Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 227 posts

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#151

Post by Merad »

scubbo wrote: post #145
defrost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As nmadden noted there's a lot of detail in the article . > That seems extremely unlikely to me. None the less his nuclearsecrecy blog has been about for many many years and he's had a great deal of contact with people who have walked up to the line. It's not that uncommon for historians to have neither confirm nor deny but we can understand various silences relations with experts - even the OG Manhatten Project had…

> walked up to the line I'm not familiar with that idiom, and searching for it only gives me "Walk the line" - what does it mean?

To "cross the line" means that you went too far, in this context meaning that someone revealed secrets or otherwise talked about things that they shouldn't reveal. So to walk up to the line means that the person was willing to talk about the topic or share their knowledge, but did so without "crossing the line."

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#152

Post by mannyv »

gnfargbl wrote: post #26

What is it that the author thinks is particularly unusual about this image? Pretty much every schematic of a Teller-Ulam type weapon -- a schematic which you will find in every introductory Nuclear Physics textbook -- shows a large cylinder with a spherical fission device at the top and a cylindrical fusion device at the bottom, plus some FOGBANK-type material of unconfirmed purpose. This image looks exactly like tho…

The best guess about fogbank is that it’s plutonium suspended in aerogel.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#153

Post by freestyle24147 »

gnfargbl wrote: post #26

What is it that the author thinks is particularly unusual about this image? Pretty much every schematic of a Teller-Ulam type weapon -- a schematic which you will find in every introductory Nuclear Physics textbook -- shows a large cylinder with a spherical fission device at the top and a cylindrical fusion device at the bottom, plus some FOGBANK-type material of unconfirmed purpose. This image looks exactly like tho…

Please provide even one link to an image or book or anything that proves what you're saying is true. The fact that this is the top comment is troubling, since your question is answered throughout the article. The thing you're claiming (basically that imagery like this can be found all over the place) is so easy to prove, one wonders why you haven't done it here or in any of your other comments.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#154

Post by Izkata »

Reubachi wrote: post #93
eszed wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key point: if you try it yourself, it will be in clear-text for you (you already know your password, so there's no issue), but everyone else will only see "***".

hunter2 mods, please allow this chain to remain as original runescape "hacks" are about as hckrnws as any other content.

It's from IRC, here's the original: https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#155

Post by Titan2189 »

kstrauser wrote: post #146
next_xibalba wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is it that the author thinks is particularly unusual about this image? The level of detail, particularly the articulation of components/subsystems (primary, secondary, radiation case, interstage medium, tamper, fusion fuel, and a "sparkplug"). All according to the article. Per author, DoE has very strict guidelines on the depiction of nukes, and this image appears to violate those guidelines. The official depi…

Conclusion: that's a diagram of the obvious approach to building a thermonuclear device, which happens to be completely wrong for classified reasons, and if you pursue this design you're going to waste a decade before you figure out why.

I would ask you to elaborate, but I guess that'd be pointless

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#156

Post by MereInterest »

scubbo wrote: post #145
defrost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As nmadden noted there's a lot of detail in the article . > That seems extremely unlikely to me. None the less his nuclearsecrecy blog has been about for many many years and he's had a great deal of contact with people who have walked up to the line. It's not that uncommon for historians to have neither confirm nor deny but we can understand various silences relations with experts - even the OG Manhatten Project had…

> walked up to the line I'm not familiar with that idiom, and searching for it only gives me "Walk the line" - what does it mean?

I read it as being related to the "line in the sand" idiom. There exists some set of rules, the "line". Exactly what is and isn't allowed under those rules is a bit arbitrary, like the exact location where you would draw a line in the sand with your finger. What matters is that the line has been drawn, and everybody knows that the line may not be crossed.

Under that metaphor, a person may stay very far from the line, to avoid accidentally stepping over it, or they may walk right up to the line. Metaphorically, the former would be a person who refuses to answer any questions about nuclear secrets, regardless of whether the question can be legally answered. The latter would be a person who knows exactly what can be legally answered, and will give as full of an answer as is allowed. They know where the line in the sand is, and have walked up to the line.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#157

Post by fragmede »

scubbo wrote: post #145
defrost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As nmadden noted there's a lot of detail in the article . > That seems extremely unlikely to me. None the less his nuclearsecrecy blog has been about for many many years and he's had a great deal of contact with people who have walked up to the line. It's not that uncommon for historians to have neither confirm nor deny but we can understand various silences relations with experts - even the OG Manhatten Project had…

> walked up to the line I'm not familiar with that idiom, and searching for it only gives me "Walk the line" - what does it mean?

ChatGPT's really good for that kind of a thing, but in this case it's a saying popularized by a Johnny Cash song about staying loyal and committed to his wife while being on the road and facing temptation.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#158

Post by fragmede »

lazide wrote: post #110
gnfargbl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the story here is that the US DoE is now implicitly confirming common public-domain knowledge that can be found immediately on Wikipedia then sure, that's a story of minor interest. That story is nothing like the title of the blog, though!

speculation can be found on Wikipedia, perhaps accurate speculation, perhaps not. DoE contractors leaking details that confirm that speculation would indeed be a big deal, and might well save adversaries some real time and mistakes they’d otherwise make.

Or it's a psyop designed to make adversaries waste their time on a design that couldn't work.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#159

Post by _n_b_ »

BWStearns wrote: post #141

Tangentially: I wonder if the checker badge is a visual pun on the Arms and Influence cover. https://www.amazon.com/Arms-Influence-Preface-Afterword-Lect...

I would bet a few dollars that no Facility Security Officer (the name for people who manage security programs for defense contractor, despite sounding like a Sunday name for ‘guards’) in the entire NNSA complex has ever read Arms and Influence. That’s not quite their demographic profile.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#160

Post by csours »

bee_rider wrote: post #97

> This is the kind of thing that I think people assume the government labs might do, but in my experience, is pretty unusual and pretty unlikely. In general, you have to remember that the national laboratories are pretty, well, boring, when it comes to classified information. They want to be boring in this respect. They are not doing cloak-and-dagger stuff on the regular. They’re scientists and engineers for the most…

I visited Los Alamos earlier this year and talked to a retired materials scientist at the visitor center. He said that we have lots of books about the science and scientists that worked on the bomb during WWII, but very little mention of the engineering or engineers - and that's largely because it's extremely classified. The scientists can talk about most of their work because it's too broad to give any real aid to the enemy, but the engineers can't because they could REALLY speed up someone else's weapons program.
Post reply on HN