OT: Right to bear arms; can I buy Uranium to build a fissional weapon?

40 comments

• twentyfive

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  6 years ago

  I'm guessing that the first comment from Ellya refers to Schroedinger's cat ;)
• Sven69

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  6 years ago

  Don't give the NRA ideas. I can see the ads now, "Nukes don't kill people, people kill people."
• twentyfive

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  6 years ago

  ^^^How about fission is the future.
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  Q: Will this take me back to the future in my DeLorean? A: No. Your DeLorean uses a standard GE General Purpose Waste Disposal FUSION Reactor. U238 is not a fusible material, and thus will just clog up the intake, rendering your reactor useless. I recommend ordinary H20 for the reactor, and place the canister of U238 in your pocket, where it will best serve the interests of the human race by improving the gene pool. see less By ogod on January 25, 2014 See more answers (10)
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  I'm betting on fusion. I think we should mine the gas giants for Helium 3 and build 3 stage fusion reactors. MAKE NASA profitable.
• max_starr

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  6 years ago

  I'm working on arming bears.......
• Cashman1234

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  6 years ago

  I’m guessing your name is now on a list of folks looking inquiring about purchasing yellow cake uranium. Probably not a list anyone who flies would want to be on. It’s not covered by the 2nd A - as it’s most likely considered a WMD.
• twentyfive

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  6 years ago

  @max I prefer bare titties to armed bears. ;)
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  Yeah, I never fly anywhere as it is. Too much money.
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  Can you believe the Mrs has never been on a plane? She keeps reminding me of that when she sees you guys taking strippers on trips with you.
• twentyfive

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  6 years ago

  @Dominic77 don’t want to be disrespectful of you or the missus but that last comment really deserves a remark;)
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  A very good thread Dominic77 SJG
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Dominic77, the problem with fusion is that it still releases hot neutrons. Maybe it can't have a melt down, the way a fission reactor can. But the hot neutrons destroy the metal they come in contact with. Remember that some of the captured will be converted to protons. So then of course the chemistry changes completely. Also, if anything is being made in a particle reactor, like H3 ( tritium ), then the energy costs are extreme. For example, with either a fission bomb or a hydrogen bomb the energy it takes to make it is vastly greater than what it releases on target. So it works out the same way with fission and fusion power generation. No one has ever come anywhere close to break even with fusion. Some still believe in fusion. But others see it as just a dream, and really a dream motivated by economic and military power. It is not like inside the Sun, where there are no neutrons released, everything is consumed in the reaction and in the final Helium output. Again, the need for Tritium ( H3 ) makes it all pretty unworkable. Even H bombs still need this. And again, those neutrons destroy everything. San Onofre ( nuclear fision reactor near San Diego ) they spend like a hundred million $ to have Mitsubishi make new stainless steel steam tubes for it. But they pretty much gave out. I believe it is the effect of those neutrons. Free neutrons only have a half life of 10.5 minutes. So most things are never really exposed to them. But once you have them, it just picks away at the steel. SJG More Vintage Cafe [view link] Woman seems to be without her panties. What an album cover [view link]
• Cashman1234

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  6 years ago

  Dominic77 - things were going well until SJG said 5 words... and everything rolled right off a proverbial cliff!
• orionsmith

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  6 years ago

  Build a cold fusion reactor in the garage. That would get everyone's attention. Neighbors wouldn't be happy if it blew up though.
• RandomMember

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  6 years ago

  "Poor packaging" comment was my favorite. Bunch of very talented comedy writers over on Amazon. Wasted talent, really. They should come over to TUSCL or start writing for the Tonight Show.
• orionsmith

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  6 years ago

  I met a few strippers who have never flown. I just applied to a job that said travel up to 50% and an hour later thought, oh crap, I said I was ok with traveling all over the US. At least it didn't say international. I really do not want to travel all over the place. I've been all over the US. Foreign food often does not agree with me.
• 4got2wipe

