Signatures of micro(fission) triggers?

I posted the following yesterday, addressed to Professor Jones. Anybody else with the specific knowledge required to give an intelligent answer, feel free to answer. Anybody without such knowledge, feel free not to.

I recently read the discussion between Deagle and Jones. I see from testimony given to Congress that the US has done

http://www.house.gov/jec/hearings/dualuse/leitner.htm

experiments involve the actual testing of extremely low-yield fission devices (as low as the equivalent of several pounds of TNT) within a confined environment . . . to study the physics of the primary component of thermonuclear warheads by simulating, often with high explosives, the intense pressures and heat on weapons materials.

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I have 4 questions:
1) can such a low yield device trigger a fusion reaction? (The studies quoted above had as their end-goal thermonuclear research, so this suggests that the regime is relevant to fission induced fusion. However, the question then becomes what sort of fusion energy yield could a micro(fission) trigger produce?) What about an aneutronic one, such as pB11?
2) if the answer is yes, would you still expect nuclear signatures to have been observed as per studies that were already published (and referred to in your paper on the subject)?
3) what were the results of the tests that Deagle was planning to have done?
4) if a very small micro fission/fusion device is possible, do you have any idea about the associated sound? It seems to me that it would create a loud "boom" like a high explosive, unless, possibly, most of it's energy was released as radiation and/or kinetic energy of end-products.

In the case of pB11, the end products are 3 He4, and only .2% of the energy is neutrons. (See http://www.physicsessays.com/doc/s2005/Lerner_Transparencies.pdf )


Deagle is a "high strangeness" kind of guy, so I have a hard time taking him seriously. I find it hard to believe that a single guy with so many "out there" claims would not be a disinfo agent. (He sounds way too coherent to be insane or paranoid-delusional.)

OTOH, if he has any solid lab results to show, that would be of interest.

Is there a conspiracy theory intrinsic to your opening post? Or might this more appropriately be posted in the MMST sub-forum?

metamars said:

Deagle is a "high strangeness" kind of guy, so I have a hard time taking him seriously. I find it hard to believe that a single guy with so many "out there" claims would not be a disinfo agent. (He sounds way too coherent to be insane or paranoid-delusional.)

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Like most people, you probably don't have much experience with the weird and wonderful ways people manage to be wacky (I like the term 'high strangeness') while still being capable of functioning in society.

This isn't an insult, you need years of training and experience to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, and even they spend a lot of time arguing about definitions and diagnoses.

It seems to be a much safer bet to assume he is simply 'out there' than to assume he is 'disinfo'.

Just my two cents.

metamars said:

OTOH, if he has any solid lab results to show, that would be of interest.

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yup.

LashL said:

Is there a conspiracy theory intrinsic to your opening post?

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Yes, of course. Micronukes is one suggested means of CD, which I stopped taking seriously after Professor Jones reported that radioactive signatures don't support the hypothesis.


Since then, I've learned about aneutronic fusion (e.g., pB11).

Or might this more appropriately be posted in the MMST sub-forum?

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Wouldn't doubt it....

metamars said:

1) can such a low yield device trigger a fusion reaction? (The studies quoted above had as their end-goal thermonuclear research, so this suggests that the regime is relevant to fission induced fusion.

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The rough workings of thermonuclear weapons is public information and has been for quite some time.

The primary is a fission device of the implosion type; its sole purpose is to emit x-rays which are used to compress the secondary. Care must be taken to avoid having neutrons from the primary heat the secondary before it has been compressed. Detailed knowledge of how this works is not public knowledge, but it's known that the casing plays a key role in reflecting x-rays onto the secondary and that something called the interstage is used to modulate the transfer of x-rays, neutrons and hot gases from the high explosives that compressed the primary.

You cannot compress and keep the secondary confined long enough with conventional explosives; very significant quantities of energy are required to do this.

The secondary contains a tamper, lithium deuteride and a sparkplug. The sparkplug is yet another fission bomb and it must be of significant yield to heat the secondary to millions of degrees and subject the lithium deuteride to a neutron flux high enough to produce significant amounts of tritium. High temperature, high pressure and long confinement time is required to fuse significant amounts of tritium and deuterium; many designs were evaluated before succeeding with radiation implosion and lithium deuteride fuel.

