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AHHAHAHAHAH!!!! | by CrazySteve | 2002-08-26 00:02:35 |
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nuke is protected | by bbr | 2002-08-26 00:05:03 |
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Uhhh...an "Environmentaly Friedly Nuke" ..? | by inittab | 2002-08-26 09:17:31 |
| Yes, there was the "Neutron bomb" |
by inittab |
2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
...as noted here,
...invented by Sam Cohen, the physicist who invented the neutron bomb, the one that kills people but leaves things like tanks and buildings intact. Plans to deploy his creations in Europe during the '70s and '80s awakened the "peace movement" across that continent, stopping its deployment.
Sam was a kid from Brooklyn who graduated with a physics degree from UCLA, he enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor. In 1944 Cohen was assigned to the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop atomic weapons at Los Alamos, N.M. Cohen had the mundane job of calculating how neutrons behaved in "Fat Man" - the nickname of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. (The bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier was nicknamed "Little Boy.")
After the war ended, Cohen joined the Rand Corp. where he was paid to continue thinking about nuclear weapons. He was obsessed with the idea of a neutron bomb, one that would make use of the lethal particles he had observed so studiously at Los Alamos.
The earliest bombs had used nuclear fission, splitting heavy atoms to release energy. Later bombs used nuclear fusion, which fused hydrogen atoms to release energy. Both designs produced tremendous blasts that could level whole cities, and left them uninhabitable for long periods because of lingering radiation.
Cohen's neutron bomb would use nuclear fusion, but in a different way. The detonation of a neutron bomb would still produce an explosion, but one much smaller than a standard nuclear weapon's. The main effect of a neutron bomb would be the release of high-energy neutrons that would take lives far beyond the blast area. The result: fewer buildings, cars, tanks, roads, highways and other structures destroyed.
And unlike standard nuclear bombs that leave long-term contamination of the soil and infrastructure, the neutron radiation quickly dissipates after the explosion.
For Cohen, the neutron bomb is the ultimate sane weapon. It kills humans, or as he puts it "the bad guys," but doesn't produce tremendous collateral damage on civilian populations and the infrastructure a civilian population needs to survive.
This meant, in Cohen's mind, that a conventional war could escalate without immediately leading to an all-out nuclear holocaust. If regular nuclear weapons were used across Europe, the radioactive fallout could turn the continent into a wasteland for decades. That wouldn't be the case if neutron bombs were used.
but I think that still wasn't "people safe". |
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[ Reply ] |
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Of course Tom Lehrer had a few things to say... | by inittab | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
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Amen :) | by caffine-iv | 2002-08-26 09:56:32 |
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and the UN-Neutron bomb | by inittab | 2002-08-26 12:18:53 |
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Read a SF short story, once, where... | by HadEnuf | 2002-08-26 15:02:48 |
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Get Smart, the movie. | by Naruki | 2002-08-26 16:26:23 |
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