[WikiEN-l] Another Media and Wikipedia blackout on NYT reporter in Afghanistan

[George Herbert]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:
>> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:32 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 2009/9/9  <wjhonson at aol.com>:
>>>> It's a bit of a mistaken idea that the issue with H bombs is their
>>>> "plans".
>>>> The method of making an H bomb is widely known.
>>>> The problem is not the blueprints.  It's creating the necessary
>>>> equipment in order to enrich the uranium in the first place.  Not a
>>>> cheap thing to do.  Everyone however knows *how* to do it.
>>>
>>> No thats the A-bomb (and even then explosive lenses are
>>> problematical). H-Bomb plane still contain significant elements of
>>> speculation. The various failed attempts to construct them suggest
>>> it's not that easy.
>>
>> This is wishful thinking, Geni.
>>
>> Making really small H-bombs (100 kg) is slightly tricky - but medium
>> sized ones (1 ton) is not.
>>
>> And the explosive lenses get easier the more you know about how to
>> make them.  The 1945 vintage ones we show for [[Fat Man]] are far
>> harder to design and make than the ones used just 10 years later for a
>> Brok / [[Mark 12 nuclear bomb]].
>
> You have completely missed Geni's point. Fat Man was an A-bomb, not an
> H-bomb. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Geni's points were that A-bombs are not H-bombs (which I did not
address, and is correct), that A-bomb explosive lenses are somewhat
problematical (which I disagree with), and that H-bomb design contains
significant elements of speculation (which I disagree with generally -
specifically to large and mid-sized H-bombs, which are not that
complicated - but I do not disagree so much about very compact H-bomb
design, as the specific geometry of the use of Foglight in the last
generation of designs is still somewhat opaque in public knowledge).

I don't need to reread the article; I've written large parts of it,
and could write a book sized version with all the ugly math and
specific examples.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com