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  6 years ago

  Comments on the uranium ore page = brilliant!
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Sun In A Bottle, by Charles Seife 2008 [view link] From the dust jacket: " ... Nuclear fusion seems a virtually unlimited source of power, but it has been at the center of a tragic and comic pursuit that has left scores of scientists battered and disgraced. There's something uniquely alluring about the crusade for fusion energy - a pull so strong that it has beguiled an entire community of scientists for half a century. Like the eternal quest to build a perpetual motion machine, the dream of harnessing the energy of a miniature star is irresistible. " Seife goes on to say that this quest for fusion power seems to be just an extension of the broader quest to be able to use economics and military might to dominate, and as such, much of the thinking about it is highly distorted. If you want to read the other side, I believe that Michio Kaku still envisions a nuclear fusion future. [view link] What Buckminster Fuller said was that nature knew exactly how far away a nuclear reactor needed to be, and that is 92 million miles. SJG
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  @SJG, + Yeah, the energy to start the fusion reactions are high. Hence the interest in cold fusion and that pie dream. + As for military connections, I think a lot of physicists were misled in that the intent of the nuclear energy programs isn't the energy at all but the side effect that the by products are fuel for weapons. Other physicists probably knew but didn't care or were acting nationalistic. + I mentioned D-He3 fusion not H3 fusion. + I always understood that fusion would start in a progression of steps, like Tritium (H3), then to D-D (H2), then perhaps progressing to D-He3. The advantages of tritium or deuterium is they are found on earth in perhaps sufficient concentrations (e.g, ocean water). I'm not saying you have recover it from ocean water only that you can. + Helium-3 is a different matter. It occurs in lesser concentrations that Helium 4. One of our big sources are He4 is pockets of natural gas near oil deposits, where the natural gas serves as a trap for Helium (which is essentially a beta particle from radioactive decay of heavy elements inside the earth), like when Uranium decays into Thorium. normally beta decay particles (Helium) escape through the earth, into the atmosphere, and are lost. + Recall elemental Helium wasn't even discovered or isolated here on Earth. There's no such thing as "Helium Ore" than people mine as a type of rock. Helium instead was discovered through spectral analysis of the sun, where physicists noticed the spectral patterns (wavelengths of light, usually wavelengths in the visual spectrum to the human eye) a number of known elements and one of a previously unknown element. This element was named Helium, in honor or Helios, literally meaning "sun." + 93 million miles, yes. Ironically the best source of fusion does lie there. It is in fact the best source of He3, since all day long, the sun is fusing hydrogen into helium. Some of this helium escapes the sun, much of it is He4, but some is He3. Most of it is lost into space. But considering the sun has been doing this for 4+ billion years, the planets have had a lot of time to be bombarded with He4 and He3. The moon is one source, but so are the gas giants. + In my playful mind, dirt mining the moon is no fun, for such low concentrations of He3 for all that (pardon the pun) dirty work. the Chinese want to do it. They build lot of dirt cheap crap that is of low value. I'd rather recover He3 from a gas giant. ** Jupiter the closest but its environment is pretty hostile (gravity, higher escape velocity, lethal magnetic field (radiation), erratic weather). ** Saturn's got some issues too. It's twice as far as Jupiter is from us or from Mars, strong winds, erratic weather, orbiting debris. **Uranus has that weird axial tilt, plus its name alone would quite literally be the BUTT of a jokes on Tuscl that only 4got2wipe or jackslash would love, However, it has numerous advantages for a mining spacecraft: more predictable weather than Jupiter or Saturn, it’s atmosphere is very, very cold would might make liquifying He3 easier, plus the atmospheric concentration of He is so very nice. Consider the following composition of atmospheres: — Jupiter: Hydrogen 89.8%, helium 10.2%. — Saturn: Hydrogen 96.3%, helium 3.3%. — Uranus: Hydrogen 82.5%, helium 15.2%, methane 2.3%. — Neptune: Hydrogen 80.0%, helium 19.0%, methane 1.0% Neptune is like freakishly far away, and the winds are high there. Otherwise I’d say go there. But Uranus. Wow. I’m sold. Book the mining flight craft today! + Why He3? Ask stack exchange! I think it solves your neutron problem, for one. Second it’s perfect for spacecraft since with less neutrons, you don’t need as much shielding, so you can build reactors in space. 