Talk:Nuclear weapon/Archive 1

message: I dislike the new introduction. I think a more general description of what they are is appropriate. As it currently stands, it gets too specific too quickly. →Raul654 20:28, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
:Ok, I added fixed it up. It's a lot better now, but (IMHO) there is still room for improvement. →Raul654 22:58, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
I fixed the grammar and the ambiguous phrasing. Bensaccount 23:03, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: I dispute the neutrality of this article because of often reverts of phrasing edits. (Bensaccount)
:Just because an article gets edited a lot doesn't mean its a NPOV violation. Please indicated what part of the article you think shows bias. →Raul654 23:17, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
Giving human traits to a nation is a bias. Bensaccount 23:24, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: I change a sentence in the first paragraph from:
:Apart from test explosions, nuclear weapons have been used only twice - during World War II by the United States against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
to
:Nuclear weapons have been used only twice for war, by the United States against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki duringWorld War II. They have been used many hundreds of times, however, for the nuclear testing undertaken by many countries. 
I found the sentence "Apart from test explosions, nuclear weapons have been used only twice," to be something around the lines of "Apart from cows, red meat is not eaten very often," or something absurd like that (it seemed to imply that nuclear weapons have not been used often, when in fact they have been used hundreds, if not thousands, of times in "peace"). And I thought a link to nuclear testing would be useful in that summary, too. --Fastfission 18:52, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change of wording 

message: Hi, folks.  I took a crack at the captions today.  Please look over them for accuracy and NPOV.  I tried to follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Captions in writing them.  Thanks! -- ke4roh 18:23, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)
:I'm not sure if saying that the Nagasaki mushroom cloud lifted nuclear fallout is technically correct; if it is, it's a wording that I've never seen used before. I also am not sure if the head of a mushroom cloud is a "radioactive fireball" technically speaking. But I don't see any NPOV problems, and I don't know for sure if those are accuracy problems, though I'll look through some reliable literature I have and see if similar wording comes up. (another thought I had, unrelated, is that there have got to be better fair use pictures of Hiroshima out there than the one with an ugly watermark on it) --Fastfission 21:26, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Captions 

message: A recent edit changed the rticle to claim that North Korea has performed a nuclear test.  Could someone give a reference?  I've seen an article (, probably referring to ) claiming they did an above-ground test (mushroom cloud and all) and the US government is somehow hushing it up (see Ryanggang explosion and nuclear testing).  I've seen an article () that claims that North Korea did a nuclear test in Pakistan (which would necessarily be underground, since it is supposed to be camouflaged as a Pakistani nuclear test).  Neither article is convincing enough that I'm comfortable claiming there was a test in this article.  Discussion in North Korea and weapons of mass destruction, with appropriate references, would of coure be fine.  So:
Does anyone have a reference for the claim that N. Korea has tested a nuclear weapon? --Andrew 06:09, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
:The recent edit was nonsense, I reverted it. If anyone seriously thought North Korea had performed a test, trust me, you'd know, because it'd be on the cover of every news source in the world. There are many reasons why credible sources don't think that North Korea has yet to produce a test (if the Ryanggang explosion was nuclear it would have been very easy for labs all over the world to tell based on its fallout; I've never heard anybody credible report on this supposed Pakistani test, and there's no reason to think that North Korea was further ahead in their program than Pakistan was). When they test, you'll know. --Fastfission 20:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  North Korean nuclear testing 

