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| Scientists build working bomb, less the fissiles |
| 2004-05-24 |
| One of the themes of my postings has been that the design tools are getting so powerful, that the algorithms are getting so clever, and that the off-the shelf components are so well made that even fairly unsophisticated groups are empowered to build what would have been very sophisticated devices just 20 years ago. Someone already synthesized a polio virus from reagents. Now another group has built a working nuke, minus the fisile material. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. wondered aloud one day in 2002 whether someone could build an atomic weapon from parts available on the open market. His audience, the leaders of the government’s nuclear laboratories, said it could be done. Then do it, the Delaware Democrat, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, instructed the scientists in a confidential session. A few months later, they returned to the soundproof Senate meeting room with a workable nuclear weapon, missing only the fissile material. "It was bigger than a breadbox and smaller than a dump truck, but they were able to get it in," Biden said in a recent speech. The scientists "explained how -- literally off the shelf, without doing anything illegal -- they actually constructed this device." The relative ease with which U.S. scientists built an explosive nuclear weapon illustrates the need to secure plutonium and highly enriched uranium scattered in armories and research sites around the world, a pair of Harvard University researchers argue in a new study that contends the Bush administration is not doing enough. Less fissile material was secured in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001, than in the two years just before, according to the Harvard report, which was obtained by The Washington Post. Half the equipment dispatched to Russia nearly four years ago as a fast, interim solution remains in warehouses, uninstalled because of bureaucratic disputes. Calling it a "dangerous myth" that terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon only with the help of a rogue state, authors Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier use the Biden example to allege that a failure of U.S. commitment and leadership could lead to a nuclear calamity. They also warn that, in an unstable country, a nuclear weapon could be bought or stolen. |
| Posted by:11A5S |
| #7 Oh wow!!! a working nuclear weapon without the fissile material how very significant. That can go with my working martini without the gin or vermouth. |
| Posted by: Russell 2004-05-24 9:21:07 PM |
| #6 If we put one thousand monkeys in a large room with paper, pencils, computers, etc., how long will it take them to come up with a feces bomb? |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-05-24 3:49:38 PM |
| #5 If Slow Joe Biden sez it works, you can assume the opposite. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-24 12:15:51 PM |
| #4 RWV: We often go through two or three revs of a chip because the design tools aren't quite spot on. However, we now have teams of three or four (not counting backend) designing incredibly complex devices that would have taken scores of skilled engineers 20 years ago. In fact, many of these devices couldn't have been designed 25 years ago -- the paper and pencil design methods would have broken down. As to having a Q clearance... A.Q. Khan didn't have one as far as I know. Physics is physics. Apparently the team in Anon4134's story did go before people with Q clearances and were told that their design was good. Speaking of A.Q. Khan, how long will it take before someone takes his blueprints, digitizes them, and puts them on the web? Maybe one out of every three teams will get the design right. The plans of the one that works get further disseminated. Then we're in the land of the Three Conjectures. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-05-24 12:14:13 PM |
| #3 While I agree with the premise of the ever-increasing power and sophistication of engineering design tools, a lifetime spent using, designing, building, and testing military electronics leads me to inject the following caution: Just because your simulation works doesn't mean you can build it or, if you can build it, that you can get it to work! As far as nuclear weapons go, unless you have a Q clearance, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I think this was just another publicity stunt by brain-dead politicians like Biden. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-24 11:16:27 AM |
| #2 See also the excellent article at : http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/ma03/ma03stober.html "Thirty-nine years ago, in the dusty ranch town of Livermore, California, the U.S. government secretly chose three newly minted post-doc physicists, put them off in a corner of a laboratory with no access to classified information, and told them to design a nuclear weapon."... |
| Posted by: Anonymous4134 2004-05-24 6:13:34 AM |
| #1 Meanwhile, something else that might want to take a look at: http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/003228.html Would appreciate your opinions/analysis/comments on this. Thanks. |
| Posted by: Jay 2004-05-24 1:39:38 AM |