with the number of nuclear weapons in the world now, and how old a lot are, how is it possible we’ve never accidentally set one off?

Question

Title says it. Really curious how we’ve escaped this kind of occurrence anywhere in the world, for the last ~70 years.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

James May tried but it just wouldn’t light.

They are so destructive that there’s a whole protocol and safeguards against an accidental firing. They aren’t, as far as I’m aware, sat in active mode.

There were some accidents with critical masses in the early days. Look up demon core.