doc_id
int32
0
2.25M
text
stringlengths
101
8.13k
source
stringlengths
38
44
11,300
and also in the now rare apothecaries' system (usually in the form ): but while Roman numerals for whole numbers are essentially decimal does not correspond to , as one might expect, but .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,301
The Romans used a duodecimal rather than a decimal system for fractions, as the divisibility of twelve makes it easier to handle the common fractions of and than does a system based on ten . Notation for fractions other than is mainly found on surviving Roman coins, many of which had values that were duodecimal fractio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,302
Each fraction from to had a name in Roman times; these corresponded to the names of the related coins:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,303
During the centuries that Roman numerals remained the standard way of writing numbers throughout Europe, there were various extensions to the system designed to indicate larger numbers, none of which were ever standardised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,304
One of these was the "apostrophus", in which 500 was written as , while 1,000 was written as . This is a system of encasing numbers to denote thousands (imagine the s and s as parentheses), which has its origins in Etruscan numeral usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,305
Each additional set of and surrounding raises the value by a factor of ten: represents 10,000 and represents 100,000. Similarly, each additional to the right of raises the value by a factor of ten: represents 5,000 and represents 50,000. Numerals larger than do not occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,306
Sometimes was reduced to for 1,000. Similarly, for 5,000 was reduced to ; for 10,000 to ; for 50,000 to (ↇ); and (ↈ) for 100,000 to .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,307
John Wallis is often credited for introducing the symbol for infinity , and one conjecture is that he based it on , since 1,000 was hyperbolically used to represent very large numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,308
Another system was the "vinculum", in which conventional Roman numerals were multiplied by 1,000 by adding a "bar" or "overline". It was a common alternative to the apostrophic ↀ during the Imperial era: both systems were in simultaneous use around the Roman world (M for '1000' was not in use until the Medieval period)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,309
The use of "vinculum" for multiples of 1,000 can be observed, for example, on the milestones erected by Roman soldiers along the Antonine Wall in the mid-2nd century AD. The "vinculum" for marking 1,000s continued in use in the Middle Ages, though it became known more commonly as "titulus".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,310
Some modern sources describe the "vinculum" as if it were a part of the current "standard". However, this is purely hypothetical, since no common modern usage requires numbers larger than the current year (). Nonetheless, here are some examples, to give an idea of how it "might" be used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,311
This use of lines is distinct from the custom, once very common, of adding both underline and overline (or very large serifs) to a Roman numeral, simply to make it clear that it "is" a number, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,312
Another medieval usage was the addition of "vertical" lines (or brackets) before and after the numeral to multiply it by 10: thus ' for 10,000 as an alternative form for '. In combination with the overline the bracketed forms might be used to raise the multiplier to ten thousand, thus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,313
This same syntax may also have indicated multiplication by 100 so the above two examples are 800,000 and 2,000,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,314
The system is closely associated with the ancient city-state of Rome and the Empire that it created. However, due to the scarcity of surviving examples, the origins of the system are obscure and there are several competing theories, all largely conjectural.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,315
Rome was founded sometime between 850 and 750 BC. At the time, the region was inhabited by diverse populations of which the Etruscans were the most advanced. The ancient Romans themselves admitted that the basis of much of their civilization was Etruscan. Rome itself was located next to the southern edge of the Etrusca...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,316
The Roman numerals, in particular, are directly derived from the Etruscan number symbols: , , , , and for 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 (They had more symbols for larger numbers, but it is unknown which symbol represents which number). As in the basic Roman system, the Etruscans wrote the symbols that added to the desired numb...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,317
The symbols and resembled letters of the Etruscan alphabet, but , , and did not. The Etruscans used the subtractive notation, too, but not like the Romans. They wrote 17, 18, and 19 as 𐌠𐌠𐌠𐌢𐌢, 𐌠𐌠𐌢𐌢, and 𐌠𐌢𐌢, mirroring the way they spoke those numbers ("three from twenty", etc.); and similarly for 27, 28, 29,...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,318
The early Roman numerals for 1, 10, and 100 were the Etruscan ones: , , and . The symbols for 5 and 50 changed from and to and at some point. The latter had flattened to (an inverted T) by the time of Augustus, and soon afterwards became identified with the graphically similar letter .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,319
The symbol for 100 was written variously as or , and was then abbreviated to or , with (which matched the Latin letter "C") finally winning out. It might have helped that "C" was the initial letter of "CENTUM", Latin for "hundred".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,320
The numbers 500 and 1000 were denoted by or overlaid with a box or circle. Thus 500 was like a superimposed on a . It became or by the time of Augustus, under the graphic influence of the letter . It was later identified as the letter ; an alternative symbol for "thousand" was a , and half of a thousand or "five hundre...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,321
The notation for 1000 was a circled or boxed : Ⓧ, , , and by Augustinian times was partially identified with the Greek letter "phi". Over time, the symbol changed to and . The latter symbol further evolved into , then , and eventually changed to under the influence of the Latin word "mille" "thousand".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,322
