End of Surplus?

[Teo Zenios]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: End of Surplus?


>
>    Sorry but that won't work. After the first couple of generations of the
> chain reaction it simply blows itself apart and the chain reaction dies.
> That's why A bombs have POWERFUL chemical explosives to FORCE the nuclear
> material together. Getting the bomb to stay together long enough to work
> (ie, use up most of the available nuclear material) was probably THE
> biggest problem in the building of the A bomb. Ultimately two approaches
> were used, one was to fire to hemispheres of nuclear materail together by
> means of a modified 16 inch navel gun (Tall-boy) and the other was to
> implode a hollow sphere of material by explosives that completely
> surrounded it (Fat-man).  Go read 'Building of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard
> Rhodes. It has a lot of detail on the subject.  That book and "Building of
> the Nuclear Bomb" are both very interesting reading.
>
>     Joe
>
>

The major problem with the Fatman method was having the explosives
surrounding the uranium explode at the exact same time with 1940's era
electrical technology. Getting a uniform explosion to compress a ball off
enriched uranium so that a large chain reaction takes place is probably
still a pain to do for most countries wanting to build a bomb. A fraction of
a second off and you have a fizzle.