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

To cause a nuclear explosion requires a very carefully and precisely timed sequence of events using triggering conventional explosives, and and extremely precise geometry of parts all to work just right. This is part of what makes it very hard to design a nuclear weapon. If the triggering conventional explosives accidentally go off, it is exceedingly unlikely they would go off in just the right way required to trigger a nuclear explosion. Essentially you would end up with a small dirty bomb, which would spread some radioactive material over a not all that large area. It would be annoying and awkward to clean up the mess, but it would be nothing like an actual nuclear detonation.