Admittedly, Hollywood is not a center of profound intellectual thought. It's been called the "dream capital of the world", and in a real sense this is true. Like dreams, many of Hollywood's movies consist of plots and dialogue that don't make much sense, and characters whose behavior defies the principles of psychology as frequently as it breaks the rules of physics. Some of them, like the dreary antiwar movies of the 1960s, are blatantly political and manipulative. But some of them can only be described as dangerous misinformation cynically disguised as entertainment.

One of the worst examples of dangerous misinformation was a movie released in 1982 called The Atomic Cafe, which made fun of the Government's disaster preparedness films for children about what to do in the event of a nuclear war. These films are the source of the famous "duck and cover" concept with which we have all become familiar. The idea of "duck and cover" seems quaint today, partly because it reminds us of a bygone era, and partly because it follows the general rule, first recognized by comedians, that anything containing the word 'duck' is intrinsically funny. (It shares this distinction with the word 'banana'). The "duck and cover" program, which was initiated in the days before H-bombs and ICBMs, was a reasonable course of civil defense at the time.

However, the predominant motif in The Atomic Cafe was not one of amusement, but malicious ridicule. The movie was also devoid of factual information--or rather, the factual information was presented in such a way as to imply that it was false. The movie consisted entirely of old filmclips skillfully edited into a sort of video collage. Images of complete destruction at the epicenter of an explosion were juxtaposed with images of John and Jane Q. Public building fallout shelters, a kid named Tony jumping off his bicycle, and doctors trying to explain that nuclear fallout is survivable. These incongruities were designed to make the precautions appear absurd and to make the Government's information appear to be manipulative propaganda.

However, the implication that the only possible outcome of a nuclear conflict would be a universal holocaust, in which everyone would die either from the blast, from radiation poisoning or fallout, or from starvation, making it pointless to take any precautions, is simply false. In fact, it's arguably the most dangerous nonsense imaginable. The genius of Hollywood is its ability to take a scientifically untenable position and play on people's natural fears to make their ideas seem plausible. With fiction, it sometimes works. But in a documentary, it's an example of how dangerously wrong the advice from technologically illiterate people can be.

As film critic D. Boyle said of this movie,

"There is nothing to temper the final impact of decadent cynicism, which both feeds the film and is fed by it. It is cynicism, and not skepticism, as Loader claims, that is the film's final message, and it may be as dangerous as fallout. If we cannot trust anyone, why should we begin by trusting these filmmakers."

Worse, it encourages the defeatist attitude that a nuclear attack is not survivable, and that taking precautions is pointless. As one sympathetic reviewer said, "It seems laughable now, but people actually used to believe that atomic warfare was something that the earth could survive."

The idea that a nuclear war would end all life on the planet has become very widespread. It is this sentiment that caused the students at Brown University in Rhode Island to demand a few years ago that the University administration stock cyanide capsules, so that the students could all commit suicide if a nuclear war broke out. Sensibly, the university denied their request. The students would just have to jump off a building like everyone else.

The cold fact is, ducking and covering is excellent advice. Unfortunately, the nice people who gave me this nifty new jacket with the extra-long sleeves won't let me have my books on the design, construction, and effects of nuclear warheads, so I'll have to make do without divulging any quantitative facts about The Bomb. But in general terms, here are the facts you should know:

1. Blast Blast is a pressure differential which creates compressive forces on buildings and on the human body. The lethal blast radius, which is the distance within which more than half the people would be killed, is about 2-3 miles for a 1 megaton explosion and up to 10 miles for a really large explosion (25 megatons). This is the distance where the pressure differential is 5 p.s.i. or greater, and ducking and covering probably won't help. This radius increases with the cube root of the energy output, and depends on various specific details about the topography and the bomb itself. However, even in a total nuclear war, it is simply false that everyone would die. Given world inventories of 20-30,000 bombs with a total force of roughly 13,800 megatons, and a total inhabitable land mass of 51 million sq. mi., all of the earth's population could never be close enough to be killed by a blast, even if every bomb in existence were detonated in a maximally destructive pattern. Most people would still be outside the blast radius, where ducking and covering is not a bad idea at all.
   
2. Radiation When you're ducking and covering, you increase the probability that topographical features such as hills, building foundations, and cars, will be between you and the radiation source. Remember that most of the gamma rays, which travel in a strict straight line, are emitted in the first few seconds, and taper off over a period of a few minutes. They are mostly emitted from the center, that is, the brightest part of the explosion. They are absorbed by the ground or other objects in their path. So every bit of ground that blocks you from this radiation source reduces its intensity. If you're too close, you will die. But if not, ducking and covering could make a big difference. In fact, the exposure to gamma rays, heat, ultraviolet, and fast neutrons in the first few minutes are the greatest dangers to those outside the immediate blast radius.

   Incidentally, radiation falls off as the square root of the distance from the source (actually slightly faster, because of absorption). This means the radiation danger from a very small bomb, such as one that might be detonated by a terrorist, covers a wider range than the blast damage, while for a larger bomb, the reverse is true.

