Clean Fusion Bombs: Possibility of "Clean" Explosions

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The discussion centers on the potential for creating "clean" fusion bombs that do not produce long-lasting radioactive isotopes, highlighting the challenges of achieving this with current technology. While D-T fusion is often described as clean due to its stable helium-4 product, the resulting neutrons can induce radioactivity in surrounding materials, making fusion more "dirty" than fission on an energy-released basis. Current methods for triggering fusion bombs primarily rely on fission bombs, although future advancements, such as laser triggers, may change this. The conversation also touches on the feasibility of antimatter bombs, which present significant challenges in production and containment. Ultimately, the debate reflects broader concerns about the environmental impact of nuclear weapons and their role in global peacekeeping.
  • #51
LennoxLewis said:
Okay, you don't want other countries to have them, but let's look at the reality of the situation: there are nearly 10 countries/states that have them, and several others that share them. So your analogy is off and unrealistic.

As for your article, great, but what if someone with nothing to lose launches a nuclear weapon and basically ends mankind because of the retaliation?
LennoxLewis;

Yes - some number of states have them - but there has been no nuclear war.

However, there also hasn't been a conventional war. As historian Rhodes has pointed out;
that if the world were to completely eliminate nuclear weapons - then that would just make
the world safe for large scale global conventional conflict. Nuclear weapons deter large
conflicts like World War I and World War II.

Additionally, I think the world also needs some nations to have nuclear weapons as a defense
against impacts by asteroids and comets. You do NOT want to blow up an asteroid or comet.
You want to ALTER its orbit. If the asteroid or comet is big enough to cause a mass extinction,
as has happened in the past; then in order to alter the orbit; WE have to provide the energy to
go into the other orbit. How do we get a LOT of energy in a package light enough for us to
transport into space. The answer to that is a nuclear weapon.

Suppose the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet instead of impacting Jupiter back in the '90s was on a
different trajectory that would have impacted Earth. With such a comet you don't get enough
warning to use gravity tractors, or solar sails, or rockets...which takes decades of nudging to
change the orbit. The orbit of the comet has to be changed on THIS orbit.

The only hope in such a case may be a nuclear weapon.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
 
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  • #52
Morbius said:
Yes - some number of states have them - but there has been no nuclear war.

However, there also hasn't been a conventional war. As historian Rhodes has pointed out;
that if the world were to completely eliminate nuclear weapons - then that would just make
the world safe for large scale global conventional conflict. Nuclear weapons deter large
conflicts like World War I and World War II.

Not on a world wide scale perhaps, but we've seen plenty of wars since WWII. The Korean war, the drama that is Vietnam, the Gulf war and it's successor started by Jr. in 2003, the never ending Israel/Palestine conflict... and I'm leaving away small ones as well as big civil wars, like Pol Pot who killed 30% of his own population.

Even if there is only a, say, 20% chance of nuclear war emerging during this century, that equals a 20% chance of going back to the stone age... i'd gladly trade that for a 99% chance of two or three global conventional world wars that leave us in tact with a high tech society and the millions of dead would only be a positive with respect to overpopulation. :)

Incidentally, have you seen the film Threads (1984) ? It is about a the a nuclear war and it's consequences.
 
  • #53
LennoxLewis said:
Not on a world wide scale perhaps, but we've seen plenty of wars since WWII. The Korean war, the drama that is Vietnam, the Gulf war and it's successor started by Jr. in 2003, the never ending Israel/Palestine conflict... and I'm leaving away small ones as well as big civil wars, like Pol Pot who killed 30% of his own population.
LennoxLewis,

Yes - but as historian Richard Rhodes points out that prior to 1945 the number of deaths per year
in the world due to war was growing exponentially, and was many millions of deaths per year. In
1945; that curve dropped to about 1 million deaths per year due to war and has remained at a
relatively low level since. Richard Rhodes then asks, "What happened in 1945 that cause that
curve to drop". There is only one answer: the atomic bomb.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,367260,00.html

"You can definitely argue that it ended world-scale war. If you look at the number of man-made deaths in
the 20th century, you will see that around 1917 it was around 6 million per year and then in the 1930s it
was around 4 million per year. During World War II, it spiked up to the horrendous figure of some 15 million
per year. But then, immediately after World War II, it dropped off dramatically to around 1 million per year
and stayed at that low level for the rest of the 20th century. What caused that dramatic change? I think
pretty clearly the introduction of nuclear weapons."

--Richard Rhodes


Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
 
  • #54
LennoxLewis said:
Incidentally, have you seen the film Threads (1984) ? It is about a the a nuclear war and it's consequences.
LennowLewis,

I haven't seen Threads - but I've seen several films that attempt to protray the consequences
of a nuclear exchange.

I found them to be INACCURATE fantasies whose main objective is to frighten a gullible public.

They just want to scare little children.

Besides, of what POSSIBLE utility is a made for TV film in a serious discussion of nuclear deterence?

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
 
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  • #55
Morbius said:
LennowLewis,

I haven't seen Threads - but I've seen several films that attempt to protray the consequences
of a nuclear exchange.

I found them to be INACCURATE fantasies whose main objective is to frighten a gullible public.

They just want to scare little children.