According to Paul Kayser, the basic numerical symbols were , , and (or ) and the intermediate ones were derived by taking half of those (half an is , half a is and half a is ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,323
The Colosseum was constructed in Rome in CE 72–80, and while the original perimeter wall has largely disappeared, the numbered entrances from (23) to (54) survive, to demonstrate that in Imperial times Roman numerals had already assumed their classical form: as largely standardised in current use. The most obvious anom...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,324
Lower case, or "minuscule", letters were developed in the Middle Ages, well after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, and since that time lower-case versions of Roman numbers have also been commonly used: , , , , and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,325
Since the Middle Ages, a "" has sometimes been substituted for the final "" of a "lower-case" Roman numeral, such as "" for 3 or "" for 7. This "" can be considered a swash variant of "". Into the early 20th century, the use of a final "" was still sometimes used in medical prescriptions to prevent tampering with or mi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,326
Numerals in documents and inscriptions from the Middle Ages sometimes include additional symbols, which today are called "medieval Roman numerals". Some simply substitute another letter for the standard one (such as "" for "", or "" for ""), while others serve as abbreviations for compound numerals ("" for "", or "" fo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,327
Chronograms, messages with dates encoded into them, were popular during the Renaissance era. The chronogram would be a phrase containing the letters , , , , , , and . By putting these letters together, the reader would obtain a number, usually indicating a particular year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,328
By the 11th century, Arabic numerals had been introduced into Europe from al-Andalus, by way of Arab traders and arithmetic treatises. Roman numerals, however, proved very persistent, remaining in common use in the West well into the 14th and 15th centuries, even in accounting and other business records (where the actu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,329
In astronautics, United States rocket model variants are sometimes designated by Roman numerals, e.g. Titan I, Titan II, Titan III, Saturn I, Saturn V.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,330
In astronomy, the natural satellites or "moons" of the planets are traditionally designated by capital Roman numerals appended to the planet's name. For example, Titan's designation is Saturn .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,331
In chemistry, Roman numerals are often used to denote the groups of the periodic table. They are also used in the IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry, for the oxidation number of cations which can take on several different positive charges. They are also used for naming phases of polymorphic crystals, such as ice...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,332
In education, school grades (in the sense of year-groups rather than test scores) are sometimes referred to by a Roman numeral; for example, "grade " is sometimes seen for "grade 9".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,333
In entomology, the broods of the thirteen and seventeen year periodical cicadas are identified by Roman numerals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,334
In law, Roman numerals are commonly used to help organize legal codes as part of an alphanumeric outline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,335
In advanced mathematics (including trigonometry, statistics, and calculus), when a graph includes negative numbers, its quadrants are named using , , , and . These quadrant names signify positive numbers on both axes, negative numbers on the X axis, negative numbers on both axes, and negative numbers on the Y axis, res...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,336
In military unit designation, Roman numerals are often used to distinguish between units at different levels. This reduces possible confusion, especially when viewing operational or strategic level maps. In particular, army corps are often numbered using Roman numerals (for example the American XVIII Airborne Corps or ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,337
In pharmacy, Roman numerals were used with the now largely obsolete apothecaries' system of measurement: including to denote "one half" and to denote "zero".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,338
In photography, Roman numerals (with zero) are used to denote varying levels of brightness when using the Zone System.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,339
In seismology, Roman numerals are used to designate degrees of the Mercalli intensity scale of earthquakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,340
In sport the team containing the "top" players and representing a nation or province, a club or a school at the highest level in (say) rugby union is often called the "1st ", while a lower-ranking cricket or American football team might be the "3rd ".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,341
In theology and biblical scholarship, the Septuagint is often referred to as , as this translation of the Old Testament into Greek is named for the legendary number of its translators ("septuaginta" being Latin for "seventy").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,342
Some uses that are rare or never seen in English speaking countries may be relatively common in parts of continental Europe and in other regions (e.g. Latin America) that use a European language other than English. For instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,343
Capital or small capital Roman numerals are widely used in Romance languages to denote , e.g. the French ' and the Spanish ' mean "18th century". Slavic languages in and adjacent to Russia similarly favor Roman numerals (). On the other hand, in Slavic languages in Central Europe, like most Germanic languages, one writ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,344
Mixed Roman and Arabic numerals are sometimes used in numeric representations of dates (especially in formal letters and official documents, but also on tombstones). The is written in Roman numerals, while the day is in Arabic numerals: "4..1789" and ".4.1789" both refer unambiguously to 4 June 1789.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,345
