Radioactive Carbon from Nuclear Explosions and Nonthreshold Biological Effects

摘要

In this article, which appeared in the June 1958 issue of the Soviet journal, Atomic Energy, Sakharov estimated that about 10,000 people would ultimately suffer cancers, genetic disorders, and other ill effects from the radioactivity produced by a 1-megaton nuclear explosion in the atmosphere. According to this estimate, the 1961 Soviet test of a 58-megaton nuclear explosive-an explosion that by itself accounts for about 10 percent to the total yield of all atmospheric nuclear explosions in history-will, in the long term, injure or kill about half a million people.