Besides, of what POSSIBLE utility is a made for TV film in a serious discussion of nuclear deterence?

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Morbius said:
LennoxLewis,

Yes - but as historian Richard Rhodes points out that prior to 1945 the number of deaths per year
in the world due to war was growing exponentially, and was many millions of deaths per year. In
1945; that curve dropped to about 1 million deaths per year due to war and has remained at a
relatively low level since. Richard Rhodes then asks, "What happened in 1945 that cause that
curve to drop". There is only one answer: the atomic bomb.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,367260,00.html

"You can definitely argue that it ended world-scale war. If you look at the number of man-made deaths in
the 20th century, you will see that around 1917 it was around 6 million per year and then in the 1930s it
was around 4 million per year. During World War II, it spiked up to the horrendous figure of some 15 million
per year. But then, immediately after World War II, it dropped off dramatically to around 1 million per year
and stayed at that low level for the rest of the 20th century. What caused that dramatic change? I think
pretty clearly the introduction of nuclear weapons."

--Richard Rhodes


Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Dear Dr. Gregory,

I'm not denying that MAD has decreased war on a global scale somewhat, but, let me summarize it to two questions:

-Do you think it's reasonable to assume that there's at least a 20% chance of a nuclear war starting during this century, probably because a terrorist got his hands on one and used it because he was promised 67 virgins in afterlife?

-If so, would you prefer that scenario over 2 or 3 world wars with 50-100 millions of deaths but mankind retaining their technology and luxurious life, that basically is unprecedented in history? Western middle class people live in much more luxury than kings did for the last seven thousand years.


On Threads, it is not a commercial Hollywood film. It's a British half documentary/film with no intent of selling or scaring people, but instead giving an accurate picture of what would happen. I would recommend downloading it.
 
  • #56
LennoxLewis said:
Dear Dr. Gregory,

I'm not denying that MAD has decreased war on a global scale somewhat, but, let me summarize it to two questions:

-Do you think it's reasonable to assume that there's at least a 20% chance of a nuclear war starting during this century, probably because a terrorist got his hands on one and used it because he was promised 67 virgins in afterlife?

-If so, would you prefer that scenario over 2 or 3 world wars with 50-100 millions of deaths but mankind retaining their technology and luxurious life, that basically is unprecedented in history? Western middle class people live in much more luxury than kings did for the last seven thousand years.


On Threads, it is not a commercial Hollywood film. It's a British half documentary/film with no intent of selling or scaring people, but instead giving an accurate picture of what would happen. I would recommend downloading it.
LennoxLewis,

I think the above choice is a FALSE CHOICE - it is NOT either / or.

Yes - I think that there is a very real possibility of a state giving a nuclear weapon to terrorists
[ I don't think the terrorists can develop the bomb without a state sponsor ]; and that is why
scientists like myself are working to combat that scenario - by improving our detection methods
and improving our methods of tracing a terrorist weapon back to the state that provided it to the
terrorists.

Whether terrorists get a nuclear weapon or not has NOTHING to do with whether a a few states
like the USA retain nuclear weapons stockpiles for deterence. The terrorists are NOT getting their
weapons from the USA, nor any of the other declared nuclear powers.

I think we can have a world in which there are NO large scale wars - because USA and the other
nuclear states have strategic nuclear deterent capability to prevent large scale conventional wars.

In this world, I also would wish that the United Nations and the declared nuclear weapons states
would hold the non-nuclear weapons states to the promises they made in the Nuclear NonProliferation
Treaty. Nations like Iran should NOT be making nuclear weapons for themselves, and most certainly
should not be making nuclear weapons to give to terrrorists.

In order to deter the later - there are technical measures that can and are be taken.

http://homeland.house.gov/sitedocuments/20071010175157-19057.pdf

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
 
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  • #57
LennoxLewis said:
On Threads, it is not a commercial Hollywood film. It's a British half documentary/film with no intent of selling or scaring people, but instead giving an accurate picture of what would happen. I would recommend downloading it.
LennoxLewis,

There's no way that a film producer knows more about nuclear weapons and nuclear war than what
I already know.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
 
  • #58
Morbius said:
Whether terrorists get a nuclear weapon or not has NOTHING to do with whether a a few states
like the USA retain nuclear weapons stockpiles for deterence. The terrorists are NOT getting their
weapons from the USA, nor any of the other declared nuclear powers.
?? Despite the HEU buy down and blend down programs, does not Russia still constitute a large risk in this regard?
...In this world, I also would wish that the United Nations and the declared nuclear weapons states would hold the non-nuclear weapons states to the promises they made in the Nuclear NonProliferationTreaty. Nations like Iran should NOT be making nuclear weapons for themselves, and most certainly should not be making nuclear weapons to give to terrorists.
Visibly the UN and the weapons states have been attempting to do so:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iran/2006/0731resolution.htm" - intention to apply sanctions
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iran/2006/0731resolution.htm" - sanctions. Bans relevant trade, freezes some assets.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iran/2007/0324resolution.pdf" - bans Iranian arms exports, freezes more assets.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iran/2008/scr1803.pdf"

Given these actions, what other steps do you wish taken by the 'United Nations' to hold Iran to its NPT promises?
 
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