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

[George Herbert]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:21 AM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>:
>> To tie this to the topic. We should not publish up-to-date and accurate
>> information on how to create great harm whether it is about A-bombs or
>> reporters held captive by the Taliban, and we don't, our A-bomb plans
>> will produce a bomb that will barely go off, witness the North Korea
>> fizzles.
>
> North Korean was a plutonium based implosion design and since we don't
> have much info on explosive lenses not really relevant.
>
> Now our information can't really be said to be up to date since the
> weapon type we have the most info about hasn't existed since 1991 (as
> far as is known).
>
> But:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon

More appropriately, the [[Little Boy]] article, and its current
primary source (John Coster-Mullen's book).

The general gun-type weapon article only contains generalities.  The
Little Boy article contains a precise but not dimensioned diagram of
the weapon, and detailed dimensions and masses for the critical
assembly (uranium parts), and weights for the subassemblies of the
tamper/reflector and the steel casing components.  John's book from
which the diagram and details were derived has detailed dimensions
(enough to draw a blueprint and manufacture a functional replica) on
all the functional parts.  John's book was derived from firsthand
measurements of Little Boy units in museums, plus most of the design
and development and assembly records, which were declassified (and
then apparently reclassified, but the copies already out aren't
legally recallable so they're effectively all public now).

Of course, that's a 5-metric-ton weapon, which is not militarily
useful at this point.


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