Yes, as Joel has just stated, and some others before him, a pretty small
nuclear device can be made if you know what you're doing.
I think we have to conclude that North Korea has done one of two
things...
(1) Demonstrated a fizzle.
(2) Demonstrated they *really* know what they're doing.
Let's go with (2) for a minute. This has both an up-side and a
down-side.
The up-side is that if a country is going to make nuclear weapons, you
would hope they are smart enough to know what they're doing. Although
smart people can be very bad, not-so-smart people scare me more. In
this case they might be really smart. If they detonated a large weapon,
that would not have demonstrated how advanced they are. If they
successfully detonated a small weapon, then amongst those who understand
what they have done, we are impressed. The small detonation becomes
much more impressive than a large one would have been.
The down-side is that the manufacture of small nuclear weapons makes one
worry that the owner of such weapons might actually consider using
them. If all you have is a really big bomb, you might make all kinds of
threats, but your opponent is going to bet you won't use it. If you
have some sophisticated small weapons, your opponents cannot be so sure
you won't use some of them.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu