Re: [Phys-l] A-Bomb

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

In a sci fi move a whiz kid got the idea of how compress his specially 
prepared fissile material when watching a soccer game.  My memory from 
the 50/60's generally confirms all the suppositions posted about 
Szilard, Fermi, etc.  Szilard went on to lobby for disarmament and wrote 
Voice of the Dolphins for that purpose.

bc, former subscriber to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

p.s. More on criticality expts. (Slotin), not nearly disastrous for at 
least two people.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin


Brian Whatcott wrote:

> At 11:18 PM 7/8/2006, you wrote:
>  
>
> > Was there anyone of whom it could be said that s/he invented the A-Bomb?
> >
> > Did anyone ever receive a patent for the invention?
> >
> > Did anyone ever get rich from the invention?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > J M Green
> > Email:  MailTo:JMGreen@sisna.com
> > WWW: HTTP://users.sisna.com/JMGreen
> >    
>
>
> The memoir which related moving two sub-critical masses closer to each other on
>  the lab bench with nearly disastrous results suggests to me with 
> the benefit of
> retro-acuity  that shooting a half mass at another was not such a leap in the
> dark at that time.
>
> Before there were appreciable masses of enriched Uranium, I suppose 
> that building
> enrichment works were the real bullet to bite.
>
> I still recall listening to a conversation between several folks who 
> appeared to
>  be oil-well blow out specialists on an airline trip.
> When the conversation turned to "instantaneous"fuse, one casually mentioned
> wrapping a sphere in some instantaneous explosive tape  for a nuclear weapon
>  implosion detonator, the dominant method now in use apparently.
>
> I caught just the faintest leakage of conversation elsewhere about the
> advantageous paneling of the regulation soccer ball in this context.
>  And I hear in the last few days that the supplier of world cup 
> match balls creates
> a new paneling design from competition to competition as a design 
> exercise, aspiring
>  to closer fits to sphericity.
>
>
>
> Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka! 
>
>
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