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This is not surprising at all. The first bombs were made when nuclear physics was not well understood, and the Las Almos computer, was a group of humans working
by abdullahkhalids 4y ago
This is not surprising at all. The first bombs were made when nuclear physics was not well understood, and the Las Almos computer, was a group of humans working in an assembly line to perform complex calculations by hand. These calculations were required to understand the interaction of the various pieces.
A few decades later, the theories of nuclear physics had advanced considerably, IC computers were available for rapid calculations, the algorithms required for these calculations were present in textbooks, as were the results of many computations that did not have to be redone.
Today, designing every aspect of a nuclear weapon, from the actual weapon itself to the machines and factories required to manufacture them, is even easier. The only real deterrent to countries building nuclear weapons are political in nature. Probably over a hundred countries could do it very rapidly if they wanted to, but thankfully we are limited to about a dozen of them.
This is something to reflect on, when arguing that the spread of bad technology, especially one that does require many millions to manufacture, cannot be stopped.
- brucethemoose2 4y agoNuclear bombs are essentially unprofitable and impossible to use anonymously, so they aren't really analogous to most dangerous tech that needs to be controlled.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoThe armed forces you need to keep neighboring rivals or meddling first world powers out of your borders are also highly unprofitable
- throwaway426079 4y agoYou're right. But I don't think profit is everyone's first concern. The Kim dynasty needs the DPRK army as a tool of internal control more than it does for defense.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoThe benefits that gives them are very much a type of profit.
- dilznoofus 4y agoAnd a few million bucks isn't hard to come by when you're in control of an entire country Even if it's as poor as NK, the guy who commands it can have more material riches than most of us can really consider
- dumbotron 4y agoYou don't use a nuclear bomb. Well, maybe once, somewhere remote. The idea is once you do, you can do anything you want. Want to annex Ukraine? Want to run a country where you're the dear leader? All you need is a nuke.
- brucethemoose2 4y agoThats another differentiator though. Most dangerous tech is more a "temptation to misuse" rather than a largely unusable (but effective) threat to wave around like a nuke or a biological WMD.
- ianburrell 4y agoOne thing is that is easy to develop an inefficient atomic bomb. It is harder to develop one small enough to be delivered and/or thermonuclear bomb. Also, acquiring the material has always been the hard part. It requires nuclear reactors then reprocessing the waste to get plutonium. Or enriching uranium to get U-235. There is term, nuclear latency, for countries that could easily develop nuclear weapons. Some identified ones are Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Australia, Argentina, South Korea, and Taiwan. Japan is special case with 50 tons of plutonium.
- Vecr 4y agoHow about Canada? At one point I'm pretty sure they could have done it quickly, but have they lost capability?
- jszymborski 4y agoCanada is the second largest supplier of Uranium if my memory serves me. It also has few CANDU reactors. If the article is correct in that a couple of physics grad students could make a design in the 60s that could be made in an average machine shop, im sure its the case Canada retains the ability. Not sure our economy wouldnt collapse as a result though.
- southernplaces7 4y agoCanada could very easily produce nuclear weapons, even at scale, if it wanted to. The U.S. would likely even help them in doing so if the government requested the assistance. As you say, it's one of the worlds main suppliers of uranium, already possesses highly advanced nuclear technology and facilities, and has the institutional know-how to be a nuclear power with low relative cost and minimal external interference. If even South Africa made and (supposedly, see below) tested a nuclear weapon way back in the 70's, many countries today and especially Canada could do so with little economic or technical difficulty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
- ianburrell 4y ago
- ddulaney 4y agoI came away with a very different understanding from the article. > Back in the 50s, there were two schools of thought - that the ideas could be kept secret, and that the material could be locked up. Now? Well, hopefully the materials can still be locked up, but we all have our doubts about that. This experiment showed that designing the bomb was the easy part, but manufacturing is still a challenge. Even today, nuclear nonproliferation is largely about making it hard to acquire enough fissile material to make a weapon. Everything from the structure of anti-nuclear treaties to things like Stuxnet is designed around making it impractical to actually manufacture a nuclear weapon, even if you have the design. > Probably over a hundred countries could do it very rapidly if they wanted to Only if "rapidly" is measured in years to decades in any reasonable scenario.
- FpUser 4y ago>"...making it hard to acquire enough fissile material to make a weapon." Which may stop becoming hard if country like Russia decides thar it has nothing to loose and will start selling.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoRisky move, what do they gain? Like in exchange for war material?
- thfuran 4y agoIf nothing else, allied nuclear powers.
- dilznoofus 4y agoWhich is not small If you have one nuclear weapon, you can probably get away with setting up an enrichment framework to produce more without sweating too much.
- FpUser 4y agoWhat do they risk? More sanctions? They're already there up to their gills
- alexpotato 4y agoThere was a post (I believe here on HN) several years ago about a guy who made improvised weapons in airports using only things that were available in Duty Free aka after you had gone through security. He had all kinds of things: stun guns, flamethrower, club etc. The details are kind of secondary to a point someone made in the comments: "This guy has clearly demonstrated that it's trivial to do all of the things necessary to build these things and take over an airplane. The fact that no one has done so in the past couple years has made me seriously question if: a. anyone is trying (probably not) b. given (a), do we really need all of this security theater?" The original post reminds me of the above.
- ceejayoz 4y agoHonestly, between a) armored cockpit doors and b) the knowledge (both passengers, and pilots) of what happens if you let hijackers into the cockpit, a 9/11 style attack isn't likely to ever happen again.
- BobbyJo 4y agoTrabal knowledge gets forgotten too, just over longer timespans. One day, planes will fly with no one on board having been alive when 9/11 happened. They may not make the same assumptions about intent as adults today do. "Ever" again is a little long to be so sure.
- bsder 4y ago"Tribal knowledge" of airplane hijackings was why 9/11 worked initially. People sat still because a "standard" airplane hijacking meant going to some odd airport while a bunch of "freedom fighters" got their 15 minutes of fame and then everybody on the plane got safely released a week or two later. Once people realized that the 9/11 hijackings instead were suicide runs, the "tribal knowledge" broke and people didn't sit still anymore (see: the fourth plane on 9/11 or the shoe bomber).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]