4 ms·

This is the scariest thing I've read in a while. Plutonium itself inside of nuclear warheads is unstable?

XorNot 10y ago
Is it? This is completely unverifiable information (it's outside his area of expertise - operators are not nuclear physicists). He's extremely vague about what the danger is supposed to be (i.e. wikipedia has some notes on aging - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_allo... - it's not like there's a danger of an uncontrolled nuclear detonation.) Frankly: this is wikileaks. I'm giving it the side-eye these days.
- cletus 10y ago
  It was certainly news to me but it does seem to be well known. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_plutonium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_plutonium
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  The quote about plutonium comes from Jeremy Bernstein, on edge.org: Jeremy Bernstein Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology; Former Staff Writer, The New Yorker - https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10660 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10660 and: Bernstein studied at Harvard University, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1951, masters in 1953, and Ph.D. in 1955, on electromagnetic properties of deuterium, under Julian Schwinger. As a theoretical physicist, he worked on elementary particle physics and cosmology. A summer spent in Los Alamos led to a position at the Institute for Advanced Study.[2] In 1962 he became a faculty member at New York University, moving to become a professor of physics at Stevens Institute of Technology in 1967, a position that he continues to hold as Professor Emeritus.[3] He has held adjunct or visiting positions at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Oxford, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique.[4] He was also involved in Project Orion, investigating the potential for nuclear pulse propulsion for use in space travel. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bernstein#Education_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bernstein#Education_and... I didn't check wikipedia's references, but it looks to be worth more than the side-eye.
- LinuxFreedom 10y ago
  I wonder what value has this answer of an obvious non-expert to the question of an obvious non-expert. Would you like to provide any valuable content? I mean [non-alternative] factual content. Please understand that it is not of interest for the public what you think about wikileaks. Thanks!
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Worst that could happen is a toxic leak, I guess. Nuclear reactions are hard and they're enabled by some really high-precision engineering. Anything gets out of callibration, and your city-leveler turns into a very toxic but otherwise weak explosive.
VLM 10y ago
So is iron. At various temperatures iron changes its crystal structure from body-centered cubic to face-centered and back again to BCC and the amount of carbon that dissolves varies in each crystal structure, and you can hack the system by shock cooling to control the hardness of steel over a ridiculous range. That's a one line metallurgy degree, or "this chemistry fact resulted in the industrial revolution". Water is also unstable, I can't keep track of how many non-hexagonal ice structures exist under some weird pressure and temp diagram. 12 or so, maybe. You put ice under a couple hundred MPa and it gets all funky. On the topic of allotropes its depressing when you think everything out there has allotropes except thankfully maybe the nobel gasses like helium and then oh God there's liquid helium-II which isn't really an allotrope but its conceptually similar. It seems that most of learning chemistry is learning nothing is stable and nothing is as it superficially seems. Plutonium is scary creepy but for better or worse its not unusual.
tw04 10y ago
There's a reason we don't keep them near population centers. They didn't choose North Dakota for the amazing winters.

Is it? This is completely unverifiable information (it's outside his area of expertise - operators are not nuclear physicists). He's extremely vague about what the danger is supposed to be (i.e. wikipedia has some notes on aging - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_allo... - it's not like there's a danger of an uncontrolled nuclear detonation.) Frankly: this is wikileaks. I'm giving it the side-eye these days.

cletus 10y ago
It was certainly news to me but it does seem to be well known. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_plutonium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_plutonium
nothrabannosir 10y ago
The quote about plutonium comes from Jeremy Bernstein, on edge.org: Jeremy Bernstein Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology; Former Staff Writer, The New Yorker - https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10660 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10660 and: Bernstein studied at Harvard University, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1951, masters in 1953, and Ph.D. in 1955, on electromagnetic properties of deuterium, under Julian Schwinger. As a theoretical physicist, he worked on elementary particle physics and cosmology. A summer spent in Los Alamos led to a position at the Institute for Advanced Study.[2] In 1962 he became a faculty member at New York University, moving to become a professor of physics at Stevens Institute of Technology in 1967, a position that he continues to hold as Professor Emeritus.[3] He has held adjunct or visiting positions at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Oxford, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique.[4] He was also involved in Project Orion, investigating the potential for nuclear pulse propulsion for use in space travel. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bernstein#Education_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bernstein#Education_and... I didn't check wikipedia's references, but it looks to be worth more than the side-eye.
LinuxFreedom 10y ago
I wonder what value has this answer of an obvious non-expert to the question of an obvious non-expert. Would you like to provide any valuable content? I mean [non-alternative] factual content. Please understand that it is not of interest for the public what you think about wikileaks. Thanks!

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Worst that could happen is a toxic leak, I guess. Nuclear reactions are hard and they're enabled by some really high-precision engineering. Anything gets out of callibration, and your city-leveler turns into a very toxic but otherwise weak explosive.

VLM 10y ago

So is iron. At various temperatures iron changes its crystal structure from body-centered cubic to face-centered and back again to BCC and the amount of carbon that dissolves varies in each crystal structure, and you can hack the system by shock cooling to control the hardness of steel over a ridiculous range. That's a one line metallurgy degree, or "this chemistry fact resulted in the industrial revolution". Water is also unstable, I can't keep track of how many non-hexagonal ice structures exist under some weird pressure and temp diagram. 12 or so, maybe. You put ice under a couple hundred MPa and it gets all funky. On the topic of allotropes its depressing when you think everything out there has allotropes except thankfully maybe the nobel gasses like helium and then oh God there's liquid helium-II which isn't really an allotrope but its conceptually similar. It seems that most of learning chemistry is learning nothing is stable and nothing is as it superficially seems. Plutonium is scary creepy but for better or worse its not unusual.

tw04 10y ago

There's a reason we don't keep them near population centers. They didn't choose North Dakota for the amazing winters.