Mushroom Cloud %

[tom]

Starting with John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy in 1808, what percentage of timelines used nuclear weapons in war by 2004 (OTL counts - H & N).

[tom]

I don't know...I think that it is just too likely for governments to think that an atomic bomb is just a big bang when they are on the technological horizon. I can't see them really grokking the radiation, the scores of thousands of massive burn victims, the rubble stretching to the horizon...they will have a head knowledge, not a gut or heart knowledge. It will simply be too tempting to use them in war, until, like a child, they find out how much fire can hurt.

[Otis Tarda]

I thinkt, that there are two dfferent categories:

Nuclear bombd used only once or twice (as OTL) - high probability, probaly over 50%

Nuclear War - probalbly lower, 10% maybe?

[Tyr]

These sorts of things are stupid, the number is inifinite if we are on about infinite numbers of worlds.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by Leej

These sorts of things are stupid, the number is inifinite if we are on about infinite numbers of worlds.

Very well said, if the number of timelines is infinite then even the smallest percentage is infinite

So even 5% is immense

Grey Wolf

[Otis Tarda]

I'm not a methematician, but IIRC, any rectangle cpnsist of infinite number of points - and a triangle, build on sides of this rectangle also consist infinite number of points... but just half of those that rectangle consit of

In fact, it's just question: "starting from point X, what the chance that Y would happen".

[aktarian]

To start considering odds one must acknowledge 2 things.

1. Nuclear wars can start by an accident. Cuban missile crisis is filed with cases where war was prevented in last minute. There were others, some known, probablly much more that aren't.

2. When debating "nuclear war" one must drop his knee-jerk reaction that we are talking about global Soviet-American nuclear exchange with 1.000s of warheads. Nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would involve much less warheads and cause much less damage on global scale but it is nuclear war. If Israel uses them against non-nuclear enemy (1973). While only one side (Israel) would be using nukes, it would be nuclear war.

Then you think about how many states have nukes (just because we live in 5+2+1 world it doesn't mean every TL is like this). Then ask yourself how many (potential) conflicts are there among nuclear powers (if one country has nukes it doesn't mean it's in conflict with other nuclar powers, e.g UK/France). Then ask yourself are nukes likelly to be used. That depends on leaders and circumstances. After you factor all this in, then you can debate about %.