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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.
"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.
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
It won't be long before China or Russia sells them a delivery vehicle, if they haven't done so already.
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.
We have sniffer/detector craft for just this reason.
I wait until we hear confirmation before believing anything NK says.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
As evidenced by early interviews with politicians, we are hamstrung in the US by partisan bickering, and cannot be counted on to fix this. The World will need to come together on this, or we're likely to affirm Fermi's Paradox.
Though it is prudent to remember early reporting is often erroneous, It was reported this morning on CNN that Iranian scientists may have helped this along.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
A nuclear armed world is a polite world.
That North Korean astronaut that went to the sun and back in 4 hours [1] recently was obviously going to collect hydrogen for this device.
[1] Yeah, yeah, I know the story was fabricated rather than being an official NK declaration.
They detonate a hydrogen bomb and explicitly say they are doing this because they consider the U.S. an enemy. Are you seriously suggesting that's not threatening enough?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Do you really think the Chinese likes having a nuclear-armed, inscrutable wack-job on their doorstep? They put up with NK because they like having a buffer between themselves and SK. I just hope they have some sort of 'kill switch' to eliminate the threat (for their own sake) in case he gets too far out of hand.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
China does not want the refugees if the north goes down.
But they also don't want any fall out and the north can shell the shit out of seoul.
Oh fuck OFF. Seriously. What are you, 12 years old?
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
As soon as North Korea starts getting a little excited and starts sabre rattling and threatening other countries, China will tell them to shut the fuck up or they'll withdraw aid.
Summation 2
I guess I'm dumb, how is a pure fission warhead not thermonuclear?
Not dumb, but you could have looked it up on Wikipedia. Never the less:
- Fission works by splitting the nucleus of large atoms, such as Uranium or Plutonium. This works according to a surprisingly simply principle, called the chain reaction, which gets stronger, the more concentrated the active element is. This means that if you take a large enough mass of the right element and squeeze it together in a small enough volume (and quickly enough), then it will explode.
- Fusion works the opposite way, by fusing together light nuclei; the perhaps surprising thing is, fusion releases energy when you fuse light nuclei, but not when the nuclei are heavier - I think it is around iron that it changes. Fusion on ly happens at very high temperature and pressure, hence the name "thermonuclear". Incidentally, the process of fusion in a hydrogen bomb is set of by a fission device.
But look the subjects up - wikipedia is probably a good place to start.
The US elections are going on with no mention, the 24 hour news cycle ignores him until he tops his last incredible act, and then he has to deal with domestic issues...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Judging by his punctuation I'd say no, not yet.
Both the US and South Korea are STILL formally at war with them. Are you seriously suggesting that neither is their enemy?
Then we all agree... they are a threat. So what's the problem?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Each new nation with bombs is one more vector to accidental black market bombs. That alone is sufficient.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"lil" children don't have nuclear weapons. Yet. NK does.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
North Korea is trying to save the planet.
Kim Jong-il knows there has already been a nuclear bomb called "little boy" and "fat man" right?
Do you really think China wants a large, unified, free, prosperous democracy on its border? It prefers a derelict.
these West German youth knew they didn't have any real power, but they knew through song they could fight against their enemies.
The songs and protests were not directed against their "enemies". They were directed against the Atlanticist government of Helmut Schmidt, and the American deployment of Pershing Missiles in Germany. Rather than "fighting" their enemies, the protestors advocated unilateral disarmament and appeasement.
Why are South Korean youth so silent when facing a similar threat?
Perhaps they have more sense.
NK is short on currency and demand for nukes is high in the middle east.
h Only in the same sense that Saddam had WMD - no one can tell the glorious leader that they don't and live.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not.
From the meaning of the words, both reactions are "thermo" and "nuclear".
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
fusion fuses light elements.
fission splits heavy ones.
both processes release energy AND neutrons.
splitting is way easier, especially when there are plenty of neutrons... So the yield in both weapons is mostly from fission, with thermonuclear weapons using neutrons from fusion to cause way more fission to happen (even in non-enriched uranium).
So, you'd prefer the approach Chamberlain took with Hitler, and think Regan did it the wrong way with the U.S.S.R. Maybe you could give an example of how pacifism has successfully worked at disarming a despot?
Just another day in Paradise
Nope, just working his day shift out of an office in Kiev.
A more accurate version of thermonuclear would be thermonuclear triggered. The military just likes to shorten things.
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
South Korea is more free than the USA or UK nowadays.
Conscription is a necessary evil with a wacko neighbour on your border. And just because they have shitty taste in music doesn't mean anything (not that the US or UK general population have good taste in music either. The number one "artists" don't play instruments or even song anymore).
while international policies of usa make it a personification of greed fuelled arrogance, russia/china are much further along that line. but calling it the most dangerous is taking it way too far. the main difference is, usa is still trying to make everything look legal. more dangerous nations are not hindered by that anymore (see russian conflict with ukraine; chinese advances in east/south china sea)
Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not.
