3 ms·
> Since hydrogen fusion lies at the heart of hydrogen bombs, the researchers were quite naturally alarmed at their findings. So much so that they considered not
by colanderman 9y ago
> Since hydrogen fusion lies at the heart of hydrogen bombs, the researchers were quite naturally alarmed at their findings. So much so that they considered not publishing their results. But subsequent calculations showed that it would be impossible to cause a chain reaction with quarks because they exist for too short a period of time—approximately one picosecond—not long enough to set off another baryon. They decay into much smaller, less dangerous lighter quarks.
I found this the most interesting part of the article. I wonder what, if any, groundbreaking research has been hidden by its discoverers due to its potential for misuse.
- jogundas 9y agoProbably not, as it would have been rapidly rediscovered. Particle physics is a large and active field of research.
- klodolph 9y agoThis isn’t exactly the same thing, but differential cryptanalysis was known to IBM as early as 1974, and to the NSA even earlier. The techniques didn’t appear in published works until the late 1980s.
- empath75 9y agoI hope that people are keeping a lot of virus research under wraps, because at some point the ability to construct random genomes from scratch is going to get easy and inexpensive enough for terrorists to knock together.
- otakucode 9y agoAnd you want to make sure that whatever the hypothetical terrorists whip up has never had any research done on its pathology, cure, or vaccine?