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New Good points. I'd forgotten that.
I should put Rhodes' [link|http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/0684813785|book] on my "read it again" list.

I'm confused by the most recent tests, though. Presumably new nuclear powers want an implosion bomb due to its "efficiency" and compactness - to ease integration on a warhead. But the Indian, Pakistani and North Korean bomb tests have been weaker than expected. This would imply that the (apparently Chinese?) designs these countries are working from aren't very good, the materials aren't very good, or the assembly isn't very good. Which is it?

Should we be comforted that the new nuclear powers apparently can't immediately achieve what the US was able to do 61 years ago? And comforted that the necessary knowledge and/or materials and/or assembly techniques are as important as having the nuclear fuel?

My long-held impression, at least since reading Rhodes, was that the design of an implosion bomb was relatively widely known, the explosives were relatively easily obtained, and that our only protection was the difficulty in making or obtaining the fuel. (Thus, the strong arguments against Breeder Reactors and the proliferation fears.) These recent tests make me wonder if that picture is far too simplistic. I think it also gives me greater appreciation of the skill of the folks on the Manhattan Project.

Cheers,
Scott.
New It's all much as Ashleigh Brilliant says (here especially)
In the final analysis ... everything else.

Dunno how widely (more to point: accurately) disseminated are the many tiny but crucial details of the implosion bomb. As of '06. Indeed, Hansen's coffee-table tome, US Nuclear Weapons displays photos of complete weapons, including those cute dunce-cap shaped, compact passengers on all those MIRVs {a techno which LLL essentially forced on the world/USSR completely gratuitously == assuring that most-lethal phase of the arms race - a book length dastardly deed, that.}

Unfortunately too, IMhO Hansen's book is entirely Too-fact-filled as regards the vast complexity of the various forms of Supers; the neat diagrams of the stages of the FFF (fission-fusion-fission) process -- I deem a real disservice to living things..

Because always: what every jackal or psychotic Really wants is the unlimited yield of a Super. Never mind how bulky ... the now insatiable demand for Stuff guarantees the continuing free-flow of all those container$. No matter what.

While most of those supercomputer hours were about improving, shrinking etc. I don't think there is anything easy about the implosion lens. Still, merely having a good hint of the idea of laminating various HE substances - is indeed a start. But remember how crude were the first studies at Los Alamos: trying merely (via "one fewer dimension") to neatly crimp test piece of metal pipe. (That was Kistiakowski's enigma.)

Hard to do a dry run on implosion, when everything is first compressed then flung apart - no?
(There was constructed a massive cylinder similar to a diver's decompression tank, hauled to Alamogordo - in the hope that it might serve to preserve the Pu, in event of a dud. It wasn't used; why eschewed? ... never heard.)

Another magical facet is that of the neutron-source initiator, usually a Polonium/Beryllium mixture == a small ball at exact center of the barely-subcritical assembly.

At least with the Pu, you can chemically test for purity - but there are aspects to the reactor configuration which -even there - can favor isotope mixes which are less contributory to an early fizzle. That's a Lot of reactor as well as Pu testing lore .. you can't Google for. Another + for meat.

Finally with the -235 gun-type: not a suitable trigger for making your own Super, later. And if you rush; if you try a lower than optimum %235 ... etc. Then there are the (free) DU or -238 'tampers' to ponder - nothing to lose, tossing in some scrap to accelerate the inferno. Especially if it doesn't need to be miniaturized for Efficiency.

Splendid physics for a most unsplendid coterie of mass assassins, no?
May the experimenters join Louis Slotin, the crew of the [link|http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm| SL-1], pinned to the roof by their control rods, et al -- reel soon now.

Areas of comfort? - well, I'm not aware of any info on the size/deliverability of the Pakistani, Indian devices; we can be sure though, that the (400+?) Israeli specimens are indeed deliverable. Still.. guess who's apt to be the first recipient of incoming?
Oh wait - Muricans, just 5 years after all that empathy -- may well be on the exact shit-list level of Jews, now. (I can't guess either.)



Maybe we'll all luck in, just by a zealot's sloth in the pesky details? :-)
Bloody likelier than that that we'll all wise up.

     N. Korea claims successful nuclear test. No details yet... -NT - (Another Scott) - (12)
         Looks like North Korea detonated something - (JayMehaffey) - (2)
             Bush is going to make a statement soon. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                 It was about 2 minutes. - (Another Scott)
         Re: N. Korea claims successful nuclear test. No details yet - (pwhysall)
         Maybe its real, maybe not - (tuberculosis) - (1)
             It seems similar to their earlier explosion. - (Another Scott)
         North Korea detonation seems odd, UN debates response - (JayMehaffey) - (5)
             There were similar disagreements about India and Pakistan. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                 I'll choose Door #1 too: 'partial yield' - explains lots. - (Ashton) - (2)
                     Good points. I'd forgotten that. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                         It's all much as Ashleigh Brilliant says (here especially) - (Ashton)
             Not everybody in S. Korea is so upset about this. - (inthane-chan)

Sorry. I don't see the benefit for me in that arrangement.
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