WI: Trinity test canceled for fear of igniting atmosphere

WI: Trinity test canceled for fear of igniting atmosphere
What if the Trinity nuclear test was canceled due to many of the scientists working on it's fear that the explosion would ignite the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth?

For clarification, there is nothing different about nuclear weapons in this scenario. The test would have gone as OTL. Any further tests, detonations, etc. will go as they would IRL.

What happens? Are nuclear weapons never invented? Are they invented years or decades later? By who? Does the cold war go hot without the threat of MAD? Or is all this speculation rendered irrelevant when someone higher-up overrides them and the test goes off an hour later?
 
Not far fetched.

There were people who thought that once started, nucular reaction might not stop. Had they been more convincing tests might have been cancled. Due to wartime necessaty and scientific fact they went ahead with the tests.
 

CalBear

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Short term this means an extra 10-20 million dead before the Pacific War ends, mostly Japanese civilians and "milita volunteers", but also at least three, perhaps as many as four, million dead on the Asian mainland in the regions under Japanese occupation.

Allied, primarily American, deaths can be as high as a million, with a floor of around 400K if the invasions of the Home Islands have to go forward and the Red Army has to fight its way down to Pusan.

Hirohito gets to dance Danny Deever, Japan is more or less obliterated. The Soviets probably take all of Korea and more than likely Hokkaido (figure another 50K Allied losses if this happens). Nice little Cold War Flash Point in the waters between Honshu and Hokkaido.

Japanese economic miracle may never happen. South Korea obviously never becomes an Asian Tiger.

Medium term: Better than 50% chance of Hot War in Western Europe in early 50's. That fight is a 6-5 & pick 'em.

Before 1960 the math is clear enough that the chain reaction will not be infinitely self sustaining and the Bomb comes into being. Expect probably use to be in a tactical role, possibly multiple uses at same time.

By 1980 the T/L is so greatly altered to be impossible to predict. It is strikingly likely that it would not be as pleasant as OTL.
 
ASB

Anyone who believes that the US Government (just having spent $2billion on the Manhattan project) was going to listen to unsubstantiated fears from a few of the physicists with questionable political leanings (most of the ones who worried most about the dangers of atmospheric reaction were conveniently against using the bomb at ALL) is simply deluding themselves. Harry Truman was (rightly or wrongly) never a big fan of the 'priesthood', and was not going to make a decision based upon their fears, especially with massive amounts of government money on the table. Sec State Byrnes (the so-called 'Asst President', and an extremely close adviser of Truman's) shared Truman's distrust of the scientists, especially Fermi and Slizard, the two biggest Cassandras. Some of the comments made by people like Groves (my dad was in the room when that SOB lit into Fermi, making some comments that would have gotten him knifed in a different neighborhood) showed a complete lack of concern for what the scientists thought, and no real trust in their credibility beyond the narrowest of scientific issues. Even then, there was sufficient doubt (correctly, as it turned out) among the scientific community (Oppenheimer, if I remember correctly, thought it was nonsense, though his ambition was such by that time that he would have risked it even if he DID think it would end the world), that the consensus necessary to convince the political and military leaders wouldn't have formed. So to make a long comment longer....NO CHANCE...

But... lets specualate:

1) No Fat Man or Little Boy
2) Blockade and Bombing (no Olympic, the Army was already having second thoughts by then...), so we get about 10-20 million Japanese deaths - possibly a lot more - due to disease and starvation, probably about another 5-10 million in China, more if civil order breaks down. Japan takes decades to recover, if ever
3) USSR ends up with Korea and Hokkaido, ugly post-war tensions
4) Stalin doesn't give up on the dream of a bomb, and he isn't going to be dissuaded from testing it...so the bomb is tested in say, 1949 or 1950, and we are back where we started

ASB though...
 
Japan is brought to its knees by continued firebombing by B-29s and later USAAF jet bombers, and by starving. By 1946, I'd expect half or more of the Japanese population to be dead, and possibly outbreaks of cannibalism.

