Ouvi uma vez a anedota de que um dos cientistas do projeto Manhattan, debatendo com outro, fez umas "contas no verso do guardanapo" quando cogitaram a possibilidade da bomba nuclear queimar toda a atmosfera, ou algo assim, e concluiu que não seria o caso.
Com o aumento da quilotonagem e quantidade de bombas, o quanto será que essa possibilidade se aproxima da realidade?
Ops, não era exatamente isso:
Teller also raised the speculative possibility that an atomic bomb might "ignite" the atmosphere because of a hypothetical fusion reaction of nitrogen nuclei.[note 1] Bethe calculated that it could not happen,[27] and a report co-authored by Teller showed that "no self-propagating chain of nuclear reactions is likely to be started."[28] In Serber's account, Oppenheimer mentioned it to Arthur Compton, who "didn't have enough sense to shut up about it. It somehow got into a document that went to Washington" and was "never laid to rest".[note 2]
