Various comments on this thread, all lumped into an easy-to-ignore wad: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: IN%"werewolf@io.org" To: IN%"cypherpunks@toad.com" CC: Subj: RE: Nuclear Weapons Material
iqg1550 says:
Let's all rejoice at the birth of the latest member of The Horsemen of The Criminal Apocalypse -- The Nuclear Weapons Material Smuggler. I'm sure his four siblings will make plenty of room for their baby brother.
I will point out, of course, that anyone who can afford the tens of millions to hundreds of millions the smugglers are reportedly charging for critical masses worth of Plutonium and Uranium, odds are that they can afford to buy un-escrowed secure communications equipment...
Not to mention the fact that without tritium, the "trigger" for nuclear weapons (and extremely expensive and rare at $ 100m a gram) all you have is a radioactive paperweight. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This misconception was put to rest by a number of postings such as the following: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"psmarie@cbis.com" To: IN%"werewolf@io.org" CC: IN%"cypherpunks@toad.com" Subj: Nuclear Weapons Material
Not to mention the fact that without tritium, the "trigger" for nuclear weapons (and extremely expensive and rare at $ 100m a gram) all you have is a radioactive paperweight.
The "trigger" isn't tritium. Tritium (along with lithium 6) is used in fusion bombs. A fission-only device, ala Hiroshima or Nagasaki, doesn't require any. The trigger in the center of the plutonium core is a neutron source, polonium if memory serves correctly. Tritium is a beta emitter. --Paul ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"ghio@chaos.bsu.edu" "Matthew Ghio" To: IN%"cypherpunks@toad.com" CC: Subj: RE: Nuclear Weapons Material pstemari@bismark.cbis.com (Paul J. Ste. Marie) wrote:
Mark Terka wrote:
Not to mention the fact that without tritium, the "trigger" for nuclear weapons (and extremely expensive and rare at $ 100m a gram) all you have is a radioactive paperweight.
The "trigger" isn't tritium. Tritium (along with lithium 6) is used in fusion bombs. A fission-only device, ala Hiroshima or Nagasaki, doesn't require any.
The trigger in the center of the plutonium core is a neutron source, polonium if memory serves correctly. Tritium is a beta emitter.
A neutron source is usually a light element with a high neutron/proton ratio, coupled with an alpha emitter. I believe the Nagasaki bomb used beryllium-9. An alpha particle impacting a beryllium nucleus will fuse with it, forming carbon-12, and the binding energy will eject a neutron. I think aluminum and a few other light elements will undergo similar reactions to release neutrons in the presence of alpha particles. Polonium is primarilly an alpha emitter. It would work as part of a neutron source, but it is not a particularily good choice because its half-life is only 138.4 days (polonium-210). This makes it expensive to obtain, and impractical to store. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Plutonium itself is a decent alpha emitter. Seems like I've been around a Pu-Be neutron source somewhere ( but not too close!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"ecarp@netcom.com" To: IN%"ghio@chaos.bsu.edu" CC: IN%"cypherpunks@toad.com" Subj: RE: Nuclear Weapons Material
Polonium is primarilly an alpha emitter. It would work as part of a neutron source, but it is not a particularily good choice because its half-life is only 138.4 days (polonium-210). This makes it expensive to obtain, and impractical to store.
They used to use polonium in static eliminators in darkrooms - don't know if they use them anymore, though. -- Ed Carp, N7EKG Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key an88744@anon.penet.fi If you want magic, let go of your armor. Magic is so much stronger than steel! -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can still buy those neat little brushes intended to remove dust from negatives. Each comes with a polonium source to help kill the static charge holding the dust. I've got one right next to my Sunshine Health Mine radon-emitting pillow. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"ecarp@netcom.com" To: IN%"perry@imsi.com" CC: IN%"werewolf@io.org", IN%"cypherpunks@toad.com" Subj: RE: Nuclear Weapons Material
Mark Terka says:
Not to mention the fact that without tritium, the "trigger" for nuclear weapons (and extremely expensive and rare at $ 100m a gram) all you have is a radioactive paperweight.
This is sheer ignorance. First of all, tritium is not nearly that expensive. Its quite cheap, in fact, and can be manufactured without that much trouble. Second of all, tritium is not a necessary component of non-thermonuclear (i.e. hydrogen) bombs. Third, tritium isn't a "trigger". Lastly, an ordinary A-bomb is just a way to bring together a critical mass of a fissionable material, like U-235 or Plutonium. Once a critical mass is in one place the chain reaction will handle the rest.
Quite true. All you really need for a fission bomb is a casing to hold everything together, 2.2 kilos (or so) of U-235 (or a sufficient quantity of critical mass other stuff <grin>), and something that will hold it together long enough for it to fission. And no, Taylor, holding them together in your hands won't work (unfortunately)... hehehe :) [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, you can do it - only you just get a pffutt instead of a bang. A couple of folks at Los Alamos have tried it. Regrettably, they're no longer with us. I think the practice was called, "pulling the dragon's tail." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ bdolan@well.sf.ca.us