From: wengland@stephsf.com (Bill England)
Subject: Book Review: The Curve of Binding Energy (Was: Mini-Atomics)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 01:29:35 GMT
Organization: Stephen Software Systems Inc., Tacoma/Seattle, +1 800 829 1684
X-Bytes: 3113

  Good Timing!

  I just finished reading "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee.
  For a Biography of a relatively unknow Bomb Physicst (to me anyway)
  it turned out to be EXCELENT!


  Some Highlights 

  This is NOT Sci-Fi.  It is also NOT one of those Anti-Nuke eco books
  either.  The book presents the development of Fission/Fusion bombs
  after the second world war from the perspective of Theodore B. Taylor.

  Ted was responsible for several major advances in Fision bombs. (His
  term, apperently he prefers to call them bombs rather than weapons,
  or devices because it keeps their potential in a more rational 
  perspective.)   Among his accomplishments are:
  

   o	He designed "Davy Crockett" once the lightest fision bomb
	weighing in at less than 50 pounds, complete.

   o   He designed "The Super Oralloy Bomb"  which is the largest
       yeild fission bomb ever detonated.

   o   "Hamlet" which was the most efficient fission bomb ever
       detonated in  the kiloton range.

   o	Ted Taylor CONCIEVED of, designed, and built "working" 
	models of ORION.

  Another interesting feature of the book is a subplot where the 
  author is trying to figure out Fusion bombs and Ted gives
  indirect and subtle clues.  Its very ammusing to watch the 
  author guess and have Ted say "No, but good try ..."  (I actually
  think the author did figure it out in the end but thought
  better of publishing it.)

  In all the book does answer the question of how much nuclear material
  it  takes to build a fission bomb. Theoreticaly you can build
  a bomb with an amount of PL less than the size of a pea.  That
  has not been done of course but only because we lack the skill
  and technology.  The actuall amount of material varies greatly 
  depending on the amount of shielding (to reflect, contain, neutrons.)
  and how dense your plastic explosive can compress the plutonium.
  The Feds once considered 5Kg a "significant" amount of  U235 and
  2Kg of PL.

  Teds major concern today is the growing amount of plutonium in
  the world and the lack of safegards upon it.  His belief is that
  unless we put tighter rains on the material we  will simply
  have to learn to live with nukes going off every few years 
  from one group or another.

  Summary

  This shows once again that real science, done by real people
  who are alive today is far more interesting than some of the
  best fiction ever written.  Ted, who has designed and built
  prototypes of a working and inexpensive intersteller spaceship,
  and who has actually built the working "engines" (Ted would
  again call them bombs :-)   ) to run it, impresses me far/far 
  more than Niven or Pornell who have only written about it.


  PS.
    Anyone up for a trip to Saturn?  I'll pack my things ...

-- 
 +-  Bill England,  wengland@stephsf.COM -----------------------------------+
 |   * *      H -> He +24MeV                                                |
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