Alternate Technologies: A Nuke By Any Other Name

[David Flin]

@Thande has written an article on the alternative naming possibilities for nuclear power and weapons.

Discuss Here.

 

[Von Callay]

'Explosive metal bomb' is definitely the worst of the bunch here, since it is so clunky and long that a shorter term would surely catch on

TL-191 did use 'superbomb' and then 'sunbomb' though, didn't it?

 

[Stateless]

@Thande's 'carytic' for 'nuclear' is similar to German, where nuclear weapons are Kernwaffe and nuclear energy is Kernenergie.

"Atomic bomb" has a heritage in fiction, having been coined by H.G. Wells in The World Set Free.

 

[Cydonius]

Similarly, you could have had someone decide to use 'core' in English for the central structure of a cell, and this then spread to atoms as OTL to give 'core bomb' and 'core power'.

 

[Coiler]

OTL nuclear terminology can get a little like this too. Like the actual atomic explosive part of a bomb/warhead is called the "Physics Package", and I could see that, like "tank", being a code name that turns into an overall title.

 

[Stateless]

OTL nuclear terminology can get a little like this too. Like the actual atomic explosive part of a bomb/warhead is called the "Physics Package", and I could see that, like "tank", being a code name that turns into an overall title.

"The Second World War would continue until 1946, when tube alloys were dropped on Erfurt and Wiesbaden."

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

I'm surprised that Dune gets mentioned, but 'stoneburner' doesn't.

 

[Thande]

I'm surprised that Dune gets mentioned, but 'stoneburner' doesn't.

Completely managed to forget that. Mind you I don't think it's clear whether it's a name for nukes in general or one specific type.

 

[Charles EP M.]

"The Second World War would continue until 1946, when tube alloys were dropped on Erfurt and Wiesbaden."

BREAKING: Moscow Tests Mark-One Package

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Completely managed to forget that. Mind you I don't think it's clear whether it's a name for nukes in general or one specific type.

There's never one specific term for any kind of weapon (eg artillery/howitzer/M777 etc)

There's always a technical name for a weapon (nuclear warhead/primary), a manufacturers name (Python), the operators designation (W34, Lulu, Hotpoint, ASTOR, Peter) and a colloquial name (atomic bomb).

The colloquial name for a weapon can be both inaccurate (eg 'atomic bomb', a nuclear weapon isn't an atomic bomb, the conventional explosive that triggers it is) and ubiquitous.

It's often a case of which neologism gets there first.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

BREAKING: Moscow Tests Mark-One Package

"United American Republic Air Fleet deploys Teller-Super"

 

[Charles EP M.]

South Africa Decommissions Shatterer Arsenal

 

[Stateless]

In the Frisch-Peierls memorandum they called the weapons 'super-bombs', which as a name might have been so cringe that disarmament actually caught on.

 

[TheQuestingVole]

Charlie Stross' Merchant Princes sequels (an example of pop AH which is both very clever and very stupid) used 'corpuscular bomb', abbreviated 'corpse' which I thought worked quite well. I can't offhand remember any reference to nuclear power.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Fairly sure if the Wehrmacht had used nuclear weapons first, the A-bomb would have been called the K-bomb (kernkraftbomben)

 

[Stateless]

Fairly sure if the Wehrmacht had used nuclear weapons first, the A-bomb would have been called the K-bomb (kernkraftbomben)

I think Heisenberg called it the 'Uranbombe'. I'm not sure what Nishina called any potential project of the Japanese nuclear weapsons programme.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

I think Heisenberg called it the 'Uranbombe'. I'm not sure what Nishina called any potential project of the Japanese nuclear weapsons programme.

Hitler would have called it the "Jüdische Physik Bomb."

 

[Hendryk]

In The Years of Rice and Salt, uranium is called alactin, but I don't recall if nuclear weapons themselves get a name of their own--trying to preempt their development once physicists from various parts of the world have figured out their feasability is a plot point in a late chapter.

In Red Plenty by Francis Spufford, there's a mention of the USSR's Ministry of Middle Machine Building, "whose middle machines are all the kind that have a blob of plutonium at their heart, and ride on top of missiles."