The outer layer of the secondary is a tamper, usually of U-238; its chief function is to add significant amounts of inertia to contain the secondary once it has been compressed and to prevent premature heating by neutrons from the primary. If U-238 is used for the tamper it will readily undergo fission from very fast fusion neutrons(this is a significant part of yield in most thermonuclear weapons).

There are two full-scale fission devices here; the primary and the spark-plug. I don't think you could make either of them much smaller and expect the weapon to still work.

metamars said:

However, the question then becomes what sort of fusion energy yield could a micro(fission) trigger produce?) What about an aneutronic one, such as pB11?

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Some of the most brilliant scientists of the time worked on the bomb project and they couldn't get anything but D-T fusion to work; that was not for lack of trying.

metamars said:

2) if the answer is yes, would you still expect nuclear signatures to have been observed as per studies that were already published (and referred to in your paper on the subject)?

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Fission weapons require a minimal quantity of fissionable material in order to fission at all. Even if your nuke fails completely it will still scatter several pounds of highly enriched uranium-235 or plutonium. Radioactive decay has a specific energy signature depending on the substance that is decaying and very minute amounts can be detected. Plutonium does not exist naturally on Earth and would be easy to detect. Uranium is not uncommon in the environment and there are a few ppm in concrete; but that only contains 0.7% U-235. I would expect elevated levels of U-235 to be detectable if you found pieces close to the blast.

If any significant yield from fission was produced it would be very easy to detect.

Thanks.

soylent said:

There are two full-scale fission devices here; the primary and the spark-plug. I don't think you could make either of them much smaller and expect the weapon to still work.

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Much smaller than how many inches diameters (inside and outside)?

Some of the most brilliant scientists of the time worked on the bomb project and they couldn't get anything but D-T fusion to work; that was not for lack of trying.

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If the time you're speaking about is the 1950's, that was a long time ago, before the advent of high-speed computing.

Fission weapons require a minimal quantity of fissionable material in order to fission at all. Even if your nuke fails completely it will still scatter several pounds of highly enriched uranium-235 or plutonium.

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Are you saying that several pounds of U235 or Pu must result, for a minimum sized fusion bomb with fission primary and sparkplug? I am curious as to what sort of diminution of detectable fission byproducts can result from using fission solely to trigger the fusion, for the same amount of 'bang' of a purely fission device, but if a minimum of several pounds is the best case (ito avoiding detection), I would think it wouldn't matter.

If any significant yield from fission was produced it would be very easy to detect.

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I learned from Michio Kaku's radio program that the radioactivity in our bones due to an above ground atomic test in China is detectable...

IIRC, the smallest possible nuclear weapon (the "Davy Crockett") was estimated to have a yield of about 2 kilotons. The minimum critical mass is on the order of 25 pounds. Now, these metals are extremely dense, so 25 pounds might be the size of a grapefruit or so.

There was a thread about these weapons here. Mini-nuke weapons of the type proposed (a few pounds TNT yield) are physically impossible. Less than 25 pounds of fissile material won't go critical.

jhunter1163 said:

IIRC, the smallest possible nuclear weapon (the "Davy Crockett") was estimated to have a yield of about 2 kilotons. The minimum critical mass is on the order of 25 pounds. Now, these metals are extremely dense, so 25 pounds might be the size of a grapefruit or so.

There was a thread about these weapons here. Mini-nuke weapons of the type proposed (a few pounds TNT yield) are physically impossible. Less than 25 pounds of fissile material won't go critical.

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the davy crockett was a big recoilless rifle that fired a nuclear warhead, the warhead itwas was the W54, which actually had a yield as low as 10 tons (.01 kilotons)

even this would be easily detectable at the WTC site, IIRC correctly the smaller you make a fission warhead the higher the percentage of fallout gets

It occurs to me that accurate information about the precise design specifications of nuclear devices just might be a little hard to obtain from public sources. At least I hope that's the case.

In fact, this is one area where I could easily believe that much of the information that is out there is deliberate "disinfo." In fact, I hope that's the case.

I can entertain the proposition that a secret type of device might have an unusual signature.

What strains credulity (to say the least) is the idea of a nuclear device that not only has no signature of radioactivity and/or rare elements, but also produces no noticeable explosion. And if such a device doesn't emit high-energy radiation and doesn't explode, what does it do?