Roman numerals are sometimes used to represent the in hours-of-operation signs displayed in windows or on doors of businesses, and also sometimes in railway and bus timetables. Monday, taken as the first day of the week, is represented by . Sunday is represented by . The hours of operation signs are tables composed of ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,346
Roman numerals may also be used for floor numbering. For instance, apartments in central Amsterdam are indicated as 138-, with both an Arabic numeral (number of the block or house) and a Roman numeral (floor number). The apartment on the ground floor is indicated as .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,347
In Italy, where roads outside built-up areas have kilometre signs, major roads and motorways also mark 100-metre subdivisionals, using Roman numerals from to for the smaller intervals. The sign thus marks 17.9 km.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,348
Certain romance-speaking countries use Roman numerals to designate assemblies of their national legislatures. For instance, the composition of the Italian Parliament from 2018 to 2022 (elected in the 2018 Italian general election) is called the XVIII Legislature of the Italian Republic (or more commonly the "XVIII Legi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,349
A notable exception to the use of Roman numerals in Europe is in Greece, where Greek numerals (based on the Greek alphabet) are generally used in contexts where Roman numerals would be used elsewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,350
The "Number Forms" block of the Unicode computer character set standard has a number of Roman numeral symbols in the range of code points from U+2160 to U+2188. This range includes both upper- and lowercase numerals, as well as pre-combined characters for numbers up to 12 (Ⅻ or ). One justification for the existence of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,351
The block also includes some "apostrophus" symbols for large numbers, an old variant of "L" (50) similar to the Etruscan character, the Claudian letter "reversed C", etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25657
11,352
Parag Agrawal (; born 21 May 1984) is an Indian-American software engineer who was the CEO of Twitter, Inc. from November 2021 to October 2022. He was fired, along with three other top executives, on October 27, 2022, following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,353
Agrawal was born in Ajmer, Rajasthan. His father was a senior official in the Indian Department of Atomic Energy and his mother is a retired Economics professor from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute in Mumbai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,354
In 2001, he completed his Class XII at Atomic Energy Junior College, Mumbai. In the same year, he secured a gold medal in the International Physics Olympiad held in Antalya, Turkey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,355
In 2005, Agrawal obtained his Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Bombay. That year, he moved to the United States to pursue a PhD in computer science at Stanford University under the guidance of Jennifer Widom. His Stanford doctoral thesis, published in 2012, is titled "Incorpora...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,356
Agrawal held research internships at Microsoft Research and Yahoo! Research before joining Twitter as a software engineer in 2011. In October 2017, Twitter announced the appointment of Agrawal as chief technology officer following the departure of Adam Messinger. In December 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,357
On November 29, 2021, Dorsey announced that he was resigning as CEO of Twitter and that Agrawal was replacing him immediately. As CEO, Agrawal was awarded annual compensation of $1 million as well as stock compensation worth $12.5 million. Agrawal was fired as CEO once Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,358
In an interview with "MIT Technology Review" in November 2020, when asked about freedom of speech regarding Twitter, Agrawal said: "Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation ... [and to] focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,359
Agrawal is married to Vineeta Agarwala, general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. They have two children, born in 2011 and 2022. He took paternity leave as the CEO of Twitter for the birth of his second child.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65507391
11,360
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matte...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,361
The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear w...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,362
A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deployed twice in war, by the United States against the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,363
Nuclear weapons have only twice been used in war, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over the Japanese city of Hiroshima; three days later, on August 9, the U.S. Army Air...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,364
Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated over 2,000 times for testing and demonstration. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them. The only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and acknowledge possessing them—are (chronological...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,365
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, but its effectiveness has been questioned. Modernisation of weapons continues to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,366
There are two basic types of nuclear weapons: those that derive the majority of their energy from nuclear fission reactions alone, and those that use fission reactions to begin nuclear fusion reactions that produce a large amount of the total energy output.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,367
All existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs (abbreviated as A-bombs). This has long been noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy co...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,368
In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is forced into supercriticality—allowing an exponential growth of nuclear chain reactions—either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the "gun" method) or by compression of a sub-critical sphere or cylinder of fissile...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,369
A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT ().
