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Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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

#191

Post by ajkjk »

chefandy wrote: post #115
mjevans wrote: post #6

That thing is supposed to be a logo? I'm reminded of CGP Gray's videos about flags. https://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey/videos Like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4w6808wJcU About US state flags

I've done branding and identity design in the past, and got university training to do it. I've also worked as a developer and contributed a ton to FOSS projects. That an engineering organization thinks this is a product logo is entirely unsurprising. I'll bet their interfaces are really something. The most frustrating thing about being a designer in those environments is the dunning-krueger cockiness many technical p…

I've never understood this use of the phrase 'senior developer' like it's evidence of being masterful at coding. In my experience half the juniors and half the seniors were good and the other half were bad. Tenure gets you a bit of perspective but it didn't turn bad programmers into good ones...

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

gnfargbl wrote: post #55
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…

There's a lot of detail about why the author thinks it is notable that Sandia released this image. There's very little about what it is in this image itself that the author finds interesting, save for some comment about a dip which could be intended to focus neutron flux from the primary to the secondary. I feel that's the kind of thing an appropriate undergraduate would imagine in a short amount of time.

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by SiempreViernes »

krisoft wrote: post #142
proto-n wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took the quote [1] to basically mean "we might think this is a nuclear warhead, but in fact it is not, rather it is some kind of random test object used to demonstrate the software". Obscure part of a washing mashine, random geometric shape, etc. [1] "The “obvious” answer, if my above assertions are true, is that it must not actually represent a thermonuclear secondary. [...] It could be some kind of pre-approved “…

> Obscure part of a washing mashine, random geometric shape, etc. Oh i see what you mean. I took the theory to be that it is looking like a nuclear warhead but it doesn't have the right dimensions, or even the right arrangement of the components. Kind of like the difference between the real blueprints of a submarine (very much classified) or the drawing evoking the same feel but drawn by someone who has never seen th…

The key issue making the publication remarkable is that the shown geometry is quite plausible as an internal structure of a two stage weapon, but is being disclosed through a censorship regime that typically thinks the precise length of the enclosing cone is classified.

So a even a diagram that is abstracted and slightly fudged would be a huge departure from what the censors usually think is ok, which is weird!

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

#194

Post by 1attice »

Earw0rm wrote: post #189
gnfargbl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am speculating here, but it seems like DoE must believe that anything beyond simple shapes may provide bad actors (i.e. anyone but US Govt and allies) clues as to how to build a thermo-nuke. And with good reason: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science It's a bit like the Egg of Columbus. Doing it the first time needs a team of visionary geniuses, but once the trick is known to work then even us…

Yes and no. For terrorism purposes, the primary (more or less the same as a "Hiroshima"-level "A"-bomb) would surely more than suffice. I'm sort of struggling to think why anyone other than a nation state (looking to prove itself worthy of a seat at various tables) would want to possess more bang than that. Granted there are a few nations at or close to A-bomb tech whom we would definitely not want having its bigger…

"640 kilotons ought to be enough for anyone"

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

#196

Post by beezle »

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…

I remember when Jeff Lewis had a woody over FOGBANK. Wonder what they eventually replaced it with? Assume named CLOUDBANK or SNOWBANK ;)

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

#197

Post by xattt »

1attice wrote: post #194
Earw0rm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. For terrorism purposes, the primary (more or less the same as a "Hiroshima"-level "A"-bomb) would surely more than suffice. I'm sort of struggling to think why anyone other than a nation state (looking to prove itself worthy of a seat at various tables) would want to possess more bang than that. Granted there are a few nations at or close to A-bomb tech whom we would definitely not want having its bigger…

"640 kilotons ought to be enough for anyone"

And now if you want to run a nuclear program, the minimum amount is at least 16 gigatons.

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

#198

Post by bitexploder »

meindnoch wrote: post #114
bitexploder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun idea, there basically are no nuclear secrets. If you look long enough you can pretty much learn everything except some in the weeds details of the most modern nuclear warheads. My basic premise is all our “enemies” have this info by now and the complexity is actually in building them, not how they work or how to build them.

Using publicly available knowledge won't get you a working nuke, even if you have the necessary fissile material. A lot of finicky details have to be just right in order to get a nuclear explosion instead of a fizzle. C.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank More often than not, comparatively simple chemical reactions are hard to reproduce reliably just by reading the research papers.

I have watched a lot of Nile Red and agree with this. The actual things that happen that kick off the nuclear reaction are kind of crazy and I can see how it would be very difficult. However, you know it is possible and the shape and structure of it. Any nation state has the resources to do it and it would not take them very long because the physics are all sorted. I actually kind of doubt America could even just produce another nuclear weapon on demand because we have lost a lot of the how-to institutional knowledge.

I think enough is known now to really narrow down the problem to something a nation state can do.

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

#199

Post by bitexploder »

qchris wrote: post #88
bitexploder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun idea, there basically are no nuclear secrets. If you look long enough you can pretty much learn everything except some in the weeds details of the most modern nuclear warheads. My basic premise is all our “enemies” have this info by now and the complexity is actually in building them, not how they work or how to build them.

This is concept is a neat one that I think differentiates the real world from many fantasy worlds. In the latter, many of the core problems are built around somebody having "forbidden" or "dark" knowledge, or the heroes needing to find just the right rare answer to some kind of fundamental problem that somebody wrote down but that was suppressed. Think Horcruxes in Harry Potter sort of a deal. In the real world, we h…

Funny example. I am a BJJ purple belt. I love BJJ analogies. It is analogous to the mental work in tech. There is just hard, physical work, repetition, analysis, and more work. It’s very rewarding. Just like tech problem solving. That’s the secret to most things. Hard, sometimes wearying, sometimes joyful, work.

I think secrets are largely against the ideals of the enlightenment. There are certain temporal operational concerns. Democracy dies the death of a thousand cuts when unelected bureaucrats classify the most mundane things by default “just in case”. 9/11 happened because of these silos. Our foreign adversaries often know more about what we are up to than US citizens, etc.

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

#200

Post by numpad0 »

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.

Or, there are 5 people doing this type of research across the world, 3 of them barely taking calls on iOS and the rest just finally managed to migrate from IRIX to Cygwin last year, and they are to take all necessary actions for operational security and talent acquisition.
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