You Might Call This a Blast from the Past

Not long ago, the Arms Control Wonk blog underwent a redesign. I found the result intriguing.

Arms Control Wonk was redesigned by a firm called Hexive, and Hexive drew inspiration from the credit sequence created by Pablo Ferro for the 1964 Cold War movie Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Headings and names were rendered in the (apparently) hand-drawn style of Ferro's lettering.

The homepage design was crowned with an eclectic little image:
A picture of a circular slide rule. In particular, the Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer.

This is perfect. Perfect.

Why? Because nothing says "arms control wonk" better than a Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer. It distills arms-control wonkery into one handy device.

Allow the designers of the NBEC to explain it to you:

…a circular slide rule was designed to evaluate 28 different effects of nuclear weapons. Of these 28 different effects, 13 relate to blast, 5 to thermal radiation, 1 to initial nuclear radiation, 2 to early fallout, 6 to crater dimensions, and 1 to fireball dimensions. Most of the parameters are presented as functions of range and yield (1 kt [kiloton] to 20 Mt [megatons]). Simple techniques are described which make it possible to estimate most of the effects parameters for yields greater than 20 Mt or smaller than 1 kt.

If you were worried about atomic attack, or planning to survive an atomic attack, or (God forbid) planning to conduct an atomic attack, this was a convenient gadget to have. It was also useful if you had an idea for some novel use of nuclear bombs, such as deflecting dangerous asteroids, creating an artificial reservoir for natural gas, or digging a sea-level canal across Nicaragua-- all of which were considered, more or less seriously, duing the heyday of the Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer.

In some editions of Samuel Glasstone's definitive book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, one of these slide rules was tucked into a pocket inside the back cover. It reified the tables and equations in the book. These are prized by collectors with an interest in such things, but they are getting harder to find.

Fortunately, John Walker (best known as a founder of Autodesk) reverse-engineered his own copy of the slide rule and came up with do-it-yourself instructions:
Build Your Own Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer

Those curious about how the original slide rule was designed may wish to consult this 80-page 1963 document: Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer (Including Slide-Rule Design and Curve Fits for Weapons Effects), by E. R. Fletcher, Ray W. Albright, Robert F.Perret, Mary E. Franklin, and I. G. Bowen. This is the source of the passage I quoted above.

Once upon a time, all kinds of special-purpose slide rules were created to perform analog caclulations in particular domains. Today, I suppose, the "apps" on your smartphone occupy a roughly similar niche. Here's a site that offers a look at some specialized slide rules.

Anyway, I just wanted to salute the new and very appropriate icon of Arms Control Wonk. May their work continue to keep us safe.