Respectfully,
Myriad

soylent said:

Fission weapons require a minimal quantity of fissionable material in order to fission at all. Even if your nuke fails completely it will still scatter several pounds of highly enriched uranium-235 or plutonium. Radioactive decay has a specific energy signature depending on the substance that is decaying and very minute amounts can be detected. Plutonium does not exist naturally on Earth and would be easy to detect. Uranium is not uncommon in the environment and there are a few ppm in concrete; but that only contains 0.7% U-235. I would expect elevated levels of U-235 to be detectable if you found pieces close to the blast.

If any significant yield from fission was produced it would be very easy to detect.

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A couple of things:

First, Pu₂₃₉ is produced when a U₂₃₈ nucleus absorbs a neutron to become U₂₃₉. This quickly decays to Np₂₃₉, which then decays to Pu₂₃₉. Since there are always some stray neutrons about as a result of the Earth being bombarded by cosmic radiation (it's neutrons from this source that cause the production of C₁₄ in the atmosphere), it seems likely that tiny amounts (on the level of a nucleus here and a nucleus there) of Pu₂₃₉ would form naturally in the Earth's crust as a result of the interaction of stray neutrons and U₂₃₈ nuclei.

Second, a fission explosion would produce fission products^WP, the fragments of fissioned uranium or plutonium nuclei. Most of these are radioactive and hence readily detectable, and the mixture of elements and isotopes can be used to determine the parent nucleus and whether the reaction that formed them took place in a reactor or a bomb.

IIRC, environmental studies in the area around GZ detected minute quantities of tritium from exit signs in the aircraft. The likelihood of the byproducts of a fission bomb going undetected seems extremely small.

Myriad said:

It occurs to me that accurate information about the precise design specifications of nuclear devices just might be a little hard to obtain from public sources. At least I hope that's the case.

In fact, this is one area where I could easily believe that much of the information that is out there is deliberate "disinfo." In fact, I hope that's the case.

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Agreed. I generally don't believe in censorship. Weapons design is an obvious exception.

I can entertain the proposition that a secret type of device might have an unusual signature.

What strains credulity (to say the least) is the idea of a nuclear device that not only has no signature of radioactivity and/or rare elements, but also produces no noticeable explosion. And if such a device doesn't emit high-energy radiation and doesn't explode, what does it do?

Respectfully,
Myriad

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According to wikipedia, the explosive yield of a neutron bomb is only about 1/10 that of a conventional fission weapon. (This, in spite of the fact that neutron bombs are fission-fusion weapons.) The difference in energy mostly goes into enhanced neutron radiation.

If there was a way to use an essentially aneutronic fusion reaction, in a micro fission-fusion device, such as in pB11, well, I don't think you'd get the energy difference going into neutron radiation. So, my thought is that if you can design the bomb such that the energy difference goes into EM radiation (but not in the visible range), you might end up essentially with an invisible 'laser bomb'. Lasers are generally silent, no?

Phil Schneider is another "high strangeness" kind of guy who has suggested micro-nukes were used in the WTC, in 1993. (Bad batch?)

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/341768.shtml

[12] After doing his (likely TriData/SPC run) building assessment, i.e., learning all about WTCs engineering and getting classified photographs about the damage, US Gov't Geologist Phil Schneider discovers that some types of explosions in the WTC basement could only be caused by a micronuclear device. These he knew only came from Mathers Air Force Base. Schneider's high security classification forces him to keep mum about this. The particular type of constuction type micronuclear device is mostly radiologically clean.

[13] After studying the damage and becoming an expert on the engineering of the WTCs, and writing his report, Schneider claims he was called into a "smoke filled room" of federals, who ask him, with his knowledge now of the WTCs, will he help them bring the WTCs down in a fake terrorist event. Scnheider balked and refused.

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What makes him a "high strangeness" source is his story about being involved in a shoot-em-up with aliens. Even so, I'd call him at least an order of magnitude less strange than Deagle.

