The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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Us aged grey anti-nukes remember the famous article in Progressive magazine in, I think, 1967, explaining in detail, with diagrams, how to make a home made fairly 'effective' nuclear bomb. So expert it was that all hell let loose, had to find this mastermind, FBI etc on full alert. It was traced to the author, no rogue nuke scientist, but a sixteen year old student. The point is as others have made,not difficult. Do we nuke Iraq (and where next) because the knowledge is there for anyone - anywhere? Further as Gordon Brown said today : we cannot allow undemocratically elected Presidents to continue to develop biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. No, indeed, if the cap fits ... f > G'day Roger and everyone else, > > I'm not a physicist, I'm a historian, but I'm familiar with the history of > how the current lot of statist criminals shysters acquired WMDs. > > The answer is, as usual 'it depends'. Once you've refined your uranium, > uranium bombs are very simple - indeed, give me 100kg of weapons-grade > uranium, six months, and ten million dollars, and I could probably make one > myself, not that it would be very efficient. The Hiroshima bomb was a > uranium bomb: the design was not tested beforehand because Oppenheimer and > co were completely confident that it would work as planned. The South > African A bombs were the same, and they do not appear to have been tested > either. > > The recent IISS report is a therefore a red herring - of course Saddam can > make a bomb in a few months given some crucial ingredients. The same is true > of half the governments on the planet. > > Nagasaki bombs, plutonium implosion devices, are complex and much harder to > build: they would probably need testing if you wanted to make sure they > would work. The advantage of plutonium is that once you've got a reactor and > a reprocessing plant, you can make lots of them: uranium bombs require less > of a effort to set up, but reprocessing plants will only give you enough of > the stuff for one every six months or so. > > Hydrogen bombs, fusion devices, are harder still, and you almost certainly > have to test an a-bomb before you can be sure about how it works well enough > to act as a trigger for the fusion bomb. So - it's highly unlikely that any > low-budget bomb can be made to yield more than 50 kilotons without some > serious testing and development. The Stalinists got 250kt out of one once, > but that involved a test and development programme that was hard to miss. > > So - you don't necessarily need to test an a-bomb to be pretty confident > that it's going to work. > > Chris > > -----Original Message----- > From: VnStroope@aol.com > To: soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk > Sent: 13/09/02 14:21 > Subject: [casi] bombs and such > > > [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] > > Morning/Afternoon/Evening, > I was wondering if any of you nuclear physicists might know whether or > not SH > would have to conduct N-tests prior to having a functioning bomb. I > received > good info from Glen R. on the aluminum tubes, but was thinking that if > nuclear tests were required then geological 'listening' stations would > pick > it up...yes? No? > > > Roger Stroope > Peace is a Human Right > Austin College > > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. > To unsubscribe, visit > http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss > To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk > All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. > To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss > To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk > All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk > _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk