A very scary picture... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 05:04:06 am
content: Technology/engineering related - What is wrong with the attached picture? And why did taking it cost up to $1.3M per day?Give up? -http://bit.ly/2rMHTQ1

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 05:27:26 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 21, 2017, 05:12:19 amBut it would have been nice if they were not doing dumb things while doing it...Actually weren't Exploding Bridge Wire detonators developed as the original triggers for Fat Man, because the could be precisely timed - apparently electronics is more predictable than chemistry.Maybe they are just using more of them now.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding-bridgewire_detonator

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 07:04:57 am
content: AFAIK there is no actual blue glow unless the radiation passes at near C through a medium that has a 'velocity factor' lower than C so it's actually the vitreous humor in your eyeballs glowing that you see.Meaning you're in deep trouble.A morbid curiosity makes me wonder if someone watching an eyeball being exposed to that level of radiation would glow blue out of the pupil though it's not something I would ever wish to see...I would of course much prefer that nobody be making warheads but sadly the 'super powers' smashed the bottle and ground it to dust when that particular genie was set free.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 08:00:09 am
content: Guessing those are isotope pellets, like uranium or something? What's scary is that it looks rather harmless, but you'd probably lose your whole hand if you picked it up.Is simple exposure to it actually dangerous with a piece that size?

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 08:21:10 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 21, 2017, 08:00:09 amIt is somebody 'accidentally' putting a very unsafe amount of plutonium, all in the same place, very close to each other, without physical barriers, to take a photo. Possibly enough to go critical if improperly arranged.Taking that photo led to the shutting down the US lab that studies and manufactures plutonium weapons parts for literally years, until they were able to make the work practices safe again.The lab shutdown also delayed years of stockpile stewardship/testing.link is a very interesting read....

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 08:33:28 am
content: Quote from: CJay on June 21, 2017, 07:04:57 amTBH i think the genie was always going to be with us, it was just a consequence of understanding physics and not something you can unlearn.With that said, the cold-war nuclear arms race was caused by two utterly paranoid countries and completely avoidable! I wonder if the USA and Russia hadn't been making their stockpiles as big as they did, that some of the smaller nuclear states just wouldn't have bothered making their own due to the costs.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 08:49:39 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 21, 2017, 08:00:09 amit's mostly an alpha emitter so don't hold it or eat it! Only when you put too much in one spot does it start to go critical and things get interesting, if you do this fast enough you can make it go bang, which is how the fat man device worked.It's an interesting article and worth a read, especially talking about how things in the environment can reflect and absorb neutrons. If something starts to go critical it is best to separate the parts rather than run away as you might reveal or block other things around you with your neutron shadow and make it worse!

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 08:50:29 am
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on June 21, 2017, 08:21:10 amHomer posted a good vid on the dangers of criticality in this thread:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/criticality-the-dangers-of-critical-mass-1969/

author: jimdeane
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2017, 10:13:27 pm
content: I don't know how much Pu is there in total, but any time you get any amount of Pu together in the same place, you need to be extremely careful.Like, way more careful than letting cylindrical pieces that could roll together into a critical configuration just sit on a flat surface together.BTW, fat man was a Pu implosion device. Subcritical as assembled, but with a big enough explosive spherical shock wave, it would compress and become supercritical. Little boy was the gun device, and used uranium.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2017, 06:59:08 am
content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

author: CopperCone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2017, 09:42:04 pm
content: is that stock material for dildos

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2017, 03:03:57 am
content: Plutonium is also pyrophoric. It can ignite spontaneously.It may have caused the Rocky Flats catastrophe of 1957:https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/a-september-11th-catastrophe-youve-probably-never-heard-about/261959/

author: JulietMikeBravo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2017, 06:10:13 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 21, 2017, 08:00:09 amYou will not lose your hand picking up a piece of plutonium. The alpha radiation cannot penetrate your skin. If you wash your hands afterwards you should be fine. Shorter half life gamma and beta emitters such as fission products like Cs-137, Co-60 are far more dangerous radiologically.The situation in this picture is also far more dangerous than a single, small piece of plutonium. If the pellets were to come too close to eachother, a nuclear chain reaction would cause a criticality event, exposing people to large amounts of gammas and neutrons and causing geiger counters to. Criticality accidents are BAD, look em up on wikipedia.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2017, 02:56:15 am
content: One of the things that scares me about pictures like this is the possibility that smart people who are not already members of the club might spend some time thinking about why these particular shapes existed, and that might move them closer to becoming club members. I don't know enough to know if this is a concern with these particular pictures, but see no reason to spread this type of information around.Just having existing club members is bad enough.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2017, 04:51:57 am
content: Somewhat detailed explanations exist in many books. A few hint at subtle problems and ways around these. The hints are also subtle and would be missed by many. If it was truly easy the north Koreans would not have so many fizzles and there would be many club members.I am glad that every Tom, Dick and Harry can't put these together , and that so few of those who can actually do.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2017, 05:57:19 am
content: I'd really like ti know who thought that It would have been a good idea to have a private contractor run a nuclear weapons factoring?I mean, i know that in the USA there is this cult for Money, profit and whatnot, but time and time again It has been proven that a Company will always put moneys before safety just look at the reportage of the CSB, who is in charge of investigating accidents and near misses in the chemically Sector, the basta majority of accidents involve in some way badly trained overworked staff and/or lack of proper manteinance, both of which are quite pricy

author: JulietMikeBravo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2017, 11:27:00 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 25, 2017, 03:06:36 amPu-239 requires additional effort of designing the explosive lenses system to make a working bomb, and detailed designs are classified. The U-235 route requires access to uranium ore and very expensive ultracentrifuges (again, classified designs).Quote from: blueskull on June 25, 2017, 04:57:54 amUranium enrichment involves the separation of two isotopes that are almost the same. It is -way- beyond what washing machines do. There is no "smoke", there is no easy way to enrich uranium. Otherwise we would have "noticed" it by now.