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,370
All fission reactions generate fission products, the remains of the split atomic nuclei. Many fission products are either highly radioactive (but short-lived) or moderately radioactive (but long-lived), and as such, they are a serious form of radioactive contamination. Fission products are the principal radioactive com...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,371
The most commonly used fissile materials for nuclear weapons applications have been uranium-235 and plutonium-239. Less commonly used has been uranium-233. Neptunium-237 and some isotopes of americium may be usable for nuclear explosives as well, but it is not clear that this has ever been implemented, and their plausi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,372
The other basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large proportion of its energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium a...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,373
Only six countries—United States, Russia, United Kingdom, China, France, and India—have conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. Whether India has detonated a "true" multi-staged thermonuclear weapon is controversial. North Korea claims to have tested a fusion weapon , though this claim is disputed. Thermonuclear weapons ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,374
Thermonuclear bombs work by using the energy of a fission bomb to compress and heat fusion fuel. In the Teller-Ulam design, which accounts for all multi-megaton yield hydrogen bombs, this is accomplished by placing a fission bomb and fusion fuel (tritium, deuterium, or lithium deuteride) in proximity within a special, ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,375
Virtually all thermonuclear weapons deployed today use the "two-stage" design described above, but it is possible to add additional fusion stages—each stage igniting a larger amount of fusion fuel in the next stage. This technique can be used to construct thermonuclear weapons of arbitrarily large yield. This is in con...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,376
Fusion reactions do not create fission products, and thus contribute far less to the creation of nuclear fallout than fission reactions, but because all thermonuclear weapons contain at least one fission stage, and many high-yield thermonuclear devices have a final fission stage, thermonuclear weapons can generate at l...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,377
There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb that increases its explosive yield through a small number of fusion reactions, but it is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficie...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,378
The detonation of any nuclear weapon is accompanied by a blast of neutron radiation. Surrounding a nuclear weapon with suitable materials (such as cobalt or gold) creates a weapon known as a salted bomb. This device can produce exceptionally large quantities of long-lived radioactive contamination. It has been conjectu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,379
In connection with the Strategic Defense Initiative, research into the nuclear pumped laser was conducted under the DOD program Project Excalibur but this did not result in a working weapon. The concept involves the tapping of the energy of an exploding nuclear bomb to power a single-shot laser that is directed at a di...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,380
During the Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test in 1962, an unexpected effect was produced which is called a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. This is an intense flash of electromagnetic energy produced by a rain of high-energy electrons which in turn are produced by a nuclear bomb's gamma rays. This flash of energy ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,381
Research has been done into the possibility of pure fusion bombs: nuclear weapons that consist of fusion reactions without requiring a fission bomb to initiate them. Such a device might provide a simpler path to thermonuclear weapons than one that required the development of fission weapons first, and pure fusion weapo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,382
Nuclear isomers provide a possible pathway to fissionless fusion bombs. These are naturally occurring isotopes (Hf being a prominent example) which exist in an elevated energy state. Mechanisms to release this energy as bursts of gamma radiation (as in the hafnium controversy) have been proposed as possible triggers fo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,383
Antimatter, which consists of particles resembling ordinary matter particles in most of their properties but having opposite electric charge, has been considered as a trigger mechanism for nuclear weapons. A major obstacle is the difficulty of producing antimatter in large enough quantities, and there is no evidence th...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,384
Most variation in nuclear weapon design is for the purpose of achieving different yields for different situations, and in manipulating design elements to attempt to minimize weapon size, radiation hardness or requirements for special materials, especially fissile fuel or tritium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,385
