change and pressure change range is proportional to the weapon's yield. The highest recorded level of pressure change has been during a nuclear test and it was a pressure change of fifty PSI. To give you an idea of the magnitude of destruction that would produce consider these facts. At one PSI windows shatter. At three PSI houses would collapse and people would receive injuries from the pressure alone. At five PSI most buildings would collapse and there would be pressure caused fatalities. At ten PSI hardened and reinforced would be severely damaged or collapse and fatalities would be wide spread. At twenty PSI reinforced and hardened wartime buildings would be severely damaged or collapse and fatalities would be almost one hundred percent. The heat release from the weapon contributes to most of the destruction following the initial photon and neurtonic radiation release.Nuclear weapons about ten milliseconds after detonation release a burst of sound so intense it forms a visible depression wave. This sound wave on a scientific level is a field of particles that being intensely vibrated. As the wave travels outward from the epicenter it decreases in intensity. Basically as the wave encounters matter it causes it to oscillate to the point of destroying the atomic bonds which hold it together. The sonic depression wave also contributes to the atmospheric pressure change because as it travels it pushed air out of its path. These sonic depression waves usually travel at about ten to thirteen times the speed of sound because as it begins the air rushing back in and is very thin compared to the normal air density. The sound heard from a distance outside of the weapons reach is usually traveling the normal speed of sound and therefore doesn't cause any damage. As the wave travels it obviously has to travel through normal air eventually which causes it to slow down. The sonic depression wave is responsible for causing a gust of wind to tra...
