HOWTO Build a Nuclear Device

[F. Marc de Piolenc]

baptista at pccf.net wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 17 Nov 2001, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:
> 
> > detonation. You can actually hold a subcritical mass of plutonium in
> > your hand for awhile - I'm told it feels warm. Can't say I've tried it
> > myself.
> 
> hold on mr. expert.
> 
> you hold a sub critical mass in your hand and in a few days you end up
> shitting out your guts, lose your hair and die.

Look it up. The _Reactor Handbook_ is a good source on spontaneous decay
rates of fissionables. Plutonium dust is a deadly chemical poison, but a
properly formed (and protectively plated) mass of plutonium has very low
radioactivity.

Consider that nuclear weapons could not be built if the fissiles had
high rates of spontaneous decay - the stuff would detonate prematurely,
resulting in a fizzle. That, incidentally, is why plutonium cannot be
used in a gun-type device - two isotopes are inevitably present, one of
which (forgot the mass number, but you can look that up, too) has a
spontaneous decay rate that is too high for the (relatively) slow
assembly rate of a gun.

Marc de Piolenc