   About 35% of the energy of a nuclear weapon is emitted as heat. This would cause severe burns, and the intense light would be blinding--hence the importance of "covering".
   

3. Debris A nuclear explosion is followed by a wave of debris pushed outward from the center. There is also debris from collapsing structures. When you're ducking and covering, you also greatly improve your chances of avoiding this debris.
   
4. Multiple explosions For various reasons, an enemy would not detonate more than one nuclear bomb simultaneously. They would most likely be spaced apart by at least a few minutes. Thus, if you were ducking and covering, you would be partially protected from the second one.
   
5. Fallout Fallout is produced if the explosive fireball touches the ground. If someone tells you that cancer or birth defects from fallout is a certainty for anyone who survives the initial attack, they are misinformed. Yes, the risk is much higher. But even in Hiroshima, only a relatively small portion of the survivors of Hiroshima ever contracted cancer. The risk of cancer is much higher if you're exposed to the original radiation source. For example, a dose of 50 rem, about 1/10 of a fatal exposure, will cause a cancer fatality in somewhere between 0.4 and 2.5 percent of those exposed. Again, if you happened to duck and cover, your chances of getting cancer, becoming sterile, or transmitting birth defects to your children would be greatly reduced.

   Radiation sickness, not cancer, is the main worry from fallout. Fallout occurs in a narrow, directional pattern, mostly downwind of the blast. From a 1 megaton blast, unprotected people standing in the open for a long enough period of time could receive a lethal dose of radiation (900 Rem) up to 90 miles away if they were directly downwind. People upwind would receive a much smaller dosage. The radioactivity in fallout decays to 1/1000 of its original levels within two weeks.
   

6. Nuclear Winter The "nuclear winter" scenario that the late Carl Sagan was so fond of promoting is really just a speculative hypothesis. The theory of nuclear winter was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of scale. Although everyone agrees that a limited nuclear exchange would have negligible effect on climate, Sagan and a few others had suggested that an all-out nuclear war might raise enough dust particles into the stratosphere to partially block out sunlight, which would lower the earth's temperature and kill all plant life. This conclusion has been thoroughly discredited (see the Fall 1986 issue of Foreign Affairs). Skeptics also point out that a volcano releases orders of magnitude more dust than any nuclear explosion, and the largest volcanoes historically have only reduced temperatures by a few degrees. In fact, it's almost impossible to predict the effects of nuclear explosions on climate, let alone how many people would die from it; but even in the worst possible case the human race would almost certainly survive, and a great many people would continue to live healthy lives. Among the survivors, there would obviously be a lot of rebuilding work to do. There would be widespread anger against those who ridiculed the notion of ducking and covering. And those who had committed suicide would be the most despised of all.

The real reason anti-nuclear activists want you to believe that a nuclear war would kill everyone on the planet is political: even though they know their claims are mere hyperbole, exaggerations, or even false, they believe making these claims is still beneficial because it increases the public outcry and opprobrium against military planners who build nuclear weapons. It's a case of believing that the ends justify the means. But this lie is a particularly dangerous one, because it leads to cynicism, despair, and paralysis.

Nuclear weapons are complex machines whose workings can be easily disrupted, and in the future, scientists will undoubtedly find ways to put into practice the ways that are already theoretically available for reducing their effectiveness as weapons. But for the moment limited nuclear warfare is as real a possibility as it was in the 1950s. In those days, little was known about the magnitude of the risks of cancer and other medical consequences of radiation. It is easy enough to ridicule their lack of knowledge. The images of soldiers courageously advancing over fallout-covered terrain are scary. But in those days, people were expected to take personal risks to preserve Western civilization. And they did. That's a concept many in this country would do well to reacquaint themselves with.

Instead, many people have a hysterical fear of any type of danger, and especially of radioactivity, because they can't comprehend the vast differences in magnitude of various radiation sources, such as cosmic rays, medical X-rays, or nuclear explosions. One anti-nuclear activist from Australia makes a career of spreading misinformation about radiation--and she even has a medical degree. I've worked with one biologist, who somehow passed our radiation safety course, who even refused to let people work with radioactive tritium in the same room, for fear of radiation exposure (no, this was not the same guy who was also afraid of our sonicator bath). Of course, the risk of radiation-induced injury from being six feet away from 100 microcuries of tritium is ... let me see ... clickety-click ... approximately ... zero. But if a guy with a Ph.D. in biology knows so little about the hazards of radioactivity, what chance do the rest of us have?

The only defense against cynicism, technological illiteracy, and fear is knowledge. Understanding technology is the best way to avoid being taken in by propaganda flicks like The Atomic Cafe. If the idea of increasing your chances of survival is not reason enough, consider that the brain uses 20% of the body's oxygen just while resting. By exercising your brain, you will burn calories. You can lose weight and become a knowledgeable citizen at the same time. And if you see a flash, go ahead and duck. Slim, knowledgeable, and maybe still alive--what a combination. Atta boy, Tony.