From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 13:56:21 +0800
To: Ed Carp <erc@dal1820.computek.net>
Subject: Re: Online Zakat Payment: Religious tithe.
Message-ID: <m0to5Hb-0008xzC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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At 12:12 AM 2/18/96 +0000, Ed Carp wrote:
>On Sat, 17 Feb 1996, jim bell wrote:
>
>> At 07:13 PM 2/17/96 +0000, Ed Carp wrote:
>> >On Sat, 17 Feb 1996, jim bell wrote:
>> >
>> >> BTW, I think I've already solved the problem of producing a few dozen 
>> >> absolutely simultaneous trigger explosions (+/- 100 nanoseconds)
around the 
>> >> periphery at the lens foci, without using multiple electronic
detonators.  
>> >> (in fact, a single blasting cap would do nicely.)  "But the margins of
this 
>> >> book are too small to contain it"  Heh heh!
>> >
>> >Actually, it's a quite simple problem to solve.  Tom Clancy used a rather 
>> >more complicated method, but the idea was correct.
>> 
>> You might be surprised:  I have never read anything by Clancy.  Tell me,
>> what method did HE use?
>
>A single electronic timer.  The lengths of wire from the timer/detonator
>to each piece of explosive was exact - thus, the pulse reached each piece
>of explosive at the same time. 
>
>I think Clancy used multiple timers, each triggered at the same time.  I
>don't think that one would need but one timer, though. 
>--
>Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com

<sigh>   It really isn't as simple as that!  What I mean is this:  It sounds
like Clancy doesn't really understand much about the requirements to trigger
explosives to detonate an atomic bomb.  

Where do I begin?  The big problem is getting all the explosions to occur at
basically the same instant; ideally, well under a microsecond accuracy.
Well, it turns out that if you just want to trigger a single blasting cap,
only a little current does it.  But the exact time delay of the explosion is
related to the amount of energy applied to the cap.  Put "just enough" power
into it, and it goes in a few hundred milliseconds, but you don't know
EXACTLY when.  Put A LOT MORE into it and the delay is not only shorter, but
also better defined.  While I've never been exposed to specific numbers, in
order to get the explosions REALLY simultaneously normally is thought to
require two types of unusual devices not normally encountered:  High voltage
coaxial capacitors and krytron tubes.  The combination of the two puts a
HUGE amount of energy into each cap, essentially instantaneously, and they
all go off more or less simultaneously.

All this is sophisticated and difficult to deal with.  I've developed a
method that uses materials commonly available in the average medium-size
city, and with the exception of a single blasting cap, are extremely
innocuous to purchase.  I'd be happy to share the information, if there are
no strong objections from the peanut gallery.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com

Klaatu Burada Nikto

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