Some nuclear weapons are designed for special purposes; most of these are for non-strategic (decisively war-winning) purposes and are referred to as tactical nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,386
The neutron bomb purportedly conceived by Sam Cohen is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation. Such a weapon could, according to tacticians, be used to cause massive biological casualties while leaving inanimate infrastructure mostly intact and...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,387
A type of nuclear explosive most suitable for use by ground special forces was the Special Atomic Demolition Munition, or SADM, sometimes popularly known as a suitcase nuke. This is a nuclear bomb that is man-portable, or at least truck-portable, and though of a relatively small yield (one or two kilotons) is sufficien...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,388
Small "tactical" nuclear weapons were deployed for use as antiaircraft weapons. Examples include the USAF AIR-2 Genie, the AIM-26 Falcon and US Army Nike Hercules. Missile interceptors such as the Sprint and the Spartan also used small nuclear warheads (optimized to produce neutron or X-ray flux) but were for use again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,389
Other small, or tactical, nuclear weapons were deployed by naval forces for use primarily as antisubmarine weapons. These included nuclear depth bombs or nuclear armed torpedoes. Nuclear mines for use on land or at sea are also possibilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,390
The system used to deliver a nuclear weapon to its target is an important factor affecting both nuclear weapon design and nuclear strategy. The design, development, and maintenance of delivery systems are among the most expensive parts of a nuclear weapons program; they account, for example, for 57% of the financial re...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,391
The simplest method for delivering a nuclear weapon is a gravity bomb dropped from aircraft; this was the method used by the United States against Japan. This method places few restrictions on the size of the weapon. It does, however, limit attack range, response time to an impending attack, and the number of weapons t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,392
Preferable from a strategic point of view is a nuclear weapon mounted on a missile, which can use a ballistic trajectory to deliver the warhead over the horizon. Although even short-range missiles allow for a faster and less vulnerable attack, the development of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,393
More advanced systems, such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), can launch multiple warheads at different targets from one missile, reducing the chance of a successful missile defense. Today, missiles are most common among systems designed for delivery of nuclear weapons. Making a warhead sma...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,394
Tactical weapons have involved the most variety of delivery types, including not only gravity bombs and missiles but also artillery shells, land mines, and nuclear depth charges and torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare. An atomic mortar has been tested by the United States. Small, two-man portable tactical weapons (som...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,395
Nuclear warfare strategy is a set of policies that deal with preventing or fighting a nuclear war. The policy of trying to prevent an attack by a nuclear weapon from another country by threatening nuclear retaliation is known as the strategy of nuclear deterrence. The goal in deterrence is to always maintain a second s...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,396
Different forms of nuclear weapons delivery (see above) allow for different types of nuclear strategies. The goals of any strategy are generally to make it difficult for an enemy to launch a pre-emptive strike against the weapon system and difficult to defend against the delivery of the weapon during a potential confli...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,397
Weapons designed to threaten large populations or to deter attacks are known as "strategic weapons." Nuclear weapons for use on a battlefield in military situations are called "tactical weapons."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,398
Critics of nuclear war strategy often suggest that a nuclear war between two nations would result in mutual annihilation. From this point of view, the significance of nuclear weapons is to deter war because any nuclear war would escalate out of mutual distrust and fear, resulting in mutually assured destruction. This t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785
11,399
Critics from the peace movement and within the military establishment have questioned the usefulness of such weapons in the current military climate. According to an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in 1996, the use of (or threat of use of) such weapons would generally be contrary to the ru...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21785