[Phys-l] FW: 0.55 kt fizzle ??

["Rauber, Joel" <Joel.Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

> From a colleague of mine, after I forwarded him one of our posts
regarding the N. Korean event


| 
| The US developed the W-54 Davy Crockett about 50 years ago. 
| It's pretty much the smallest nuclear device possible using 
| spherical implosion and has a yield of 10-250 tons. Yes, no 
| prefix on the tons, and yes, it was actually tested and 
| yielded a nuclear explosion.
| 
| Granted this is a fairly sophisticated weapon, and it might 
| still be accurate to say that there's a 10kt minimum on what 
| you can do if your method is basically just putting material 
| into a room until it blows up. But with 50-year-old 
| technology we can make smaller ones.
| 
| GB
|