CDR: Re: request for info about DU

[Tim May]

At 6:27 PM +0100 10/10/00, Hansen Linn wrote:
>I am a journalist student who need some basic info about Depleted Uranium.
>Why and how has it depleted???? Do u have any usefull links were I can find
>this info??
>

There will be vast numbers of Web pages available. Use search engines.

I worked a lot with depleted uranium in a past career. It's natural 
uranium from which the U-235 isotope has been removed, leaving the 
U-238 isotope. Inasmuch as U-238 is the bulk of naturally occurring 
uranium, DU is not very different from ordinary uranium as mined and 
processed into the metallic form.

Though mildly radioactive (half-life of billions of years...4.5 
billion, IIRC), its very high density makes it ideal for sailboat 
keels, cores of anti-tank and anti-ship shells, etc. (When used in a 
weapon, the DU adds to the penetration, and also ignites and 
burns...this has nothing whatsoever to do with its radioactivity, 
though.)

Again, consult online sources, or encyclopedias.

And if you asked on the Cypherpunks list because you thought it would 
be cute to implicate us in nuclear weapons chatter, get a clue. If 
not, it was still the wrong place to ask such a question.


--Tim May
-- 
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.