message: I'm just not sure that antimatter weapons belong on this page.  The section repeatedly admits that they are not nuclear weapons.  The only things they have in common with nuclear weapons are that they're "high-tech" and could make a big boom.  Moreover, it may not be possible to turn antimatter into an efficient weapon because the energy release of such a weapon would be less than the energy required to create it (because creation of antimatter would not be 100% efficient).  Still, I don't want to completely erase this section without some kind of consensus.
Either way, I've moved the sentence about a hypothetical method of storing antimatter over to the Antimatter weapon page. TomTheHand 14:16, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)
:Antimatter annihilation can be a kind of nuclear reaction, though; if an antiproton hits the nucleus of an atom it's going to result in an atom with one fewer protons (and quite possibly smash the nucleus up even more than that from the resulting energy release and side reactions). Also, the efficiency is irrelevant as far as weapons are concerned since they're not being used to generate energy, only store it compactly and release it in a sudden burst. Bryan 03:54, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This page already mentions how they are different from other nuclear weapons and that their grouping here is somewhat uncertain. Since it's a matter of definition and reasonable people can differ on it, I think it's quite reasonable to have a mention here. Most of the material about them is already over at the antimatter weapon article anyway. As for the fact that they're theoretical and may never come into use doesn't stop there from being a section on cobalt bombs here. And finally, no, efficiency really isn't of primary importance. You could use the same amount of energy to produce millions of rounds of rifle ammunition but that doesn't mean that rifle ammunition is the right thing to use for a job. Someone who's building a weapon is not going to be worrying about whether he can use it to generate enough power to pay for itself, he's going to worry about whether it can destroy enough to pay for itself. Whether antimatter bombs can do that is a much more complex issue than simply comparing joules in vs. joules out would suggest. Bryan 01:53, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: No problem, that's the whole point of talk: pages. :) Although I think it's reasonable to have a section on antimatter weapons here, if you think the current one is still too extensive or detailed I certainly wouldn't object to moving some more of its contents over to the antimatter weapon article; I figure one paragraph is about enough for a decent summary but there's currently two paragraphs here. Bryan 00:39, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antimatter weapons 

message: Can someone tell me how much distance is affected by H-bombs (in miles), say 50 KT? Give me a radius or graph please.
:Here's a page that might help: Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator. Plugging in .05 MT (50 kt), we get: a fireball with a radius of 160 m (525 ft), which kills nearly everybody within a 1 km (0.6 mi) radius, causes massive structural damage for 2.7 km (1.7 mi), and third-degree burns to exposed people within a 3.4 km (2.1 mi) radius. Fun! --Fastfission 06:39, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help! Tell me nuclear yield in DISTANCE! 

message: I moved this section to a separate article, Nuclear weapons in popular culture. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest. --BM 12:38, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  In popular culture 

message: It would be nice to move the delivery section to its own article; at the moment it constitutes the bulk of this page.  But I don't really know if it would make a reasonable article. --Andrew 16:35, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
:I think an article on Nuclear weapons delivery would be great, actually. I'll see if I have time to start it up and then port this info over there. The various forms of delivery have lots of implication for wartime strategy, testing, design, proliferation, etc., have been involved in a number of big political controversies (i.e. the MX Missile Debate in the 1980s), and a number of treaties (i.e. MIRVs being used to circumvent restrictions on the number of missiles which don't specify the number of warheads as a separate concern). --Fastfission 17:00, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The main problem with it is it doesn't seem to have any citation information (see WP:CITE). If you can provide at least one notable author's opinion on this topic, then we can include it (attributable). If it just something you came up with, that is original research, which is also prohibited (WP:NOR). --Fastfission 03:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delivery 

message: (Discussion moved to Talk:Ballotechnics) --Fastfission 22:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ballotechnics

message: What are these flares (smoke trails) on some of the nuclear explosion photos called - i know there is an article here on the english wikipedia that discusses them. --Abdull 22:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd guess it's for optical tracking of the blast wave. Where's the article? Link? --Shaddack 00:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, they are used for tracking the blast wave. There is a nice page on them here. --Fastfission 01:22, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I think I'm gonna put up an article called Smoke trails. --Abdull 00:11, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flares 

message: I didn't see any mention of EMP (electromagnetic pulse) in the article. Can someone add it?
:Done. --Fastfission 00:07, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  EMP 