3rd, since there’s less neutrons you are NOT building inefficient steam turbines to convert the energy, instead you can convert STRAIGHT to ELECTRIC using charged particles!! There are some D-D by products. You could fuse those (neutrons, again), or you could store them. Personally, I’d ultimately build the 3 stage reactor, and fuse some of the other stuff. Since “everything written here is fiction” why not dream. + I want it for starship fuel. + D-He3 fusion reactors (in space) could theortically be used as a backup energy source for making antimatter, which is really what I want. Plus the reactor is portable, relatively speaking. + If you’ve read up to this point, yes, I want anti matter. But until the yellow cake, I’m not using the antimatter to build WMDs. :) It’s just more starship fuel. + every once in a while you find a stripper who can discuss these topics and it’s pure sex. Or I guess SEX would be pure sex and not physics topics. So I’m doing it rong. Ask stack exchange! —>“ While D-He3 fusion reaction rate peaks at smaller energies than D-D, and produce more energy (18MeV for D-He3 vs. 3-4MeV for D-D reaction), this is not the main reason why some people think He3 is a 'better' fuel. The main reason is that D-He3 fusion fuel cycle is aneutronic. That is, all fusion products (if we disregard auxiliary branches) are charged particles and there are no neutrons released in this reaction. For more information read corresponding wiki page, but the main reasons neutrons are considered 'bad' in fusion are following: energetic neutrons require considerable shielding (there are no other way to stop them other than slow them down in matter and then absorb). neutrons cause material activation, producing radioactive waste. if large portion of fusion energy is released with neutrons, this means that electricity has to be produced through thermal conversion (steam turbines with relatively low efficiency). On the other hand, if all energy released as a charged fusion products, then the electricity could be produced by direct conversion with potentially much higher efficiency and much smaller devices. Additionally, one half of D-D reactions produces radioactive tritium that either has to be 'burned', or stored. All of this would be especially crucial in space, where shielding + turbines + radiators for excess heat will make D-D fuel less attractive then D-He3 if there is sufficient space industry to make He3 mining viable. —> END QUOTE.
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  He3 has always been a pet fascination of mine. I have more details in my head (reactors, recovery of He3) but that's enough for now. Ever since I first saw it, I though, damn I think I could make a lot of money with this. That's probably what I should have been spending the last 20 years of my life on.
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  As I know, He3 occurs in nature, and it is stable. But H3? Known as Tritium. Half life 12 years. So you won't find it in nature. It is made in particle accelerators. And it is used in H-bombs. The energy a detonated H-Bomb puts out is a small fraction of the energy it took to make it. So long as fusion reactors work the same way, they will never be viable. But there is also that issue of Neutrons. Need to learn to do it like in the Sun, 4x H1 -> He4 There may be an He3 intermediate step, but so long as no Neutrons are realeased, no problem.
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  "The advantages of tritium or deuterium is they are found on earth in perhaps sufficient concentrations" As I know, the above is false. Deuterium is found on earth., But tritium is made with great inefficiency in particle accelerators, for H-Bombs, and for fusion experiments. The need for this, as well as expelled high energy neutrons is one of the real problems in fusion power generation. Tritium only has a half life of 12.5 years. So it does not keep very long, and it is also radioactive. He4 exists, and so too does some He3. But I am not aware of any reason we need to be creating them. They are an output product, not an input product for fusion power generation. As I know we get most of our He from federal wells near Amarillo Texas. Until recently the supply was always sufficient. But now there are some industrial applications which are staring to use more of it. If you have links to info which contradicts anything I have said, then by all means, please enlighten me. SJG
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  SJG, not looking to do a lengthy back and forth on tritium or fusion. I misspoke and believe you are right. I should have said that we can get the materials here on earth or synthesize them. I agree it’s not really feasible for all reasons stated.
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  @I wrote, “She keeps reminding me of that when she sees you guys taking strippers on trips with you.” @twentyfive wrote, “Dominic77 don’t want to be disrespectful of you or the missus but that last comment really deserves a remark;)” Lol. I am genuinely confused but laughing a little in a good way. In what way? And of course there’s no disrespect taken. Of course not. I guess it was best summed it up by a comment from @phoenix133 for a little while ago, “lucky girls”. Here the Mrs is trying to get me to up my game.
• ATACdawg

