Posted on 07/13/2005 9:15:27 PM PDT by neverdem
Joining a debate over the reliability of the W-76, a top American warhead, a nuclear arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has concluded that at worst, 70 percent of those in the nuclear arsenal would explode as designed.
"No matter how cautious the assessment, the W-76 remains a reliable component of the U.S. nuclear deterrent," the scientist, Geoffrey E. Forden, wrote in the July issue of Jane's Intelligence Review.
Dr. Forden based his estimate on an investigation of the likely number of classified nuclear tests the warhead underwent during its development and on a statistical analysis of that experimental series. He has submitted a similar but more detailed study to Science and Global Security, a journal edited at Princeton.
The W-76, a centerpiece of the nation's nuclear arsenal, was designed by the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in the early 1970's and is now carried aboard submarines that prowl the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Federal officials have strongly denied that it has any problems that would cause it to explode with less force than intended.
But a secret debate over its reliability, led by Richard L. Morse, a physicist and former Los Alamos official, recently burst into public view. The critics argue that the warhead has a fundamental design flaw that makes it highly unreliable and, if not a complete dud, likely to explode with a force so reduced as to compromise its effectiveness.
John D. Immele, a senior Los Alamos weapons official, said in a recent interview that Dr. Morse's initial criticism had been deemed potentially credible and had been carefully weighed before being rebutted. The W-76, Dr. Immele said, "had an extreme test record that showed this was not a concern."
Dr. Immele declined to discuss the details of the weapon's testing - arguably the sine qua...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Test the da*n thing-set it off in Nevada on the Atomic Testing Range and sell tickets. I would fly there from Texas to see a nuke exploded.
In the Institute Lamp of Learning
ever wonder what they're burning?
(steely)
Geoffrey Forden joined the Security Studies Program in June 2000 as a Research Associate. Dr. Forden spent a year on leave from MIT serving as the first Chief of Multidiscipline Analysis Section for UNMOVIC, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission-the agency responsible for verifying and monitoring the dismantlement of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Previously, he was a strategic weapons analyst in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office. Before joining CBO in August 1997, he spent a year as a Science Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control. During the year at Stanford he performed the first unclassified, independent, technical analysis of the Airborne Laser. Geoff is a physicist by training with degrees from Case Western Reserve University and Indiana University. After getting his Ph.D. in physics, he spent three years in Germany working for England's Rutherford Laboratory. Returning to the US, he first spent three years working at Fermi National Laboratory and then seven years as an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Arizona. His current research includes the analysis of Russian and Chinese space systems as well as trying to understand how proliferators acquire the know-how and industrial infrastructure to produce weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Forden can be reached at 617.452.4097 or by email at forden@mit.edu.
Being a physicist and being interested in the politics of nuclear weapons does not make Dr. Forden a nuclear weapons expert.
"By contrast, Dr. Forden, the M.I.T. physicist, analyzed public information about the weapon's development to deduce the details of its underground nuclear detonations. In his Jane's article, he said that the weapon had apparently undergone eight tests and that one of them 'produced a substantially lower yield than expected.'"
I'm not a statistician or a nuclear expert, but it seems that with a sample size of eight with one bad detonation, he did a worst case, statistical analysis. Any criticism or statistical insight will be appreciated.
Experts to Consider Withdrawal of Asthma Drugs
Cholesterol Drugs Show No Effect on Dementia Risk
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Considering that this is a thermonuclear device that will reduce everyone you know to a cloud of vapor, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do I feel lucky?
Well do ya, punk?
If you combine live seats with a pay-per-view deal (perhaps in conjunction with NASCAR or WWF) you would eliminate the Federal Deficit.
Cheers!
Full Disclosure: Especially if we charge the Red Chinese and Ayatollah types double. ;-)
You are correct. So send two warheads just to be sure. We've got plenty. If the first one is a dud, the second will get the job done. If the first one works, no (further) harm is done, the second will just bounce the rubble around.
>>just bounce the rubble
AKA the Curtis LeMay approach.
Works for me.
Well, let's take ten at random, and drop them somewhere.
Then we'll know.
I vote Mecca.
Seriously though, wouldn't a 70% chance mean you would need three just to get to 97.3% probability of kill (1-.3**3)?
Ask China to test one, they probably have them too.
Some people have theorized the statin drugs will actually increase the risk of dementia because of the disruption of CoQ10 synthesis. I would be interested to see the raw data.
I still wonder if these would have worked.
Well now....lets see. If I was a thinking beancounter in the DOE-NNSA and budgets were getting smaller and smaller and layoffs on the horizon I'd hire one pencil necked geek to make such a extreme statement that would fund further studies, add work loads to the labs and assembly and dismantlement sites, get say one third of em brought in for testing and overhaul etc etc ....
One way to remain employed........albeit those damn things are built by the lowest bidder.........hmmmmmmmmmm ???!?!
Is that bomb illustration made of layers of fissile material, which would simply collapse into a critical mass on impact?
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