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North Korea nuclear test - Fizz, not pop

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the North Korean bomb is now estimated at 4% of the power of the Hiroshima bomb. What this means, kids, is that the nuke test was a failure. They didn't hold the plutonium together and the bomb started breaking up before a full chain reaction started.

2 bomb types: Uranium and Plutonium.

Uranium: Easier to make a bomb, but very difficult to make bomb grade material.
Plutonium: Easier to make and separate the material, much more difficult to make a bomb work.

Little boy was a uranium bomb. It was approximately 16 kilotons.

Trinity and Fat Man were plutonium bombs. Trinity was better than 90% conversion. They both were approximately 20 kilotons.

This means that the North Korean test had under 3% conversion.
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Old 10-10-2006, 03:53 AM
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