The Soviet doomsday device -- a giant cobalt bomb rigged to explode were Russia ever nuked, rendering the earth's surface uninhabitable -- gained fictional fame in Dr. Strangelove. However, P.D. Smith's Doomsday Men, available in the UK and due for stateside publication in December, tells the story of the real Doomsday device -- and it's still armed.
Fearing that a sneak attack by American submarine-launched missiles might take Moscow out in thirteen minutes, the Soviet leadership had authorized the construction of an automated communications network, reinforced to withstand a nuclear strike. At its heart was a computer system similar to the one in Dr Strangelove. Its codename was Perimetr. It went fully operational in January 1985. It is still in place. Its job is to monitor whether there have been nuclear detonations on Russian territory and to check whether communications channels with the Kremlin have been severed. If the answer to both questions is “yes” then the computer will conclude that the country is under attack and activate its nuclear arsenal. All that is then needed is final human approval from a command post buried deep underground. It would be a brave officer, adds Smith, who, having been cut off from his superiors in the Kremlin, could ignore the advice of such a supposedly foolproof system. [...]
We all face the prospect that, if Russia were ever attacked, its strategic nuclear warheads could be launched by a computer system designed and built in the late 1970s.
That quote was from the Times' review, and Slate's Ron Rosenbaum recently revisited the book within the chilling context of Russian president Vladimir Putin's decision to put his country's nuclear bomber fleet back in the air. (Are they actually armed? Only he knows! Shiver.)
So what's this doing on a science blog? Well, it's Friday afternoon, my thoughts are meandering, and earlier I read a review of a God Delusion rebuttal. Wrote the reviewer,
... Dawkins’s first sleight of hand ... dishonestly bundles all religious belief and practice into one crude bag that supposedly equals fanaticism.
This is rather like suggesting that all science is dangerous because it has brought nuclear weapons....
And that seems like a very valid point, both for being fair to religious people and for keeping our own belief in science from turning to ideological dogma. After all, if the world is nuked by a Cold War doomsday device because some Islamic fundamentalist group hits Russia with dirty bombs, it'll be a fetid mix of religious and secular madness that does us in, each happy to use the tools that scientists have provided.
The Return of the Doomsday Machine? [Slate]
Dr Strangelove and the real Doomsday machine [Times Online]
Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion [Times Online]
So what's this doing on a science blog?
Uh nuclear physics my friend?
You are well within the clear on this one being posted here. Good reporting.
So what happens if the 22-year old harddrive crashes?
as long as they are not windows boxes everything will be fine
as long as they are not windows boxes everything will be fine
"dishonestly bundles all religious belief and practice into one crude bag that supposedly equals fanaticism."
Dawkins’s is quite wrong for bundling all religions into the "crude bag". After all "Scientology" has part of the word science in it. Whereas the other religions are simply thousand year old myths.
"After all "Scientology" has part of the word science in it. Whereas the other religions are simply thousand year old myths."
I hope you are joking. Hubbard was
a a science fiction writer.
Science did not produce nuclear weapons. Religion does not produce the actions to use them. People produced them, and people use them (or will).
Religion, science, etc. must stop being used as the problem. People are the problem.
People must, MUST, start taking responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming something else.
Repent and accept Christ. He will accept responsibility for you, and will confess you before God the Father. Once you have done this, you will see you have nothing to fear in this life.
john: this is a science blog. no preaching here. religion has been the largest cause of war in the history of time. get over yourselves, file the bible in the fiction section, and read a science book.
repent and accept that you have been lied to.
as for the nukes - it would be a shame if the extremists figured out this tactic. maybe we should ask russia to point some of those nukes towards the middle east...
Thanks for the info, I thought that the nuclear threat was over. Very interesting.
djclintoris missed the -tags.
sarcasm-tags *cough stupid blog software cough*
John, you were on a roll up until you attempted to force your religion down our throats.
Your reasoning is faulty. Very, very faulty. Actually, it's scary you got out of university with a degree (I suppose, you did). You should go back, and study the basics of logic. (You know, that thing these old Greek dudes were so fond of.)
Let's not discuss the feasibility of a so-called "dirty-bomb" -much hysteria, little connection with reality. But c'mon. You think this antique Russian HAL will mistake a minimal-impact terrorist attack -by Muslim terrorists, no less- with a full-blown NUCLEAR assault... well, I have sad news for you. You either are paranoid beyond the scope of reasoning, or really want to find those pesky ragheads in every shadow, to drum up the xenophobia of your readers.
A little side-note: don't you think that the "Muslim" terrorism in Russia has more to do with their dirty little war in Chechnya, than with "Islamofascists"? Or is it just easier to label things black and white? (It certainly makes thinking unnecessary, as demonstrated.)
I think trying to draw parellels between the evils done in the name of religion and the destructive technology made possible by science is a little disingenuous.
Both types of damage are the result of authoratarian dogma. This is the opposite of science and the core of almost all religion.
"Repent and accept Christ. He will accept responsibility for you, and will confess you before God the Father. Once you have done this, you will see you have nothing to fear in this life."
How is a mythical figurehead able to take responsibilities for my actions?
I'm the only one that can do that. If I murder someone, the only person accountable for my actions is me. No "word or command" is going to change that. Forgiveness comes from the living on earth in the here and now.
You might as well say that if you "sin" that Mickey Mouse will forgive you and you will have eternal life. and what is eternal life anyway? I don't know anyone that is living forever. Once you body dies your brain doesn't produce anymore signals and you are just organic material at this point.
