3 ms·
> More qualified people will correct me, but I think there is more to it than dropping a piece of fissile material over another “With modern weapons-grade uran
by 6d0debc071 13y ago
> More qualified people will correct me, but I think there is more to it than dropping a piece of fissile material over another
“With modern weapons-grade uranium, the background neutron rate is so low that terrorists, if they have such material, would have a good chance of setting off a high-yield explosion simply by dropping one half of the material onto the other half. Most people seem unaware that if separated HEU [Highly Enriched Uranium] is at hand it’s a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion … even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order.” - Luis Alvarez, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1988
The key being, as I understand it, actually getting weapons-grade material of sufficient purity. Though the actual design of a practical, controlled and efficient, weapon would doubtless be more somewhat more complex. For which the n-th country project is well worth reading about:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science
- fitumpich 13y agoThat is correct. i work in nuclear material security and safeguards. For what I can say, which isn't much, it's the security of the material (HEU and Pu) that makes it hard to make a bomb. Its hard to enrich, and furthermore you need HEU or Pu. LEU won't get you a big boom. Without enough enrichment, no Bomb. Theft and diversion is a big deal with Pu and HEU for this very reason. Which is why access to either has a two man rule. And because you can safely handle Pu and HEU,(its just an alpha and criticality hazard so unless you inhale or eat them, or you have bad geometry it's no big deal), that makes it vital that you carefully account for all of it. It won't kill the thief, and you don't need much Pu for a bomb.