He gives a talk here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8180572860678943465

defaultdotxbe said:

the davy crockett was a big recoilless rifle that fired a nuclear warhead, the warhead itwas was the W54, which actually had a yield as low as 10 tons (.01 kilotons)

even this would be easily detectable at the WTC site, IIRC correctly the smaller you make a fission warhead the higher the percentage of fallout gets

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The amount of fission products is directly tied to the amount of fissions, which is directly tied to the yield. Just vapourizing some plutonium or uranium is somewhat toxic but it's not a severe radiological hazzard.

ktesibios said:

A couple of things:

First, Pu₂₃₉ is produced when a U₂₃₈ nucleus absorbs a neutron to become U₂₃₉. This quickly decays to Np₂₃₉, which then decays to Pu₂₃₉. Since there are always some stray neutrons about as a result of the Earth being bombarded by cosmic radiation (it's neutrons from this source that cause the production of C₁₄ in the atmosphere), it seems likely that tiny amounts (on the level of a nucleus here and a nucleus there) of Pu₂₃₉ would form naturally in the Earth's crust as a result of the interaction of stray neutrons and U₂₃₈ nuclei.

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It seems likely that almost any nucleus of any possible element is formed here and there; but that's not typically what naturally occuring usually refers to.

ktesibios said:

Second, a fission explosion would produce fission products^WP, the fragments of fissioned uranium or plutonium nuclei. Most of these are radioactive and hence readily detectable, and the mixture of elements and isotopes can be used to determine the parent nucleus and whether the reaction that formed them took place in a reactor or a bomb.

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I was discussing the feasibility of making a nuke that was not detectable by attacking the notion that you could even make a dud, with no yield other than high explosive, that would be undetectable.

ktesibios said:

IIRC, environmental studies in the area around GZ detected minute quantities of tritium from exit signs in the aircraft. The likelihood of the byproducts of a fission bomb going undetected seems extremely small.

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As I said, any significant yield would be very easy to detect. The North Korean bomb test was confirmed by detecting elevated xenon-133 levels in Canada. One of the early experimental reactors had a meltdown, I can't remember which one but it was burning HEU, and they weren't allowed to open it; not for a fear of radiation exposure, but for a fear of being unable to detect soviet bomb tests.

Myriad said:

It occurs to me that accurate information about the precise design specifications of nuclear devices just might be a little hard to obtain from public sources. At least I hope that's the case.

In fact, this is one area where I could easily believe that much of the information that is out there is deliberate "disinfo." In fact, I hope that's the case.

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You should make a distinction between nuclear and thermonuclear devices here. There are no great technological or computational hurdles in producing a simple implosion or gun type device apart; especially not the gun type device. The hard problem here is contructing the centrifuges or reactor(respectively) and obtaining the yellow cake without anyone being any the wiser or anyone blabbing their mouth.

There are obvious gaps in public knowledge about thermonuclear weapons and I don't see how knowing the rough structure of the device really helps all that much in actually building one. It's not a simple, symmetric problem.

metamars said:

So, my thought is that if you can design the bomb such that the energy difference goes into EM radiation (but not in the visible range), you might end up essentially with an invisible 'laser bomb'. Lasers are generally silent, no?

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Normally, but when you release enough x-rays to heat the surroundings to millions of degrees it has a tendency to be very loud.

metamars said:

I posted the following yesterday, addressed to Professor Jones. Anybody else with the specific knowledge required to give an intelligent answer, feel free to answer. Anybody without such knowledge, feel free not to.

I recently read the discussion between Deagle and Jones. I see from testimony given to Congress that the US has done

http://www.house.gov/jec/hearings/dualuse/leitner.htm



I have 4 questions:
1) can such a low yield device trigger a fusion reaction? (The studies quoted above had as their end-goal thermonuclear research, so this suggests that the regime is relevant to fission induced fusion. However, the question then becomes what sort of fusion energy yield could a micro(fission) trigger produce?) What about an aneutronic one, such as pB11?
2) if the answer is yes, would you still expect nuclear signatures to have been observed as per studies that were already published (and referred to in your paper on the subject)?
3) what were the results of the tests that Deagle was planning to have done?
4) if a very small micro fission/fusion device is possible, do you have any idea about the associated sound? It seems to me that it would create a loud "boom" like a high explosive, unless, possibly, most of it's energy was released as radiation and/or kinetic energy of end-products.

In the case of pB11, the end products are 3 He4, and only .2% of the energy is neutrons. (See http://www.physicsessays.com/doc/s2005/Lerner_Transparencies.pdf )


Deagle is a "high strangeness" kind of guy, so I have a hard time taking him seriously. I find it hard to believe that a single guy with so many "out there" claims would not be a disinfo agent. (He sounds way too coherent to be insane or paranoid-delusional.)

OTOH, if he has any solid lab results to show, that would be of interest.

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You have no clue what the things you post are about. Do you? Why do you post this tripe without understanding what it means?

