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The Controversy of a Potential Hafnium Bomb
deglr6328 writes "Physics Today has a report detailing the surprisingly heated controversy surrounding the usually sober science of nuclear isomers (the Washington Post has run a less scientifically rigorous version). Since the 70's it has been known that the specific "m2" isomer of Hafnium-178 has an extraordinarily long half life of 31 years (nuclear isomers usually have half-lives on orders of pico or nanoseconds) and on decaying, emits high energy gamma rays at ~2.5 Mev. The prospect of energy storage and rapid release in Hf-178 for the puropse of creating large energy stores, bombs and even exotic gamma ray lasers did not escape the interest of Reagan era Star Wars researchers and was seriously studied for a time during SDI's heyday, but was eventually abandoned after being considered unfeasible. Then, in 1999, Carl Collins at the Univ. of Texas Center for Quantum Electronics reported inducing energy release from Hf-178 by bombarding a sample with X-rays (from a dental machine no less). Immediately, comments about the article were submitted, pointing out inconsistencies with basic nuclear theory and the controversy has only grown since then, with claims and counter-claims of flawed experimental design, incompetence and irrational theories in feuds reminiscent of the cold fusion debacle of the late 80's. It's seeming more unlikely as the arguments drag on, but if a Hafnium bomb could be built, it is thought that a golf ball sized chunk could produce the energy equivalent of 10 tons of conventional explosives."
What if journalists and scientists agree to only discuss the *positive* uses of scientific invention? That way, some uneducated terrorists from The Great Wherever won't get new ideas using Google keyword searches like "explosives", "bombs", "nukes".
This makes sense until you have that "eureka" epiphany moment when you realise that the quiet geeky white men in their labs who squander billions of public funds to come up new and exotic ways to kill people in the name of patriotism are the 'uneducated terrorists'. None of this shit would exist if they didn't make such a focused effort to invent it.
They may be educated to the max in science and technology, but they have always been, are now, and will continue to be illiterate retards in ethics, morality, and basic human decency.
Shame on the warmongers who would use it to kill other humans.
Unfortunately, this doesn't usually STOP them, thus even the good guys have to build them too.
Since information is invariably imperfect, we (as the 'good guys') have to try to anticipate what the 'bad guys' will do; since it's folly to assume the other guys are not as smart as us, we have to advance in weapons tech as fast as possible.
Of course, this runs against the grain of the 'hey man, you're harshing my buzz'+'love everyone' ethic of the naive liberal, most therefore consider that we (the 'good guys') are the warmongers here. Stupid, really.
-Styopa
if they were not trying to make bombs like this we wouldent have people dieing n this is my main cause...if it wasent for little people in labs trying to make bombs lk this we wouldent have people dieing!
why make these sorta things? to kill the enemy? well guess what...we arnt all we do with stuff lk that is blow up inocent people
Im with you... When are these liberals going to get a clue.
Freedom is not FREE
Im with you Mulletproof.. when are these liberals going to get a clue.
Freedom is not FREE
What's this "us" and "them" crap? Remember, al-qaeda uses slashdot too, yanqui.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-