Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an outside observer, the US is a beacon of transparency on this topic. In Israel the topic is under strict military censorship. What little discussion is allowed has to periodically sprinkled with the incantation "according to foreign sources".
We don't even know if Israel has nuclear weapons. Most people think they they do, but it is neither confirmed nor denied by any official source.
Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
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Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I guess that latter point is my real question - what would happen if you took one of the diagrams and the associated descriptions from something like "Dark Sun" and simply built it - what would happen?
Are you hiring machinists to build it, or are you hiring some engineers and physicists to design a bomb based on that design. Building according to the plans - we can assume some important details are left out, or sabotaged so that it looks like it will work but it won't. However engineers and physicists can start with those plans and run calculations/simulations/tests to figure out what will go wrong and then figure…
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't even know if Israel has nuclear weapons. Most people think they they do, but it is neither confirmed nor denied by any official source.
Knowledge is determined by official government sources now? We know they have the bomb, nothing in Middle Eastern geopolitics makes sense except in light of this fact. It's like a black hole that you can observe by how it bends the light of objects behind it. Politicians have to play a silly game of pretend around the whole thing but normal people don't.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#64> Today, the fear is back: with al-Qaida resurgent, North Korea out of control, and nuclear rumours emanating from any number of "rogue states", North Korea indeed got the bomb three years after the article was written - the interesting question is what kept Iran? They didn't manage that feat in 20 years (thankfully, to add).
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#65Relevance to AI - forget the pause, the cat is already out of the bag
AI does not require access to highly enriched Uranium or a plant to make it as well as various other highly controlled substances. AI materials can be copied across the internet with great ease, which does not hold for nuclear bombs either.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#66Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#67The funny thing is that 99% of public domain info regarding nuclear weapons design comes from US released documents.
For Russia/China warheads we basically have no documents, and even exterior pictures are extremely rare.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#68There's only so much you can do to keep an 80 year old technology developed with slide rules from being reverse engineered by a dedicated group of scientists with the benefit of 80 years of advancements in physics and access to a supercomputer (ie an iPhone).
in 2003 they didn't have access to an iphone, but the regular desktops were pretty good.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the other commenter says - North Korea isn't connected to the internet in any meaningful way so it's impossible to cyber sabotage their gas centrifuges remotely. Without the correct type of uranium, you can't build an a-bomb.
Iran's centrifuges weren't connected either. However Stuxnet was indeed successful.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#70> Today, the fear is back: with al-Qaida resurgent, North Korea out of control, and nuclear rumours emanating from any number of "rogue states", North Korea indeed got the bomb three years after the article was written - the interesting question is what kept Iran? They didn't manage that feat in 20 years (thankfully, to add).