🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov6.112624.22538@athena.mit.edu> krpeters@athena.mit.edu (Karl R Peters) writes:
>What would happen if we detonated several (Like a few 
>thousand) nuclear devices in the Van Allen Radiation
>Belts? Would it be possible to temporarily disrupt the
>Earth's magnetic field and cause the massive amounts of
>radiation contained there to strike the Earth's surface?
>(And thereby fry all life on earth.)
>
>Main problems: 
>1) Is there enough radiation there?
>

Nope.  The Van Allen belt has enough to "fry" quite a bit
of the population, but it's too spread out, would have to
be concentrated over a high-density population area and
thus would miss a lot of people.
2) Can it be 'moved'
>
Not really.  The Van Allen Belt (as far as I know) comes from
radiation from the sun, and is continually renewed.  A nuclear
explosion (or a lot of em) would disrupt the atmosphere a lot
more than it would the Belt.
3) Are nuclear blasts powerful enough to disrupt the
>earth's magnetic field? If not, would a gigantic
>Tessla Coil do?

Tesla Coil?  Yeah, if it were big enough.  But I think we would
lose a lot of surprise factor if we built one that big.  "Say,
what are you guys doing with that 8000km long Tesla Coil?" "Oh,
nothing.  Nothing at all."  However, there may be something
in this idea.  I'm going to dig out my old physics book and
try to get some equations on here soon.

>				Karl

I apologise for the > problems, I'm not entirely used to my
text editor.
		Jason
		Our Reporter on the Hideous Plain of Leng