A. Allen McCarley wrote:
> NO! You test your nukes to build smaller/better ones.
Concur.
> You also test them
> to see how storage affects them. (Since that is how nearly all nukes spend
> their lifetimes.)
Concur again, with great emphasis.
> You also test them to get more of what you want out
> of them and less of what you don't want.
Yep.
> I've spent a good amount of
> time calculating nuclear effects and can tell you that the science is still
> in its infancy.
Adolescence IMHO. Finite-element analysis using similar techniques to
those used in modelling exploding galaxies work quite well these days.
So I'm told.
The really technically interesting thing is causing a fusion burn using
the minimum of fissile material. Beryllium mirrors, polystyrene straws,
tritium in the pit, and a whole heap of other stuff to make wavefronts
propagating at c, plus others at various speeds all deliver their energy
together into a singularity at the right place.
Then wrap with U-238 for a Fission-Fusion-Fission Monster if you wish,
but that's boring and "environmentally unsound".
More interesting is the effect of multiple concurrent detonations
stacked vertically.
One of our peeves with the French is that anyone with a decent set of
seismic gear in the vicinity of Mororua could have gained an awful lot
of intel about their shots, especially the clusters. Security, what
Security?
And that's about all I can say. VERY fortunately, I've had no exposure
to classified material, otherwise I couldn't say even this much. But
anyone with an interest, a physics degree, and some wide reading can
find out quite a bit.
--
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Received on Mon May 26 1997 - 08:30:57 UTC