message: The MOAB is about 8000 kilos of high explosive (HE), which is 8 metric tons.  Tiny nukes, such as the one dropped on Hiroshima, are in the 10-20 kiloton (KT) range (i.e. 10,000-20,000 metric tons of TNT).  Even if the HE used in the MOAB is more powerful than TNT, it isn't by much, and so the MOAB probably weighs in at about .008 KT, which is a sneeze compared to a nuke.  I'm going to revise the sentence to make the comparison more useful.  There is talk of "suitcase nukes," but even they would come in at about .1 KT, so it's still not even remotely close.  You're still talking about hundreds of MOABs to be the equivalent of one baby nuke.
btw, thanks fastfission...you lived up to your name and edited it faster than i could, and yours is less wordy that what I was going to do (comparison to MOAB and Grand Slam etc.).  Binkymagnus 19:24, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
:No problem -- it made sense once you pointed it out. --Fastfission 02:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A couple of points: First, the fact that a bomb does not have to carry its own oxygen does not make it any more relevant on a page on nuclear weapons.  Second, do you have a source stating that the MOAB is a thermobaric bomb?  Globalsecurity.org states  that the MOAB contains either tritonal or a slurry of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum, and our own page on tritonal says that it's used in the MOAB. TomTheHand 18:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  as noted in the previous entry here (and per the Global Security site), the MOAB uses either a gelled slurry explosive or tritonal.  both of which have relatively high thermobaric effects.  But the MOAB is not/not an FAE.  Looking at the mpeg of a MOAB test on the global security site, based solely on the size of the intial fireball, it certainly seems that the MOAB has enhanced thermobaric effects (either from the aluminum powder in tritonal or due to the GSX).  But of course, a low quality mpeg is a poor way to judge such things.  anyway, the bottom line is, while the MOAB makes a big boom, a nuke makes a ! REALLY REALLY BIG BOOM !, and they are not really worth comparing beyond that.  If a MOAB went off next to a nuke, even a small one, you wouldn't notice. Binkymagnus 01:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MOAB? 

message: USSTRATCOM is the steward command of US nuclear weapons.
:Okay. I'll add that to the "Agencies" section of Nuclear weapons and the United States, which is where it really belongs. Thanks. --Fastfission 21:14, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  We are new to Wikipedia and are just starting to figure out how things are organized. --JamesGraybeal 22:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear Weapon Stewardship 

message: For perhaps five years there have been press reports about the development of "mini nukes" for "bunker busting" using "hydrogen". These stories have become active again. I now realise that there is something physical in this because by controlling the mixture, dilution and size of a fusion bomb core the fusion component can be reduced to any value down to zero; but there would remain the fission detonator so we are down to an atom bomb. A mini nuke implies an alternative method of detonation. How does this work ? This appears relevant to proliferation, supervision amd nuclear power.
:It sounds like what you are talking about are not true hydrogen bombs but various types of boosted weapons. Boosting increases efficiency of weapons which means that you can use much lower amounts of fissile material, which along with improvements in explosive lenses, would certainly allow for increased miniaturization. The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is supposed to range from a sub-kiloton to 340 kilotons in 
performance, both of which are well in the range of previous nuclear weapons tests. It is not hard to get down below a kiloton -- you could probably do it by purposefully fizzling -- but it is fairly wasteful in terms of energy per dollar, as I understand it. So I'm not sure there needs to be an alternative method of detonation. If there are methods of detonation not discussed in the nuclear weapons design article, they are not known in the public domain. --Fastfission 16:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  mini nukes 

message: I think we should drop the weapons delivery section and turn it into an article about nuclear weapons and policy/politics. I've already dumped the current content at Nuclear weapon delivery systems. The changes in delivery systems (and how they affect strategy, etc.) can be integrated into the article without as many details (especially since only one or two nations at most have all of these delivery systems). Additionally, a separate section for proliferation might be worthwhile as well. Thoughts? --Fastfission 18:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement suggestion

message: the wiki is one of the more shameful that i have seen.   one of the pivotal members of the manhattan project has said that the destructive power of atomic/nuclear weapons is so great that they're only possible purpose is massive slaughter of civilians.  it should be obvious to anyone:  a multimegaton weapon represents the complete opposite of controlled, 'precision' warfare.  i once put his quote into the wiki, since it's obviously a crucial part of any survey of nuclear weapons, especially considering the particular commentator's credentials.   but apparently, a disturbing fact that finds its way into a wiki is deemed unsuitable, or "POV", by the stewards here, and erased in short order.   quite disgracefully there seems to be no use to recovering the information and re-contributing it in its proper place.
at the time when i added the citation, i also clarified the passage that compares the weapons used against hiroshima and nagasaki to [modern] "tactical" weapons.   that notion is an ill-conceived argument that has arisen from the fact that the destructive yield of those weapons was comparable to modern "tactical" weapons, and does not remotely approach the destructive potential of modern "strategic" weapons.   what is the point of that passage?    the two weapons were limited by the technology available at the time, they were not limited by "tactical" considerations.    but yet again, if i add that-- which is not just a caveat, but a crucial fact--  it will be erased in short order.   this is one of the more disheartening examples of wiki contributors being unable to admit into discussion the more disturbing and essential facts of a particular subject. --anon
*All things added to Wikipedia are stored in its "history" and can indeed be recovered. But Wikipedia has a rigid standard of Neutral Point Of View, which generally prevents tirades for or against any particular thing from getting into articles (it would be just as inappropriate to have a rant against nuclear weapons as it would be to have a rant for one). I don't know what your particular addition was, so I can't offer any advice on that. I took a look at the "tactical" note again and tried to improve it. Anyway, I think you'll find, if you stick around a bit and put in an honest and good faith effort, that things are a bit more open than you are characterizing them, and that a little polite discussion on a talk page can work a lot better than an annoyed rant. --Fastfission 06:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "slaughter"

