Purpose
Separately from these designations, nuclear tests are also often categorized by the purpose of the test itself.
- weapons-related tests are designed to garner information about how (and if) the weapons themselves work. Some serve to develop and validate a specific weapon type. Others test experimental concepts or are physics experiments meant to gain fundamental knowledge of the processes and materials involved in nuclear detonations.
- weapons effects tests are designed to gain information about the effects of the weapons on structures, equipment, organisms and the environment. They are mainly used to assess and improve survivability to nuclear explosions in civilian and military contexts, tailor weapons to their targets, and develop the tactics of nuclear warfare.
- safety experiments are designed to study the behavior of weapons in simulated accident scenarios. In particular, they are used to verify that a (significant) nuclear detonation cannot happen by accident. They include one-point safety tests and simulations of storage and transportation accidents.
- nuclear test detection experiments are designed to improve the capabilities to detect, locate, and identify nuclear detonations, in particular to monitor compliance with test-ban treaties.
- Peaceful nuclear explosions are conducted to investigate non-military applications of nuclear explosives.
Aside from these technical considerations, tests have been conducted for political and training purposes. Tests also often serve multiple purposes.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Weapons Testing
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed—”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne.... Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)