So, who wants to win 1 million Euro?

[Jason Thompson]

There was also an item which may explain some of his animosity for the US, at least; evidently he holds part of a patent on a "safer" design for supertankers called the Coulombi Egg. The design has been approved by the International Maritime Organization

Although apparently they approved it despite not understanding it because the concept was 'too sophisticated for the IMO delegates to grasp'!

[Andromeda]

See my post above - there's no such thing as a fission or fission/fusion explosion, so all that stuff was a giant hoax.

I'm speechless.

I guess there were no victims or survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

I guess there were no victims of the many criticality accidents in the USA, Russia, Japan, etc, like Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin.

I guess nuclear power has never produced electricity or driven a ship or submarine.

I guess there never were 1500+ test nuclear explosions around the world.

I guess the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents never happened. All those short-lived radioactive substances in the environment that could only be produced as fission products? Never existed.

Nope.  He specifically states that no atomic weapons ever went off in Japan.

[ka9q]

Uranium-235 (U-235) is a metal like iron that can be shaped into target rings and projectile rings. Imagine drilling a dia 1" hole in a target ring. Aren't you worried it will EXPLODE?

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

[Andromeda]

Uranium-235 (U-235) is a metal like iron that can be shaped into target rings and projectile rings. Imagine drilling a dia 1" hole in a target ring. Aren't you worried it will EXPLODE?

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

But that's not the situation Heiwa is on about.  He can't seem to decide if all Uranium is on the point of unleashing a hellish firestorm or if it's all fake!

[Zakalwe]

Nope.  He specifically states that no atomic weapons ever went off in Japan.

I guess the nuclear subs not far from me never existed either.

I had better jump in the car and go to the twin nuclear reactors that are about 4 miles from me. I will tell the 900 staff and contractors that they are working under a massive fraud....

[Zakalwe]

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

Indeed. As John Bistline, Harry Daghlian, Louis Slotin and others found out to their peril.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

[Andromeda]

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

Indeed. As John Bistline, Harry Daghlian, Louis Slotin and others found out to their peril.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

Important quote from that link: "None have resulted in explosions."

I don't think Heiwa understands how nuclear weapons work, unsurprisingly.  I think he is mixing the processes up with those of chemical explosives.

[Noldi400]

I'm having a quick browse online.

Heiwa believes that you "publish" scientific research merely by putting it on your own website.  Dunning-Kruger indeed.

His abuse of the Unuversity of Strathclyde is appalling.

And somehow he manages to use the phrase "peer-reviewed" as a perjorative (when referring to papers published by others).

I also think that he has no concept of Earth and Luna as a Two-Body system. It doesn't really require a classic Hohmann orbit to reach the moon from Earth orbit; just raise your apoapse enough and you're there.

In fact, Gene Cernan recounts that, in order to beat the Soviets to sending a manned vehicle around the moon, there was serious discussion at NASA about sending Gemini 12 there. Since other Gemini flights had demonstrated the ability to dock with an Agena already in orbit and use its engine to raise their orbit, the engineers figured they could increase the thrust of an Agena enough to make a circumlunar orbit. Luckily, according to Cernan, "... they came to their senses and recognized a really bad idea when they had one."

[Daggerstab]

I did warn about Heiwa's... ideas about nuclear weapons in the very first post of this thread, and I even linked to the page. Does anyone read threads from the beginning any more?

[Andromeda]

I did warn about Heiwa's... ideas about nuclear weapons in the very first post of this thread, and I even linked to the page. Does anyone read threads from the beginning any more?

Sorry

[Noldi400]

See my post above - there's no such thing as a fission or fission/fusion explosion, so all that stuff was a giant hoax.

I'm speechless.

I guess there were no victims or survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

I guess there were no victims of the many criticality accidents in the USA, Russia, Japan, etc, like Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin.

I guess nuclear power has never produced electricity or driven a ship or submarine.

I guess there never were 1500+ test nuclear explosions around the world.

I guess the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents never happened. All those short-lived radioactive substances in the environment that could only be produced as fission products? Never existed.

