Posted on 04/27/2006 12:20:35 PM PDT by Bob J
As "I think I'm finished here, but y'all may find this stuff interesting" ping
Do you want to explain to me how it will DECAY to a heavier element.
Tritium is, chemically speaking, hydrogen. On the nuclear level, it consists of one proton and two neutrons. Therefore, it is not a stable nucleus; its half-life is 12.3 years. It decays to helium-3 by releasing an electron and an electron antineutrino. This turns one of the neutrons into a proton, thus leaving a nucleus with 2 protons and 1 neutron, which is helium-3.
Decay is not just heavy elements to lighter elements; it's also lighter elements to heavier ones..
For example, a deuteron (the nucleus of deuterium, one proton and one neutron--what most people think of as "heavy hydrogen") has an atomic mass of 2.013553. But if you add the mass of a proton (1.007276) and a neutron (1.008665), you get 1.007276 + 1.008665 = 2.015941. Subtract the actual mass of a deuteron from the sum of its parts, and you get: 2.015941 - 2.013553 = 0.002388. The "missing mass" is actually the binding energy of the deuteron (since mass and energy are the same by the formula E = MC^2). When the deuteron is split up, that energy is released.
I suggest reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear. He discusses at length how governments actually spend a great deal of time and effort promoting fear--which, incidentally, is exactly what you're doing.
As for Red Mercury...
Another website quoted below:
The new type of non-nuclear explosives are called ballotechnic materials. Cohen says that unlike other explosives, they produce no bang, no cloud, keep the same shape while they detonate, "but Boy!, do they get hot!"
In other words, according to Sam Cohen, ballotechnics engage in perpetual motion (i.e., high thermal output with no corresponding phase state change), all without any sort of "oh, isn't THAT interesting" from a no-kidding nuclear physicist.
Cohen identifies the mysterious "red mercury" (of TV documentary fame) as a ballotechnic material. He offers this "recipe:" take mercury-antimony oxide, compress it, and bombard with neutrons. He says it is slightly radioactive, with a half-life of a couple of days.
OK, Cohen says the half-life is about 48 hours. Now, what are the decay products? What are their effects on the much-ballyhooed ballotechnic materials? After 48 hours, you have 50% "Red Mercury" and 50% decay products. At two weeks, 127/128ths of the weapon has decayed.
You ridiculed my remarks about how nuclear weapons require ongoing maintenance to be ready for use; in turn, you propose a super-doomsday weapon that becomes unusable in less than two weeks, and probably fatally irradiates the guy trying to smuggle it into America...
Cohen says the Russians have built and tested mini-nukes, and that Americans and Russians are cooperating on pure fusion. He says that a Russian bomb was brought to Los Alamos ("by Federal Express" from a Russian plane in Washington) and successfully tested.
This part so completely beggars belief--on so many levels--that the rest of his story is called into question.
Are you suggesting that I might be a sham poster, here on behalf of the Feds? LOL!
During the varied phases of my life, I've been employed by a state, in the role of a Commissioner regulating a health agency; I've indeed worked for a federal service, although I wore their badge for a relatively short time, and the only time it was seen was when a federal official from another service inadvertently spotted it, which caused a bit of a minor confrontation. (Is there more to this story -- or less, than you'd suspect? LOL! "Further affiant sayeth not!") I've also... aw, nevermind. The point is, I'm Private Citizen "Don Joe" today, very unhappy at a lot of the crap I see being promulgated -- and particularly unhappy at being paged BACK to a thread I announded I was through with. Typically trollish behavior, Mr. Anonymous Expert. VERY trollish behavior on your part. Gotta keep stirring the pot, doncha. Can't leave the chance that someone might look at the evidence and form their OWN conclusions, can you. Gotta keep hammering away, to make sure they ONLY form the "right" opinions.
Nice work if you can get it. I suppose.
[blahblahblahblah snipped]
This part so completely beggars belief--on so many levels--that the rest of his story is called into question.
Look who's talking, LOL!
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Frankly, I don't care. You, conversely, seem to care a very great deal, and get very defensive when the similarity of your behavior to what you accuse me of is noticed.
The point is, I'm Private Citizen "Don Joe" today, very unhappy at a lot of the crap I see being promulgated -- and particularly unhappy at being paged BACK to a thread I announded I was through with. Typically trollish behavior, Mr. Anonymous Expert. VERY trollish behavior on your part.
Interesting.
