Re: Kensington runestone in the Scandinavian press

In sci.archaeology, David Johnson created a message
ID news:Xns967467924E27Ftrolleyfanearthlinkn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> Philip Deitiker <Nopdeitik@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> news:Xns967466A34434Cprd@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
>> In sci.archaeology, created a message ID
>> news:w6ydnVscoL8kwzDfRVnyiQ@xxxxxxxxx:
>>
>>> In article <QSZqe.8706$rt3.7801@xxxxxxxx>,
>>> tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom McDonald) wrote:
>>>
>>>> I also read online an article that suggested the Nazis
may
>> have
>>>> tested an extremely small atomic bomb--only a small
>> fraction of
>>>> the size of 'Little Boy.' This article also included
>> reports of a
>>>> bright light seen by many that may have been related to
the
>> test.
>>>
>>> Making a small atomic bomb is much harder than making one
>> the size of
>>> "Little Boy". That was a gun type device using a critical
>> mass of uranium
>>> not an implosion device. There is no evidence the Germans
>> ever got as far
>>> as a reactor. Heisenburg got the critical mass wrong to
>> start with and the
>>> reactor was going to be moderated with heavy water. The
>> entire German
>>> supply of heavy water was destroyed by allied action. You
>> can not make a
>>> dirty bomb from unenriched uranium and there is no
evidence
>> that Germany
>>> ever managed to produce that. Japan was probably closer to
>> making a bomb
>>> than Germany.
>>>
>>> One possible cause of confusion is that Germany may have
>> used Uranium as
>>> a substitute for tungsten in AP shot. The German weapon
>> programs were
>>> thoroughly investigated after the end of the war.
>>
>> The rudimentary device is take a lb of uranium and drop it
3
>> stories on a lb of plutonium.
>
> Problem being, of course, is that in order to have
plutonium, you have to
> have (first) a working reactor. the Nazi's never did.
>
>> Booom, also lots ot nasty cleanup.
>
> But no one then knew just _how_ nasty (to give you an idea
of how little
> folks _did_ know about radiation dangers, the U.S. had plans
to use nukes
> to "clear the beaches" before landing troops on them) and
neither the
> Nazis nor the Soviets (who would be the most likely target)
would care
> all that much if they did.

You can actually do that, with cesium. Instead of having a d-
Day invasion take about 100 cesium canisters sheilded with
lead and roll them up on the beach at night, open them up and
place pictures of nudies all around them such that the germans
would have gawked for a few minutes. Next night roll them back
up, wait 2 days.

> It also more or less changes a nuke from a big explosive
device to a
> slightly more exciting poison "gas" attack...which creates
reprisals in
> kind.

That is the point of atomic weaponry, to scare people into
submission without actually using them. For example, North
Korea is trying to scare the west into giving them what they
want. By the same token, if you are recognized as being an
unstable loony with megalomaniacal tendencies, probably it is
better to take the risk and take that individual out if he has
a bomb. The percieved threat of nuclear weapons is
disproportional to the actual willingness to use them and the
damage that they do. One can achieve the same level of kills
with modern smart bombs and cluster bombs, with no clean up.

> The biggest difference is that it makes several tens of
millions of
> dollars worth of radiatives the equivilant of a few thousand
dollar
> convential bomb.

Not so, the price of the nukes lies in the proprietory nature
of the technology. If the market were completely open one
could build a working bomb for a few 100,000 dollars as part
of mass production schemes (maybe less). The problem is that
the people who invented the purification and detonation
schemes are not particularly the nature of individual who
would market those schemes for production.
To put it in perspective, cutting a wire 1 cm to short or a
1% variance in a ignitors wattage can convert a atomic bomb
into a nasty dirty bomb. There are unknown scenarios of
course, but the failure of a lens could send the a bomb like a
rocket into the upper atmosphere, or direct its explosion to
the next town over. An effective nuclear device detonation
altitude has a dependency on its yeild, the bomb is traveling
toward the ground between 200 and 2000 miles per hour with a
few 100 feet window of detonation. Once the signal is sent all
the electonics need to propogate detonation on all the lenses
at exactly the same moment coordinated with the flow of
neutrons into the core. Once this is complete the bomb needs
to be at optimal altitude. If the bomb detonates on the ground
(it wont detonate, it will simply explode) it will create a
deep crater with everyone for 1000s of miles around enjoying
the fall out. If it detonates too high, say couple of miles,
say over a city where houses have tile roofs, few buildings
knocked over, and the radioactivity ends up in the upper
atmosphere. There is a specific context for an atomic bomb
being this terrible thing that has frightened people since
1945. Uranium is expensive, but plutonium is a by product of
the nuclear industry, it is now an expensive waste to deal
with. In a free market one could trade say the removal for 3
lbs of Plutonium for 1 lb of Uranium (get it out of my
country). If we converted to fast breeder reactors however
that would be a non-issue.
What is true however is the effecacy of conventional bombs
has gone up markedly and the destructive yeilds in the kill
zone has increased by a magnitude of WWII class bombs. So that
it is possible to affects the exact same damage now with a
'educated' conventional bomb


--
Philip
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