I’ve always wondered why only nuclear bombs detonate before hitting the ground and not the actual moment of impact. Does it affect the amount of damage? or does it reduce nuclear waste and radiation?
In: Physics
If you detonate at the right height a portion of the blast wave rebounds off the ground and then superimposes with the blast wave that’s still in the air – ie they add together – so you get an extra damaging blast wave traveling along the ground area.
If you detonate on the ground a bunch of the energy is instead either absorbed by the ground or reflected, but instead of doubling up with the wave spreading along the ground most of the energy gets reflected up into the air where it’s not doing much to anyone.
[Image showing how the waves add together – the small vertical stem at the ground level is the doubled up blast wave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Mach_effect_sequence.svg/500px-Mach_effect_sequence.svg.png)
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