I was like you for 15 years, then one day I woke up and said to myself "self, dude stop pretending that this stuff is true and just live your life!"
so yeah
and BTW, good blog article
-William Evans
www.william-online.com
A dirty bomb doesn't produce a nuclear explosion... It just spreads contaminated material... Get your facts before writing! ;)
To the article: this type of device was mentioned in the Guiness Book of World Records over 20 years ago - a device with about 50 Gigatons of power that was designed to render the entire surface of the earth uninhabitable in the event that US forces "lost" a nuclear war.
To the religious comments: it's fanaticism, not religion, that has caused more death throughout history. Otherwise, atheists would account for the 40 million starved to death in Ukraine and the rest of Russia by Stalin, the 60 million murdered in China during Mao Tse Tung's "Cultural Revolution", and the 2 million murdered in Cambodia by Pol Pot. No organized religion has done even 2 orders of magnitude the damage that atheists have. And yet, it is the fanatics - the ones who insist on imposing their belief system - that have been the primary source of murder.
angryrat, for someone recommending a logic course for someone else you have provided examples of many logical fallacies in your reply. You start off with ad hominen attacks on the essay writer followed by dismissing what was discussed and arguing to another point. There is a book, you can get it at Amazon called Introduction to Logic by Copi, it's in it's eleventh printing and it was the book I used when I did take that logic class in college. Cheers.
The problem is that Russia has become a mafia state. Now, instead of communism as a oppression tool they have some sort of state mob. Sounds like loony talk, doesn't it? All the super-rich in Russia got their fortunes by ripping from the state with mob tactics. Search for Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire. This guy was part of nomenclature, but didn't have any family fortune. How do you make billions in less than 20 years? And you know what? He's now buying companies in EU.
It is possible to simulate a nuclear event without atomics. Our satellites have been fooled on more than one occasion and they use current filtering technology. I wonder what was used in the 80's?. I wonder if our (U.S.) doomsday devices are still functioning, and in what condition?
As to religion; no one has "special" knowledge in regards to god. Only the well dressed witchdoctors claim any "special knowledge". They offer up their own self serving proclamations as proof of their knowledge. Then they ask for your money to join their club. I am prejudiced though, I am a Hopi Indian.
Cart
It looks like most missed the point of John's comments. Science produced without regard to social consequences can produce evil results similar to misguided religion or social science. Jesus postulated a more correct and simple social science (love God (goodness), and love others more than yourself). All of the scientific effort devoted to weapon building is a pointless waste, likely to be adopted by social organizations that don't have goodness as their prime tenent.
gadlaw
I did not attack the author. I merely stated that his reasoning is faulty, and suggested he thought it over. Just stating the obvious is not attack. (You, however did attack, as besides some half-hearted attempt on sarcasm, you didn't offer much else.) The author seeked a connection between a "revenge weapon" that activates after a nuclear assault on the country, and a small-scale terrorist attack, that is not even nuclear in nature. Maybe, just maybe watching FOX News you have this idea that terrorists can cause just as much damage as a nuclear power with hundreds of thousands of kilotons warheads at their disposal, but there's a news for you: a terrorist attack doesn't do much damage (well, compared to even a "small", conventional war) -and the damage itself is not the goal. It's the means to accomplish their goal.
So arguing, that a pitiful little (again, not for the victims, only in comparison to the usual armed conflicts) terrorist attack on a Russian city -even if it's Moscow- will trigger this old computer to retaliate is ridiculous.
Is that real hard for you to understand? What part is not logical for you? Maybe I'll send one of these books from Amazon for you.
(And that stupid remark about science and religion is especially insulting for every religious person, every atheist, and for logic itself.)
John, you were on a roll up until you attempted to say anything the atheists are not wanting to hear... I didn't see you pushing anything down anyone's throats. BTW: It's OK if an atheist talks about a religion in a bad way. They are in no way pushing their beliefs on anyone else. They are exempt from everything. Sadly, their dogma is protected far better than ours.
"I think trying to draw parellels between the evils done in the name of religion and the destructive technology made possible by science is a little disingenuous.
Both types of damage are the result of authoratarian dogma. This is the opposite of science and the core of almost all religion.
Posted by: Nick | Sep 15, 2007 8:38:26 AM
"
Nick,
If you really believe this, then you don't know much about Science OR Religion.
The problem for Humankind is Ignorance.
(The above is a profound statement that I will think about for the rest of my life)
Anytime someone says you must believe in jesus you can bet someone is going to say thats a load of crap. Keep your religion to yourself, its best that way.
You blissfully assume the crazy yanks don't have a similar device, except it would be built at the lowest bid. Also GWB doesn't even know which of his bombers have nukes aboard.
hi im scott im wondering wat are the chances of the bomb going of? and how does it work? well theres two days left now and howcould it destroy the whole world? please anser me or send an email at
scottie-dawg@hotmail.co.uk
I'd rather that system be run on a simple, well-understood 70's computer than on an impossibly complex, buggy modern computer.
Also, the 1970's-era has a much lower chance of becoming self-aware.
"So what happens if the 22-year old harddrive crashes?" or if someone hacks it, i mean, seriously, were talking about 22 year old technology here, and by the way the system is portrayed, it all runs on a communications network, and every communications network is hackable
"So what happens if the 22-year old harddrive crashes?" or if someone hacks it, i mean, seriously, were talking about 22 year old technology here, and by the way the system is portrayed, it all runs on a communications network, and every communications network is hackable
EDITOR: Betsy Mason | 
art : 
As someone who has seen a LOT of 80's movies, I can tell you that this can only lead to a disastrous future in which only a lone anti-hero can save the day against all odds.