If you could ever explain any of the things you post in detail you would not be posting them like this.

The micro fussion theory is another attempt to explain the collapse of the Towers by
"no planers" - buying into this theory can wish away the airplanes and fires.

Nuclear weapons, even very small ones of the W54 (Davy Crockett) type, emit large
amounts of lethal radiation (X /Gamma, neutrons). In large weapons the radiation is
overshadowed by heat/blast. In small weapons radiation forms larger percent of
energy output and can often outrange heat/blast effects.

Here is chart of damage radius of W54 (20 tons nominal yield)

_thermal = Y^0.41 * constant_th
r_blast = Y^0.33 * constant_bl
r_radiation = Y^0.19 * constant_rad


If Y is in multiples (or fractions) of
2.5 kt, then the result is in km (and all
the constants equal one). This is based
on thermal radiation just sufficient to
cause 3rd degree burns (8 calories/cm^2);
a 4.6 psi blast overpressure (and optimum
burst height); and a 500 rem radiation dose.


The Davey Crockett warheads were 10 or 20 ton yield
variants of the Mk-54 basic warhead design. 20 tons is
0.008 of 2.5 kt.

Using the equations above, the results are roughly:

r_thermal = Y^0.41 = 0.008^0.41 = 0.138 km (138 meters)
r_blast = Y^0.33 = 0.008^0.33 = 0.203 km (203 meters)
r_radiation = Y^0.19 = 0.008^0.19 = 0.399 km (399 meters)

Can see radiation from even small weapon is lethal at 400m (1/4 mile) - everyone in
those buildings or for that matter anywhere in WTC complex would have been killed
by radiation. Yet no radiation casulties were ever found.

Neutron bomb is very small "clean" nuclear weapon - it uses smallest fission trigger
possible with no 3rd (fission) stage (using U238 to fission from fast, energy above 1 MEV
neutrons), the neutrons rather than being soaked up by U 238 are free to fly out and
irrradiate any thing in range.

Myriad said:

It occurs to me that accurate information about the precise design specifications of nuclear devices just might be a little hard to obtain from public sources. At least I hope that's the case.

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For pure fission devices no. The principles are fairly straghtforward and building a gun type U-235 weapon isn't that hard (Purifying the U-235 is more pf a problem).

In fact, this is one area where I could easily believe that much of the information that is out there is deliberate "disinfo." In fact, I hope that's the case.

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The evidence suggests not. Oh there have been attempts such as the whole red mercury thing but "disinfo" will either be clearly false to those who know their stuff or contian too much true information to be worth risking putting out.

I can entertain the proposition that a secret type of device might have an unusual signature.

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Doubtful. From a militry POV the old designs are good enough for anything we want to do and with the test ban future developments are going to be hard.

Ok sure you could build a device out of Americium but given it's rather large critical mass it is hard to see why anyone would bother.

soylent said:

Normally, but when you release enough x-rays to heat the surroundings to millions of degrees it has a tendency to be very loud.

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Can you give details? Like, how loud is loud, wouldn't the absorption of xrays in air be tiny, and therefore wouldn't the sound have to come from vaporizing solids?

BTW, I went googling for info on X-ray lasers, trying to see if they say anything about sound production. I haven't found anything, yet, but
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~utlasers/papers/SAUUL_report.pdf

has a neat diagram on p.24 (p.25 in Acrobat) of a protein molecule exposed to a 50 femtosecond x-ray pulse. It shows it disintegrating.

This is of interest because there are claims about not even the DNA of 1,000 people or so that were killed in the WTC collapses being found. (Not sure what to make of the claim, though. ).

OK, found the following:

For 40 keV photons, energy absorption (3rd column) is about 64X as high for concrete vs. air.

See:

air
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/ComTab/air.html
4.00000E-02 2.485E-01 6.833E-02

concrete http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/ComTab/concreteba.html

4.00000E-02 1.185E+01 4.439E+00


Doesn't this suggest that almost all the X-ray energy gets absorbed by surrounding solids? If there's a "boom", then, wouldn't it have to come from vaporizing the solids, moreso than super-heating air?

While Judy Wood may believe that the WTC buildings were mostly vaporized, I don't think most people accept this. So, one of the questions is, can you make a micronuke which is small enough to disintegrate molecular structure, without vaporizing so much of it that you get a "bang!"