No, I thought about that after I had clicked send - the crucial difference is that in a fission reaction, the explosive reaction starts with "cold" Uranium, plutonium, ..., but in a thermonuclear, the big explosion does not happen until a very high temperature has been reached, hence 'thermonuclear' instead of just 'nuclear'.
"Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not."
On an A-Bomb, the core functionality (physion chain reaction) comes from "pure" nuclear physics: you just (for a fairly complicated level of "just") put a critical mass of physible elements together, and the rest happens on its own.
On an H-Bomb, on the other hand, in order for the core functionality (fusion) to work, you first need a stupidly big exothermic reaction to happen since fusion won't happen on its own, therefore the two-staged name: thermo (first stage) nuclear (second stage). In fact, the "stupidly big exothermic reaction" required to trigger the fusion is so "stupidly big" that we can't produce it but with an A-Bomb, but that's conceptually secondary.
and the north can shell the shit out of seoul.
That's for sure . NK is so full of shit that they don't need shells .
Try gifting a nuke to the jolly jihadis and u'll know the definition of politeness .
But dude, you gotta admit the US just ain't got the *hair cut* man !!
If true, it's quite frightening. H bombs currently require multiple small A bombs to triggter, and the bomb casing is also typically made out of non-weapons grade uranium which reflects and focuses the A-bomb blasts onto the tritium and deuterium core.
First, no, you don't need "multiple small A bombs to trigger" a fusion detonation. You need one. You can make multi-stage weapons like the Tsar Bomba, nobody seems to nowadays.
Second, you can supposedly make the tamper out of a lot of different materials (even lead) - but even if you decided to use uranium, any country with a big enough program to make an A-bomb would have a crapload of uranium metal sitting around.
Nuclear weapons create earthquakes, and you can roughly estimate the size of the bomb from the magnitude of the earthquake. In this case, we're looking at a 5.1 magnitude quake:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
There's an empirical law for calculating the size of an underground nuclear blast from the magnitude of the earthquake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This law is a little sketchy (earthquake size depends on how tightly the bomb is packed into the ground), but taking it at face value I calculate a 45 kiloton blast. That's nowhere near a true fusion H-bomb (typically hundreds of kilotons up to megatons): it's consistent with a large fission bomb, a boosted fission weapon, or a failed fusion test, where the fusion secondary failed to ignite.
This April we are holding our annual war games with South Korea. We expect North Korea to rattle it's sabers and embarrass you again while this exercise is conducted. We propose the following: Approach the leadership of North Korea with helping them conduct a war game of their own. Get a couple hundred divisions of your army into Pyong Yang under those pretenses, then capture or kill Kim and destroy his regime before he even realizes what's happening. Allow the South Korean army to take over the north and in exchange we will completely withdraw all troops from the Korean peninsula.
Why are South Korean youth so silent when facing a similar threat? Why have they not produced any notable protest songs decrying nuclear weapons? Why are they so passive and silent compared to, say, the West German youth who faced a similar threat?
They are too busy playing StarCraft2... you know, priorities man.
Not-so-lil Kim and his cronies are playing with fire here.
If they think the US is going to accept their psychotic little cult-of-personality kleptocracy developing nuclear capability and the ability to actually lob one into the US, they're even nuttier than they've been reported to be.
It's as if they're begging to be carpet-bombed back into the stone age.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why are South Korean youth so silent when facing a similar threat?
If you think there's anything "silent" about Korea's feelings towards the rebel government occupying the northern part of their country, then you've got your head up your ass.
It's long been said that nuclear weapons are the first mechanisms of peace in human history. So I'm willing to say that I hope this is a good thing. I hope that, like everyone else, north korea doesn't wind up using it for anything more than garnering respect for their own sovereignty.
I do find it upsetting, disappointing, and just plain odd that the U.S.A. would try to stop a country from developing a technology that the U.S.A. developed 65 years ago. It would seem to be a futile effort. Obviously they'll eventually figure it out -- it's documented all over the web, and now in this slashdot discussion myriad times.
The enemy is always irrational and unpredictable and crazy and dangerous and out to destroy you. Let's hope that the leader of a nation is truthfully none of those in this regard.
I'm think it's a good thing; I really don't want to be proven wrong.
Christmas is over, and Kim Jong-un didn't get any presents from the west. He knows we're all real busy, so it probably just slipped our minds. So this is his discreet way of reminding us that, even though he's atheist, he still appreciates Christmas gifts.
North Korea does this every few years. Next there's a lot of diplomacy, we give them lots of food and money, and they promise to never ever, ever, do another nuclear test again. Pinky swear.
They popped a hydrogen filled balloon with a lit cigarette and declared success.
So you're saying junior great leader Kim has achieved the Holy Grail of energy research?
