. Darker red is less populated, lighter orange is more populated, and blue was so heavily populated that it became a target and was destroyed by my simulation. The map brightness is a log-visualization which makes it easier to see the less populated areas.

One interesting thing I found is that there is a place that shows up on the map as the least populated place in the US outside of Alaska. That is where the US did the majority of its nuclear testing. No need to blow that place up. It has already been done.

View Larger Map

Its a bit northwest of Las Vegas in between Area 51 and Death Valley. Hmmm... 935 nuclear tests took place there - more than anywhere else in the world. Ouch.

As I worked on this project, I even managed to come up with a few minor conspiracy theories, like that the suburbs were intentionally designed because low density living is safer against nuclear attack. Apparently, suburbs really took off in the US just after WWII. Silly urban planning or defense strategy? Hmmm...

Here are a few links if you're into learning more about nuclear distasters.

http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/irwin_redlener_warns_of_nuclear_terrorism.html

After writing this simulation, my final conclusion is that even though the world won't instantly blow up like in an action movie, the vast majority of the people on the planet would be destroyed. I hope you liked my pictures. Let me know what you think.