Oh, he thinks fission works - IF you moderate the neutrons. That's his rationale about fission explosions - fast neutrons can't cause a chain reaction no matter how much enriched U-235 you put together.  But you're right, he should ask the ghost of  Louis Slotin if he still thinks tickling dragons with a screwdriver is a good idea.

[Jason Thompson]

I did warn about Heiwa's... ideas about nuclear weapons in the very first post of this thread, and I even linked to the page. Does anyone read threads from the beginning any more?

I must confess I missed that. Apologies.

[Andromeda]

See my post above - there's no such thing as a fission or fission/fusion explosion, so all that stuff was a giant hoax.

I'm speechless.

I guess there were no victims or survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

I guess there were no victims of the many criticality accidents in the USA, Russia, Japan, etc, like Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin.

I guess nuclear power has never produced electricity or driven a ship or submarine.

I guess there never were 1500+ test nuclear explosions around the world.

I guess the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents never happened. All those short-lived radioactive substances in the environment that could only be produced as fission products? Never existed.

Oh, he thinks fission works - IF you moderate the neutrons. That's his rationale about fission explosions - fast neutrons can't cause a chain reaction no matter how much enriched U-235 you put together.  But you're right, he should ask the ghost of  Louis Slotin if he still thinks tickling dragons with a screwdriver is a good idea.

TBH I skipped over a lot of it because it was just too awful.

[Noldi400]

Uranium-235 (U-235) is a metal like iron that can be shaped into target rings and projectile rings. Imagine drilling a dia 1" hole in a target ring. Aren't you worried it will EXPLODE?

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

It wasn't - he's talking about the Little Boy bomb there. It had 15 (14?) rings that went into making up the critical mass.

I did warn about Heiwa's... ideas about nuclear weapons in the very first post of this thread, and I even linked to the page. Does anyone read threads from the beginning any more?

Sorry. I did see it, but we've run up past 600 posts so fast I just now had time to go back and take a look at his... well, I actually hate to call it "reasoning", but y'know what I mean.

Hasn't been so much exasperation around here since Hunchbacked insisted that a spacecraft naturally stayed belly down to the planet it was orbiting, like an airplane.

[Andromeda]

Uranium-235 (U-235) is a metal like iron that can be shaped into target rings and projectile rings. Imagine drilling a dia 1" hole in a target ring. Aren't you worried it will EXPLODE?

If that ring was close to critical, you bet I'd be worried. Just approaching it could reflect enough neutrons back into it to cause it to go prompt critical. It wouldn't explode like a bomb, but I'd die from the gamma and neutron radiation just as others have in various criticality accidents.

It wasn't - he's talking about the Little Boy bomb there. It had 15 (14?) rings that went into making up the critical mass.

Damn, I thought I'd posted about that in my response to ka9q but I can't find it.  Noldi is right - there are several target rings per device, to avoid hitting critical mass early.

The U-235 mass of Little boy was divided into two pieces: the bullet and the target. The "bullet": a cylindrical stack of U-235 rings about 10 cm wide and 16 cm long, containing 40% of the mass (25.6 kg). It was constructed from six rings, the stack backed by a tungsten carbide disk and a steel backplate, all within a 1/16 inch thick steel can to make the complete projectile. The "target": a hollow cylinder 16 cm long and wide, weighing 38.4 kg, embedded in the tamper assembly. The target was fabricated as two separate rings that were inserted in the bomb separately. Note that even an unreflected sphere of U-235 weighing 64 kg would be supercritical. Almost certainly the bullet was made entirely of 89% enrichment uranium since placing the most fissile material at the center of the core is a basic principle of efficient bomb design.

The bullet was sheathed in a boron "safety sabot" that absorbed neutrons and reduced the chance of a criticality accident. The target also contained a boron safety plug. When the projectile reached the target, the boron sabot would be stripped off, and then the plug would be ejected into a recess in the nose.

From http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/chemistry/nuclearchemistry/nuclearweapons/firstchainreaction/firstnuclweapons/littleboy.htm