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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum
GLD 386.88-0.1%Dec 3 4:00 PM EST
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To: Moominoid who wrote (10032)10/10/2006 6:44:17 PM
From: Elroy Jetson  Read Replies (3) of 218167
 
The material North Korea is using is Plutonium - so a nuclear bomb is not simply a matter of putting together enough enriched uranium to make a critical mass.

To create a nuclear weapon with plutonium, you need to use conventional explosives surrounding the plutonium to create a high-pressure implosion. This is not at all easy to do. It requires precise timing to the millionth of a second with Klystron timers. And you also want another type of nuclear material to act as a neutron trigger in the core, otherwise your nuclear explosion with be puny.

By using an extra large amount of conventional high-explosives, it can be easier to create the implosion pressure required, but still the timing must be exact.

If the timing isn't exact, the plutonium is merely blown out through the weak part of the blast wave. This means you get a dirty bomb. In other words a conventional explosion which splatters plutonium all over the test site - but no nuclear reaction.

Based on the reports, this is what appears to have happened. The North Korean bomb failed, just like most of their test missiles. Another problem with using such a large amount of conventional high-explosives is that it creates a bomb 100 fold larger and heavier than can be accommodated by North Korea's missiles.

North Korea has failed. I don't know how long it would take them to develop something workable, but they're obviously not close.
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