message: A-bomb has a seperate article, even though A-Bomb (small B) redirects here, can someone who knows more about whats going on here sort it out thanks! Martin 22:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's badly written, inaccurate and very badly formatted.  However, if the information it contains is not a copyvio, it could find a home somewhere on Wikipedia.  I don't think that much detail belongs on either nuclear weapon or nuclear weapon design,
_____________________________________________________________________________
 but if some extraneous stuff was removed and the article were cleaned up it would be a good start for an article on fission weapon or fission bomb for people who want more detail than nuclear weapon design offers.  
That is exactly what it was intended to be. Tmayes1999
 I listed it on Pages Needing Attention, so hopefully it will get some Wiki love. TomTheHand 23:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is, at best, repetitive of information already better presented in other articles. There are a number of simple errors on it which do not bode well for the other content in it. It should just be redirected here. The detail is mostly superfluous and speculative; it is material for specialist websites and not encyclopedias.  If such detail is really desired, better named articles would be things like gun-type fission bomb and implosion-type fission bomb, not the ridiculous "A-bomb", which is an abbreviated form of a name which was non-specialist even when it was first used. --Fastfission 17:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  You might want to cut-and-paste this down to the "Notice of Request for Comment" section, as that's where most of the active discussion on the fate of A-bomb is. --Christopher Thomas 17:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-bomb 

message: As it does not appear that an amicable solution to the contention over A-bomb will appear, I've filed for a Request for Arbitration. Tmayes1999, Christopher Thomas, Fastfission, and DV8 2XL are named as involved parties. --Christopher Thomas 04:12, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest that you look over Wikipedia:Ownership of articles before you continue, it might save you a great deal of trouble DV8 2XL 04:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Notice of Request for Arbitration

message: The version of the nuclear weapon article that is here is not very good. 
It is vague,insuficiently detailed, incomplete, and has some factual 
inaccuracys, and physics errors  in it. Some parts of this  article 
are very unsatifactory.* It needs  revision.
Tmayes1999
: I've moved this comment to where it should be on the talk page. In the future, please 1) start new threads at the bottom of the page, 2) make a heading for them, and 3) sign and datestamp your posts using four "~" marks. These are automatically converted into a signature for you. --Christopher Thomas 20:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Concerns with this article

message: While we're on the subject of improvements, there are two things I would do to this article to make it a bit stronger on the whole:
#Make a separate page for nuclear weapons delivery, and put the current section on that there. Each of those subsections could be expanded, especially in their relation to nuclear strategy (i.e. SLBMs and MIRVs put you in a very different strategic situation than just gravity bombs, and were created for specific strategic purposes). Collapse the current section into a sub-section talking about the relationship between delivery mechanism, design, and strategy.
#Expand the history section. We only reserve a few sentences for such important issues as nuclear proliferation and the Cold War, both of which in my mind are integral to understanding nuclear weapons. 
Thoughts on these ideas? --Fastfission 17:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree esp. the first point; delivery is not getting the attention it deserves here and would swamp this article if it did. DV8 2XL 17:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Breaking out delivery sounds like a useful idea as long as enough reputable sources can be cited for the expanded material. I'm not sure expanding history much more is a good idea, though - after all, that's what history of nuclear weapons is for. As long as each relevant topic is briefly described, I don't think additional information should be on nuclear weapon (it's already a long section). Maybe flesh out several options for modifying the article, and start another RFC to comment on them? I've been encouraging users elsewhere to do that before making major changes to an article's structure. --Christopher Thomas 20:15, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: OK I did the split-out of Nuclear weapons delivery to its own topic, but left header. Can't think of what to put in right now, so help yourselves. If no one wants to I'll put something in latter. Right now I'm working on the new topic. DV8 2XL 18:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A few recommended improvements