[thechat] Flaws in Cultures

[John Handelaar]

% -----Original Message-----
% From: thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org
% [mailto:thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Syed Zeeshan Haider
% Sent: 23 September 2002 18:01
% To: thechat at lists.evolt.org
% Subject: Re: [thechat] Flaws in Cultures
%
% > I'm currently running a personal policy of ignoring all
% > of Syed's thousand-word essays about Islam but I will pick
% > up on this:
%
% That's good but if you want to reply my posts then call me directly.

Ya know, I think it's probably better if we avoid it
altogether - it's pretty clear we don't have any common
ground at all there :-)

% > they *bought* them.
%
% Sorry, couldn't get it. Who bought them?

Pakistan and India both bought in their nuclear energy
and weapons technology from elsewhere, mostly France but
also in part from the UK and US.  Sure, they've both got
home-based engineers working on weapons construction,
but things like picowatt-specific capacitors (without
which you just get a radioactive explosion, not a
chain reaction - or at least not without a huge amount
of dumb luck) were bought in.

Incidentally, neither country has demonstrated an actual
weapon yet, as far as anyone outside the programmes can
verify - a test rig and something deployable are a world
apart from each other.  Even though they look very similar
when detonated :-)

% > They teach the
% > theory in high schools in the UK.
%
% Who teach the theory and what's the theory?

How to create a fission explosion using the right kind
of uranium (namely the kind which is the end product of
energy production) and conventional explosives.  The
'original' A-bombs detonated conventional explosive
packed in a ball around the fissile material to
deliberately compress the uranium to critical levels and
create the *big* explosion.

You can see how timing in that situation would be
*extremely* important.  All the conventional explosive
has to go off simultaneously, otherwise the fissile
material and one side of the device just gets ejected
from the bomb.

</overly_simplified_explanation>

Yeah, I used to have to know a lot about stuff like this.
Being a campaigner *against* these weapons isn't all
placard-waving and (ugh) holding hands with hippes,
ya know :-)

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John Handelaar

T +44 20 8933 1494       M +44 7930 681789
F +44 870 169 7657   E john at userfrenzy.com
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