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  6 years ago

  "But Uranus. Wow. I’m sold." Jeez, Dom, you're after SJG's anus? I'm shocked! Not that there's anything wrong with that......... ;-D
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Yes, I think the only thing we don't have is H3, and we can generate that, but the energy costs are prohibitive. H2 and H1 are common. He3 and He4 are also common, but these are output products, not input materials. Just a note about stars, they say that they typically burn down to about Oxygen, by fusion. [view link] [view link] Graph: [view link] above is not really the best way to draw that. If you look in books, you can find Atomic Mass versus Atomic Mass Number. The lowest ratio is Fe56. Everything above or below that has more mass per Atomic Mass Number. So fusing as far as Fe56 is exothermic. And H -> He is the best. But to go beyond Fe56 fusing is endothermic. So if you want to get energy out of the heavier elements you have to fission them. But why do we have these heavier elements on the earth, when they can't be made in exothermic fusion processes? Well they are formed when stars run out of fuel and collapse, and then explode. So scientists feel that our sun is a second or third generation star. As far as matter flowing from the Sun to the earth. I don't know about that. Maybe a little bit somehow. If you have a link for this, please post it. As I know, the vast majority of the matter on the earth is from the earth's original formation, which would have generally been at the same time the Sun was formed. SJG
• twentyfive

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  6 years ago

  @Dom whatever you do with the missus don’t do it on a Huffy Bicycle;)
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Classic Schwinn's are much better than Huffys. But like real Huffys, they aren't made anymore. SJG
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Driverless AirTaxi tested in Hollister. [view link] I guess driverless makes a big difference for light aircraft, where weight is everything. For myself though, what is interesting is that it appears to be electric. I know AirBus has got a couple of electric / hybrid designs underway. So I suggest taking that seriously. Siemans has done some real aggressive work coming up with motors of low cross section. Herein lies the advantage, less drag, especially less in the penalty usually paid for muti-engine. SJG
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Also, with its six electric motors, it is vertical take off, like that fatality prone and very expensive V22 Osprey. I guess to really have an air taxi, it would have to be like this. SJG
• Dominic77

