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

Nuclear weapons aren’t simple weapons.

They are intricate, complicated devices with dozens of parts that all need to work in just the right way to go boom.

And the people storing them tend to be really good at their jobs. Accidental explosions just don’t happen in long time storage.