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North Korea Claims It Detonated Its First Hydrogen Bomb (nytimes.com)

HughPickens.com writes: North Korea announced it has detonated its first hydrogen bomb, dramatically escalating the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states. "This is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of the nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula," said a North Korean announcer on the state-run network. "With this hydrogen bomb test, we have joined the major nuclear powers." The North's announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event that South Korea said was 30 miles from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.

"North Korea's fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese, and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action," says Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the NY Times, the test is bound to figure in the American presidential campaign, where several candidates have already cited the North's nuclear experimentation as evidence of American weakness — though they have not prescribed alternative strategies for choking off the program. The United States did not develop its first thermonuclear weapons — commonly known as hydrogen bombs — until 1952, seven years after the first and only use of nuclear weapons in wartime.

5 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Meh. by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    They popped a hydrogen filled balloon with a lit cigarette and declared success.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re: Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      5.1 earthquake?

      That's just fatass Kim Jung Un stepping out of bed in the morning (next to a more beautiful chick than you'll ever lay. How fucked up the world is)

    2. Re:Meh. by GrumpySteen · · Score: 5, Funny

      From the article:
      "an estimated explosive yield of six kilotons and a quake with a magnitude of 4.8 were detected Wednesday"

      Hmmm....

      One mole of Hydrogen will produce 241.8 kilojoules of energy when burned.

      A kiloton explosion releases 4.184*10^12 joules, so we're looking at 2.51*10^13 joules for this explosion. That would require 1.04*10^8 moles of hydrogen.

      A mole of hydrogen is 22.4 liters, so that gives us 2.3*10^14 liters of hydrogen. That means the balloon had to be 230 cubic kilometers and, when popped, it would have sucked up all the oxygen in a surrounding area of about 547 cubic kilometers.

      This tells us one absolutely undeniable fact; I'm really fucking bored.

  2. Glorious leader show us the way by liqu1d · · Score: 3, Funny

    By his divine power he created hydrogen from his bowel and light it setting the world alight in his glorious blaze. Praise the leader and death to the west.

  3. Re:more dangearous than usa? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Judging by his punctuation I'd say no, not yet.