HOWTO Build a Nuclear Device

[Tim May]

On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 03:29 PM, Karsten M. Self wrote:
>   - Credible military weapons have minimum requirements of both efficacy
>     -- efficient use of supercritical energy -- and predictability --
>     having the damned thing go off in the silo / bunker / hanger /
>     munitions dump rather than the chosen target isn't particularly
>     useful.
>
> Tighter constraints => Longer fulfillment time.
>
> The original US project, as described by Feynman, involved much
> radiation exposure and high risks of criticality incidents at Oak Ridge,
> some of which are documented in his biographical essay collections.

I knew Feynman (*) and I knew the main survivor or the criticality 
accident at Los Alamos. (Klein, who survived "ticking the dragon's tail" 
and had annual tests done for the rest of his life, which just ended a 
couple of years ago.) You are overstating the "high risks of criticality 
incidents," I think strongly.

(* This should mean something to you: we had him over for dinner at our 
place on Camino del Sur, I.V.)

Feynman wasn't even involved in that end of the physics. A couple of 
deaths happened, which is hardly surprising given the speed and 
magnitude of the war effort. More Americans died when a particular truck 
hit a land mine. More Americans probably died in Los Alamos when their 
trucks ran off the roads into the ravines. Get some perspective.

> The
> Hanford reservation is still a glowing waste zone, much of which greatly
> postdates a fairly deep understanding of radiation hazards.
>
> Peace.
>

Fuck your "Peace" bullshit.

You are spouting nonsense with your "glowing waste zone" idiocy.

I lived west of the Hanford plant for a few years and had occasion to 
measure the radioactivity levels of samples. The ash from the eruption 
of Mt. St. Helens was hotter than all but a very few small pockets of 
soil in the Tri-City Area.

You should cut down on the bullshitting.

Everytime I glance
--Tim May
"You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher 
moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know 
that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged." - -Michael 
Shirley