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1994-08-25 - Re: Nuclear Weapons Material

Header Data

From: Mikolaj Habryn <dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
To: ecarp@netcom.com
Message Hash: 13e72dfdd553d652a499d0e219f6e40d504dc36cd483ec3836f8d134d18e7bb1
Message ID: <199408250414.MAA02764@lethe.uwa.edu.au>
Reply To: <m0qdIqB-0004EcC@khijol.uucp>
UTC Datetime: 1994-08-25 04:17:08 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 21:17:08 PDT

Raw message

From: Mikolaj Habryn <dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 21:17:08 PDT
To: ecarp@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
In-Reply-To: <m0qdIqB-0004EcC@khijol.uucp>
Message-ID: <199408250414.MAA02764@lethe.uwa.edu.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> 
> > the atomic weapon that sets off the fusion reaction.)
> 
> I don't understand your point.  The earliest devices used a pie shape 
> with a wedge cut out.  The actual geometry is rather unimportant to 
> getting a fission reaction - but it *is* important if you want to 
> maximize your yield.
> -- 

	Wrong. If you are using a uranium fuelled bomb, then you are
right. As long as you thump together two barely sub-critical masses, it
will go boom. However, if you try this with plutonium, it will fizzle.
In the time that it takes for a standard gun type triggering mechanism
to operate, the plutonium will become critical, and then release most of
it's energy harmlessly, instead of going super-critical. This is the
reason for using fast-triggering bomb geometries.

-- 
*       *       Mikolaj J. Habryn
                dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au
    *           "I'm just another sniper on the information super-highway."
                PGP Public key available by finger
    *           #include <standard-disclaimer.h>

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