Identifying Nuclear Scientists Willing To Sell Their Knowledge

Harperdog writes "This is an interesting piece on U.S. programs most people don't know about: programs to identify and win over nuclear scientists who might be willing to sell their know-how to non-nuclear countries. Fascinating discussion, and points to the alleged Russian scientist who is reported to have sold information to Iran. How could he have been stopped?"

Comments

Knowledge is hard to contain

[Anonymous Coward]

I teach on a Nuclear Reactor physics masters course. We teach students from all over the world - I've had Saudi and Iranian students in the past. Everyone who graduates our course could have a decent stab at building a bomb. Why is this myth that the physics of constructing a nuclear weapon is a well kept secret? You could teach yourself, easily, from publicly available materials.

The countries that the US and allies want to prevent from acquiring weapons are only held back by the lack of availability of the fissile materials. The physics is well known and the engineering is fairly straightforward.