Slightly off-topic, but the upcoming Oppenheimer movie from Christopher Nolan is looking to be a masterpiece. Can’t wait for it.
Assuming you'll be able to understand the dialogs...
Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
81–90 of 100 posts
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#82Earlier 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.
There are a number of countries that are not officially listed as having nuclear weapons, but probably do, because of how easy they are to build in the 21st century. Japan is one common example of a state that is officially not a nuclear state, but people generally consider them de facto one anyhow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapons_progr...
I mean, ultimately, we're talking about a device that was built nearly 90 years ago. They've only gotten easier to build since then. Absent international regulation and oversight, a motivated startup and modestly-well-funded startup could put them together today, no problem. Not the deluxe MIRV ICBMs nation states have, but something on par with the ones used in WWII? No problem.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy it. I believe it's fairly well understood that designing a theoretical atom bomb that probably works isn't "difficult", the difficulty is building it. The logistics, and procuring the materials, that's very very hard. Also note, they did not cover refining the fissile material as part of their process, it was assumed that they had that. Arguably it's the refining that's by far the most difficult process.
> Arguably it's the refining that's by far the most difficult process I think a large part of what makes it difficult is not the logistics, or even the refinement process. It's the other states looking over and thinking "these guys are making atom bombs", then putting a stop to it. Much like the Iranian attempt where the US injected a worm into the centrifuges that caused them to spin themselves to death.
That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction. Uranium enrichment really is that difficult due to the precision required to build gaseous centrifuges and the nasty hydrofluoric acid chemistry involved. ITAR and other restrictions on sale of advanced machinery has much more effect than espionage - the latter is more likely to spread the technology like with Dr Khan and Pakistan/North Korea
On top of that, uranium is naturally 99.3% is non-fissile so you need tons of yellowcake to produce a small amount of weapons grade uranium, which requires crazy amount of power for the centrifuges.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Arguably it's the refining that's by far the most difficult process I think a large part of what makes it difficult is not the logistics, or even the refinement process. It's the other states looking over and thinking "these guys are making atom bombs", then putting a stop to it. Much like the Iranian attempt where the US injected a worm into the centrifuges that caused them to spin themselves to death.
That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction. Uranium enrichment really is that difficult due to the precision required to build gaseous centrifuges and the nasty hydrofluoric acid chemistry involved. ITAR and other restrictions on sale of advanced machinery has much more effect than espionage - the latter is more likely to spread the technology like with Dr Khan and Pakistan/N…
> That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction.
I was making specific reference to Stuxnet, and Operation Merlin. There's been several cases of this happening, so I'd say it's hardly fictional.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#85I don't buy it. The crucial detail to buy the story is that Jim Frank told Dobson and Selden the truth: They were pulled aside by a senior researcher, Jim Frank. "Jim said, 'I bet you guys want to know how it turned out,'" Dobson recalls. "We said yes. And he told us that if it had been constructed, it would have made a pretty impressive bang." How impressive, they wanted to know. "On the same order of magnitude as H…
Building a bomb isn’t a secret. Tom Clancy wrote a very technically detailed description of the tooling and process and building of a nuclear weapon in 1991 in The Sum of All Fears.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#86Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#87I don't buy it. The crucial detail to buy the story is that Jim Frank told Dobson and Selden the truth: They were pulled aside by a senior researcher, Jim Frank. "Jim said, 'I bet you guys want to know how it turned out,'" Dobson recalls. "We said yes. And he told us that if it had been constructed, it would have made a pretty impressive bang." How impressive, they wanted to know. "On the same order of magnitude as H…
The article clearly states that they had to get clearances before they could start the job. Everything they created was top secret. Therefore it was not necessarily in violation of any rules to tell them the outcome after they had finished their project.
Ok, but it’s in violation of their own clearance for them to give interviews about the whole affair, no?
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Arguably it's the refining that's by far the most difficult process I think a large part of what makes it difficult is not the logistics, or even the refinement process. It's the other states looking over and thinking "these guys are making atom bombs", then putting a stop to it. Much like the Iranian attempt where the US injected a worm into the centrifuges that caused them to spin themselves to death.
That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction. Uranium enrichment really is that difficult due to the precision required to build gaseous centrifuges and the nasty hydrofluoric acid chemistry involved. ITAR and other restrictions on sale of advanced machinery has much more effect than espionage - the latter is more likely to spread the technology like with Dr Khan and Pakistan/N…
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Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#89Earlier 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.
There are a number of countries that are not officially listed as having nuclear weapons, but probably do, because of how easy they are to build in the 21st century. Japan is one common example of a state that is officially not a nuclear state, but people generally consider them de facto one anyhow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapons_progr... I mean, ultimately, we're talking about a device that w…
Having a bomb and delivering a working bomb to a target are vastly different things.
If a country has a bomb, then they have a bomb sitting around somewhere. It is common knowledge that the nuclear superpowers have a lot of trouble, especially these days, around maintenance and infrastructure. You've got to develop and build good missiles or aircraft to send those bombs out somewhere, and you've got to maintain the whole chain in working order for as long as it takes. They've probably got to stay on high alert 24/7, because you never know when you'll need to press the button and send the bomb to the target.
Just building a nuclear bomb without its concomitant delivery system means you'll have to get creative to deliver it. Good luck putting it on on a truck and driving it to the target or something. At that point, you'd rather just have a dirty bomb instead: a lot easier to make, and just deliver it to a convenient highly-populated spot where it'll make a big stink.
Re: Two students built an A-bomb (2003)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction. Uranium enrichment really is that difficult due to the precision required to build gaseous centrifuges and the nasty hydrofluoric acid chemistry involved. ITAR and other restrictions on sale of advanced machinery has much more effect than espionage - the latter is more likely to spread the technology like with Dr Khan and Pakistan/N…
> That kind of dramatic industrial espionage just isn’t very common outside of fiction. I was making specific reference to Stuxnet, and Operation Merlin. There's been several cases of this happening, so I'd say it's hardly fictional.
I didn’t say it was fictional, I said it wasn’t very common outside of fiction.