Man, I love this stufff

I grew up reading Analog. One of the favorite games of Analog readers was to write letters to the editor - originally, John W. Campbell, Jr., but in my day, Ben Bova - correcting errors in stories. The letters were usually chock-a-block full of math equations and other things I couldn't understand. [And still can't, which is why I went into law by way of a history major.] I couldn't understand the math but, of course, I envied the whole
existential coolness of the geek mystique.

Anyhow, Jay Manifold over at A Voyage to Arcturus is playing this game with his earlier post on the effects of a "burrowing nuclear bomb." Jay had originally posted that a shaped nuclear charge would have minimal effects on the surrounding environment. However, based on an abstract entitled "Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons, " he's been forced to go back to the sliderule. It seems he hadn't considered seismic effects of a "shaped nuclear weapon:"

... expect complete destruction of buildings due to seismic waves at distances R [is greater or equal to ] 0.5 kT0.35 km, and considerable damage out to a distance R [is greater or equal to ] 2 kT0.35 km.

Now, I'm not sure what that means, but I get the sense it can't be good.