The real impact I'd say is the impact on the Early Cold War, up to 1950. Without the bomb, America's foreign policy would be radically altered, perhaps focusing on strong standing armies in Europe, which could lead to minor hot wars against the Russians by 1948. Czechoslovakia or Poland or Austria break into civil war, American troops find themselves under attack by misfired mortars or a lost bomber aircraft, etc. Then again, continuing conscription and keeping taxes high to pay for such armies won't make Truman popular. I'd give the 1948 election to the Republicans.
 
The whole idea is pretty silly anyway. We are talking some of the best physicists of any age...somebody would inevitably come up with the calculations proving nitrogen ignition was impossible...as occurred OTL. At which point, you'd need a conspiracy by most of the scientific community to suppress those calculations so the government would be fooled...and for what?
 
The whole idea is pretty silly anyway. We are talking some of the best physicists of any age...somebody would inevitably come up with the calculations proving nitrogen ignition was impossible...as occurred OTL. At which point, you'd need a conspiracy by most of the scientific community to suppress those calculations so the government would be fooled...and for what?

For what, you ask? A lot of the physicists were anti-nuclear weapon anyway. Oppenheimer is an example. But someone would reveal the secret at some point. Teller strikes me as a possible candidate. Ulam is another possibiilty. I'm not aware of any record of him being against the use of the bomb.
 

CalBear

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As was discussed in another thread quite recently, the U.S. was full speed ahead on the Olympic Operation. The Navy was trying to get traction for the Block and Bomb strategy, but the Army, and more importantly, the President, wasn't going for it.

I am a big fan of Block & Bomb, with hindsight it is clearly the way to go if you don't get the Weapon. We know today that the Japanese had just about double the expected number of defenders waiting for the ground troops, and better than double the Kamikaze aircraft that MacArthur's staff was estimating as last as July 26th (and more than a MILLION Barrels of av gas for them), and that the Japanese had figured out exactly where all the planned landing beaches for both Kyushu AND Honshu were located. None of this was known, or even suspected, in August of 1945.

About the only way the U.S. doesn't go ahead as planned is if the October Typhoon manages to REALLY screw things up. If the Allies have to wait until early 1946 before they can land, there is a chance that King & Co would manage to get Truman into their camp, especially if the Intel weenies get a better count of the IJA bayonets waiting on the beach.

Anyone who believes that the US Government (just having spent $2billion on the Manhattan project) was going to listen to unsubstantiated fears from a few of the physicists with questionable political leanings (most of the ones who worried most about the dangers of atmospheric reaction were conveniently against using the bomb at ALL) is simply deluding themselves. Harry Truman was (rightly or wrongly) never a big fan of the 'priesthood', and was not going to make a decision based upon their fears, especially with massive amounts of government money on the table. Sec State Byrnes (the so-called 'Asst President', and an extremely close adviser of Truman's) shared Truman's distrust of the scientists, especially Fermi and Slizard, the two biggest Cassandras. Some of the comments made by people like Groves (my dad was in the room when that SOB lit into Fermi, making some comments that would have gotten him knifed in a different neighborhood) showed a complete lack of concern for what the scientists thought, and no real trust in their credibility beyond the narrowest of scientific issues. Even then, there was sufficient doubt (correctly, as it turned out) among the scientific community (Oppenheimer, if I remember correctly, thought it was nonsense, though his ambition was such by that time that he would have risked it even if he DID think it would end the world), that the consensus necessary to convince the political and military leaders wouldn't have formed. So to make a long comment longer....NO CHANCE...

But... lets specualate:

1) No Fat Man or Little Boy
2) Blockade and Bombing (no Olympic, the Army was already having second thoughts by then...), so we get about 10-20 million Japanese deaths - possibly a lot more - due to disease and starvation, probably about another 5-10 million in China, more if civil order breaks down. Japan takes decades to recover, if ever
3) USSR ends up with Korea and Hokkaido, ugly post-war tensions
4) Stalin doesn't give up on the dream of a bomb, and he isn't going to be dissuaded from testing it...so the bomb is tested in say, 1949 or 1950, and we are back where we started

ASB though...
 
Trinity igniting the atmosphere was silly, and as other have pointed out, calculations demonstrated that it wouldn't happen.

However, there was a real worry that the first H-bomb test might set off a chain reaction, burning the hydrogen in the ocean.... But not having H-bombs is a much smaller difference from OTL than not having any nukes.
 
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