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  6 years ago

  SJG wrote, “ I ran across a definite listing for a GF of decades ago, and she is listed as a "Registered Republican". This really bothers me. She never claimed anything like that back when I knew her. But we did beyond a point find it impossible to get along.“ ^Hey, if I tell you that I am a registered Republican, which I am and have been in 1995, will you stop posting random posts to my thread?
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  NO, my posts are relevant. And besides, I don't care about you, as I was never being subjected to senseless bickering with you. I know I don't agree with you. but this girl, she did not really present herself that way. Better to reuse the old threads, than just making new ones. I was satisfied with a handful of old threads. But since founder closed them, now find these new ones and try to keep them open. SJG
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Applications of high energy physics in industrial technology today? We have ion implantation and Molecular Beam Epitaxy for the semi-conductor industry. But these are not really high energy, like you would see in nuclear fusion and fission reactions. We have talk about things like quantum computing and single electron transistors. Not sure that these ever count as high energy either. We have electron tunneling for the floating gate types of memories. Without tunneling they could never work without applying voltages so high that they destroy the oxide. Still not really high energy, but very much dependent on quantum mechanics. Wanting to go to 4 and 5 compound semiconductors. Computing band structures quite involved. Other applications of advanced physics for industrial applications? Trying to civilize LN2 temp superconductivity, working on that at SLAC. SJG My Pentecostal Daughter Molestor's Appeals case, after some years of grandstanding, died in a fizzle, last month. He is going to be a guest of the state for quite some time. :) :) :) But his church still runs and it is full of familial child abuse of all types. SJG ex-Doors, Moscow 2011 [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  New technologies are using thin layer structures, like high temp superconductivity, some advanced semi-conductors, and others. Also curious stuff operating right on phase changes, like written about by Ilya Prigogine, dissapative structures. [view link] Not really high energy physics, as that stuff is dangerious, but still extremely challenging mathematically. SJG The romance of engines / by Takashi Suzuki (1997), a most interesting book, about how the second law plays out. [view link] Berkeley Physics Course 5 volumes [view link] A most ambitious undertaking. Originally in these CGS Units, which no one uses. [view link] The most strange is what it does to the electromagnetic units, you get this statcoloumb and statampere, etc. It can be figured out, but it takes time and attention. Ambitious in other ways too, vol 1 Mechanics, goes all the way through relativity, without any waves or electromagnetics. The examples are all either subatomic or out in space somewhere. Vol 2 and 3 has all mechanical waves and electromagnetics. But thermodynamics is held off until vol 5, after quantum mechanics, so they can do macro and micro together. Intended to compress their first year physics course, but generally agreed that people at that level of study cannot learn from such books. They are more for those who have already gone much further along to appreciate. Berkeley does not use them, but they do use the books by one who had been involved in the project, Randall McKnight. Great preface by Clark Kerr. Jeff Beck - LIVE Full Concert 2017 [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  HEMT [view link] SET [view link] Like with super conductivity, this all gets into strange realms, when quantum physics is essential. Not high energy though, but still very challenging. SJG Ginger Baker's Airforce [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Good: Principles of Chemistry [view link] James Brady, also good: [view link] Karen C. Timberlake, also very good [view link] Peter Atkins's books very good. SJG Libertarian BitCoin Fantasies, Puerto Rico [view link] [view link] Yes or No? Puerto Rico I think [view link] [view link] [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Modern chemistry really developed in the first 3 decades of the 20th century, and the key issue was quantum mechanics. Without that, and the 4 quantum numbers for electron shells, then none of it really would make any sense. Chemical properties are after all just electron interactions, and the number of electrons is just the same as the number of protons. Neutrons make very little difference. Beyond Deuterium, very hard to separate isotopes. [view link] SJG NOLO, Chartres - Iberville, doesn't the black girl in purple look good? I think this picture originally came from Google Street View [view link] Chelsea Manning, running for the US Senate from Maryland, quite interesting [view link] Steely Dan - Katy Lied (1975, Studio Album) 09 Any World (That I'm Welcome To) [view link] Al Stewart Year Of The Cat [view link] Bring It On! An Inflated Stock Market Is Evidence of Spiritual Sickness, And It Is The Death Of Creativity And Innovation [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  Principles of Chemistry Michael Munowitz [view link] The regular college textbooks are written to a formula, so they are mostly the same. But the above is claimed to also be a very good self study book. Read the reviews. Right here on page 6: "Understanding just how quantum mechanics describes the motion of electrons is one of the major unifying themes of chemistry. It explains why atoms are stable, why atoms have gaps in their energies, why atoms combine into molecules, why molecules have the shapes they do, why some substances are colored, and much more." Well the standard chemistry books assume zero understanding of quantum mechanics. Well like that, chemistry is mostly just voodoo. No way to ever predict what compounds will exist and which won't. Very little rhyme of reason to it, beyond just valence. Now when you learn quantum mechanics and see that it is actually all based on statistical thermodynamics, then you learn that at the macroscopic level, chemistry is completely predictable. Now, admittedly making such predictions is extremely demanding and would always require some very sophisticated computer simulations, multi-electron solutions, and multi-atom solutions, and then thermodynamic simulations. This kind of work challenges our best and brightest today. But there are still all sorts of simplifying assumptions which are routinely used. But even this cannot happen until you start assuming that the students understand quantum mechanics, and how we get to four quantum numbers for electrons. Maybe it is just because they try to teach chemistry in the first year. But I always reacted against it because it seemed like just voodoo. I read now, and it is absolutely nothing of the sort. And this book does follow through, talking about electron clouds, instead of the fallacy of orbitals, and continuing to develop the basics of a quantum mechanical and statistical thermodynamics understanding. SJG Gimme Shelter [view link]
• san_jose_guy

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  6 years ago

  I have read many Dummies books, over the years. Most of them are actually very good, in my view. Thermodynamics For Dummies by Mike Pauken [view link] Trigonometry For Dummies Paperback – February 24, 2014 by Mary Jane Sterling Maybe you think you already know it all. But unless you have recently gone through a book like this, you probably don't. [view link] Business Statistics for Dummies [view link] Now thanks to GACA for bringing R into the discussion. And does this replace SAS? I had not been thinking of reading about SAS, but if R replaces it, I want to know why. So I will read about SAS first, and then R. The Book of R, by Tilman M. Davies [view link] and then Statistical Analysis with R, for dummies [view link] SJG