From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 04:30:26 +0800
To: jimbell@pacifier.com
Subject: NOISE Re: Easy Nuclear Detonator
In-Reply-To: <m0tpV8K-00091iC@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <u9LLx8m9LQ8L085yn@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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In article <m0tpV8K-00091iC@pacifier.com>,
jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com> wrote:

> At 11:00 PM 2/21/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:
> >On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, Brian Davis wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, jim bell wrote:
> >> 
> >> > it just didn't occur to me that you'd object to this.  "Nettiquette" is new
> >> > to me.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > 
> >>   ^^^^^^
> >> 
> >> No shit.
> >
> >So, it would seem, is nuclear weapons design.
> 
> I wrote this just a few hours ago.  Let's have a vote:  Who thinks I have 
> some idea about the subject?

[snip]

> I forgot about the beryllium.  Beryllium, I understand, is described as a 
> "neutron reflector".   Now how GOOD a neutron reflector it is I don't know, 
> but if you're trying to make a bomb with the smallest amount of material at 
> the primary's core it would help a great deal to have a neutron reflector.  
> Presumably, it would be used to coat the inside of the "hammer."  If 
> beryllium were a "perfect" neutron reflector, you could use arbitrarily low 
> amounts of plutonium or U-235 as the core (analogy:  If you were in a room 
> with walls which were perfect mirrors, and "you" were invisible, you would 
> see "forever" and the volume of space you were in would appear to be 
> infinite), and you could make the core as small as you want.  (But it isn't, 
> so the improvement effected by beryllium is limited.)
> 
> It might also help to make the "pit" hollow, but I don't know about that.  
> This might assist in the mechanical impedance match, too.  If you could get 
> the chemical implosion timed  "just right" you might be able to get away 
> with using a really THIN layer of plutonium that crashes together at the 
> core.  This might provide optimum densification because you would be able to 
> accelerate the hollow plutonium sphere centrally at near-detonation-velocity 
> speeds, which would result in very effective density increases.

I vote that you don't know jack shit about bomb design.

If you don't have a properly-designed initiator at the core, an implosion
device is just a mess of high explosives surrounding a dense metal object.

Stick to a gun device; it's tried-and-true.  The yield is lower, but at
least it works.


- -- 
   Alan Bostick             | "If I am to be held in contempt of court,
Seeking opportunity to      | your honor, it can only be because the court
develop multimedia content. | has acted contemptibly!"
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