You were the first to post to me, and were the first to page me back to a thread I thought I was done with. You were the first to launch insults; you were the first to accuse me of nefarious motives; and, for the finale, you accuse me of trolling--after behaving as a textbook example of a troll.
Gotta keep stirring the pot, doncha. Can't leave the chance that someone might look at the evidence and form their OWN conclusions, can you. Gotta keep hammering away, to make sure they ONLY form the "right" opinions.
Actually, with your naked hostility to anything (indeed, to any person) that disagrees with your opinion, your constant barrage of accusations against those who disagree with you, you seem to be the one intent on making sure that others form ONLY the opinions you deem to be "right."
[blahblahblahblah snipped]
Translation: "Don Joe has absolutely no substantive counterargument to the points made about Red Mercury as described by Don Joe's authoritative source, Sam Cohen, and stipulates those arguments as fact."
As for the discussion of an alleged Russian nuclear weapon being shipped via FedEx to Los Alamos for testing...
If that actually did happen as described, the U.S. national security community is so FUBAR'd that there's nothing that can be done to fix it, anyway.
I still believe that the primary worry is theft or other acquisition of a tactical nuclear weapon, or pieces thereof, from a storage or maintenance depot, because it seems to me that governments around the world are relying more on the appearance of tight security than on the fact.
I guess we simply disagree, and that's that.
Serious question: What happened to the "bombshell" announcement?
Well, I think that sort of thing happens far more often than we'd like to think. I remember my law school experience 25 years ago. We studied a case of a long tubular package shipped via FEDEX that contained cocaine. The truck operator accidentally broke the container and some "product" spilled out. The driver, being a good citizen, alerted the authorities who set up a sting. At the trial the defense asserted that the driver of the FEDEX truck had violated the 4th Amendment protections of the coke dealer.
USSC held that NO that is not true. No private citizen, especially one engaged in the act of lawful commerce can violate the US Constitution, only the government can violate civil rights. How often do you think coke or heroin gets shipped that way today? Sure I'll be that FEDEX got some safeguards to preclude this...but still....
Paul Williams isn't talking about a "simple fission device." He's talking about suitcase nukes. Those are a wee bit more complicated than "a simple gun-type device."
People breaking the law and shipping cocaine and heroin are one thing.
Shipping a nuclear device is something else entirely. Shipping it via FedEx is just plain stupid.
BTW, responded to your friend HipShot. Thanks for the info.
Why? It's not like FEDEX can afford the necessary detectors for all it's huge fleets everywhere...
Heck even if the durn thing leaks and employees start to glow in the dark, produce three armed babies and die in droves by cancer none of it will happen immediately.
Very little risk of detection UNLESS the FEDEX truck is going thru a government sensor at one of it's stops like a port etc. It's not like the weight is a big deal, either. FEDEX transports lots of heavy items. I'll bet such a device weighs about as much as a top end double gun safe.
Maybe you need to go back and reread Sam Cohen's statement that I was referring to. (It helps if you actually read posts before commenting on them.)
I am saying that the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT shipping a RUSSIAN NUCLEAR EXPLOSIVE DEVICE from Washington DC to Los Alamos is extremely stupud.
If the government knowingly did such a thing, you don't think there would be steps taken to insure said device was inert? As long as the detonator is not with the device and the radioactive materials aren't leaking from the case, it's perfectly safe. Just 'cause you say it's stupid, doesn't necessarily make it so. Heck even the father of the Neutron Bomb (Sam Cohen) can have a difference of opinion without being "wrong" or even being "right."
No, I'm not in denial. I do worry that we're not taking nuclear weapons security seriously enough--and that others are taking it even less seriously. That's a lot different from worrying about Osama's 2 (or is it 10? A dozen? 30? Maybe the original two were a breeding pair) suitcase nukes that he got in 1998 (if you believe Paul Williams and WorldNutDaily). If he's got them in usable condition, it's too damn late. What we can and should do is put a lot more effort into keeping them out of irresponsible hands in the first place.
As long as the detonator is not with the device and the radioactive materials aren't leaking from the case, it's perfectly safe.
Until it gets stolen in transit. (FedEx loses about 0.2% of shipments annually to "employee pilferage.")
If you think that a 1 in 500 chance of someone stealing a 1-kiloton nuke the size of a softball that is only missing a detonator is perfectly safe, then you're part of the problem.
Thanks Hipshot.
A source close to Al Qaeda says they have smuggled nukes in across the Mexican border and will use them if the US attacks Iran...is not a bombshell announcment?
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