[calenel]

On the contrary, I not only proved them, I LINKED to the answers. For instance: Beryllium trigger isotopes can have as little as a 53 day half-life. Polonium 210, a Man-made isotope that can *only* be created in nuclear reactors or cyclotrons, has a 140 day half-life.

Actually polonium is a naturally occurring element, including po-210. It was discovered in 1898 by Mme. Curie. It is rare, but it does occur in nature. It is simply easier to make it from the more abundant bismuth or lead than to try to separate it from the uranium ore, or to try to separate the 25 isotopes from each other. And po-210 is proportionately more rare due to its short half life. The interesting thing about that link is that it describes how to refine polonium using purely physical processes (melting, evaporating) which you claimed were not possible.

[Southack]

"polonium is a naturally occurring element, including po-210. It was discovered in 1898 by Mme. Curie. It is rare, but it does occur in nature. It is simply easier to make it from the more abundant bismuth or lead than to try to separate it from the uranium ore, or to try to separate the 25 isotopes from each other. And po-210 is proportionately more rare due to its short half life. The interesting thing about that link is that it describes how to refine polonium using purely physical processes (melting, evaporating) which you claimed were not possible." - calenel

You're confusing laboritory amounts with practical amounts. The two quantities are vastly different.

Polonium in nature is Po-209. Polonium for an atomic bomb is Po-210.

Polonium in nature is found in miniscule quantities per ton of Uranium ore. Uranium is rare. Polonium, however, even Po-209, makes Uranium look as common as sand.

Po-210 can occur, briefly, in Nature, in microscopic amounts that could never have practical use.

You can make Po-210 from the dust on your computer monitor, though you'd be hard-pressed to find civilian access to an instrument sensitive enough to confirm what you've done, and in 140 days it would for all intents and purposes be almost gone. Likewise, a cyclotron can make tiny amounts of Po-210...but all of that borders on the hypothetical. Oh, you can do it, but in such tiny quantities as to make no difference in the world.

To actually make Po-210 fast enough to accumulate enough for an atomic trigger (before it has decayed or evaporated away), you have to have a working nuclear reactor.

"Uranium ores contain only about 100 micrograms of the element per ton. Its abundance is only about 0.2% of that of radium. In 1934, it was found that when natural bismuth (209Bi) was bombarded by neutrons, 210Bi, the parent of polonium, was obtained. Milligram amounts of polonium may now be prepared this way, by using the high neutron fluxes of nuclear reactors. Polonium-210 is a low-melting, fairly volatile metal, 50% of which is vaporized in air in 45 hours at 55C. It is an alpha emitter with a half-life of 138.39 days. A milligram emits as many alpha particles as 5 g of radium. The energy released by its decay is so large (140W/g) that a capsule containing about half a gram reaches a temperature above 500C."