Honestly I don't think China has any fucks to give about NK or SK on their borders. Neither of them are serious threats to anything they do.
So what you're saying is that it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Which does not, by any means, make it a sheep, or any less dangerous than wolves which are obviously wolves. Arguably, in fact, it makes it even more dangerous on account of it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Hey, man, if they aren't releasing singles that top the pop charts then OBVIOUSLY they aren't doing anything at all because we all know that's the only way to speak out.
Except for the fact that South Korea is host to about 28,000 US troops, you're right.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
There's a reason we haven't finished them off in all this time.
I'd like to think that we don't go around 'finishing off' weaker countries just for the heck of it. Because this thinking only justifies Kim's level of paranoia and arms development.
I'm perfectly happy to stand by while the two Koreas only glare at each other over the DMZ. We are there with our armed forces only to assist in the defense of an ally should it be needed.
Have gnu, will travel.
If civil rights are "endowed by a creator", then ol' Kim has them just like you and me. Ain't that right?
You are welcome on my lawn.
China doesn't have any border with a country that approaches 4,000 miles. The longest is 2,906 miles with Mongolia.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
So, you'd prefer the approach Chamberlain took with Hitler, and think Regan did it the wrong way with the U.S.S.R. Maybe you could give an example of how pacifism has successfully worked at disarming a despot?
Does Ghandi and company count?
Which country doesn't have a history of genocidal land grab, ethnic cleansings, or "worst form of slavery very late"?
Last post!
There is such a thing as boosted fission weapons, which do have fusion fuel---deuterium and tritium, in the core of the fission primary. This is not an "H-Bomb". The fusion fuel provides comparatively insignificant energy output from fusion and contributes almost nothing to the yield---however, it does provide an extra boost of neutrons at close to the moment of maximum criticality, therefore substantially increasing the efficiency of the fission reaction. It is a physical 'neutron gun', and in practice, a key step towards significantly smaller and lighter fission weapons suitable for a mass-constrained ballistic missile warhead.
The transition from fission weapons to true multi-stage radiation coupled thermonuclear weapons (Teller-Ulam) is indeed quite challenging scientifically, there are far more uncertainties than with the fission weapons. It's all about energy transfer, exotic thermodynamics and fluid mechanics.
There are still significant undisclosed secrets in this stage as well. The fusion section is not just Li6-D, but a combined assembly of fusion and fission fuel & tampers. A major part of yield in modern thermonuclear weapons is in fission of the secondary, and it is very incorrect to say that they are "clean weapons". A big part of yield (60-80%) is from fission and the amount of fallout is proportional to total fission events & energy.
A boosted primary core is a practical prerequisite for multi-stage H-bombs, though as it provides a cleaner and more appropriately shapable radiation pulse to drive the secondary.
I believe it to be more likely that DPRK tested a boosted fission primary and the staff told His Supercritical Eminence that it was a H-bomb. Which is true, from a certain point of view.
But the NEIC did not post a source mechanism yet. Faults and explosions have clearly distinction source mechanisms. An explosions "first motion" on a seismogram is outward in all 360 directions. A fault shows four quadrants of motion- alternating in and out. Usually the NEIC posts a moment tensor solution of its own or from a university within minutes of a new large quake. I just looked.
P.S. Faulted quakes and explosions have other, more subtle distinguishing characteristics devised to bypass Russian and Isreali test cheating in the past.
in order for the core functionality (fusion) to work
There are, as far as I know, no existing bomb which gets more than 50% of its yield from nuclear fusion. H-bombs vary between those who get an insignificant amount of energy but a lot of neutrons from the fusion to those which get quite a large bang from the fusion but even more from fission.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Does Ghandi and company count?
No, it does not.
That all happened due to the British Empire being tired, broke, and open to change.
10 people who did exactly what Ghandi did in the several hundred years before, were all taken outside and shot.
In any case, it doesn't apply because the British Empire wasn't a despot, it wasn't disarmed, and it still exists today with the same chain of government.
North Korea is a very serious threat because their leaders have no real restraint and everything to lose if they aren't in control. To Kim Jong Un, the world begins and ends with himself, and he has complete control. If anything comes close to threatening his power externally, he has enough conventional artillery zeroed in on Seoul to demolish it and kill a significant portion of the population. And given his treatment of his uncle, I have no illusions that he would develop a conscience at the last minute about killing people in horrifying ways.
NK has a shitty, but real, nuclear weapon which they could smuggle somewhere which is enough to hurt a lot of people, and their country is shitty enough that a retaliatory strike of more than one missile at the capital would simply be making rubble bounce. There's really no point to nuking a bunch of huts that make up the rest of the country.
More to the point, I have serious doubts that we'd even retaliate with nuclear weapons on NK because it would really piss off China and affect SK and Japan to some degree and Kim probably knows that. That means that, effectively, we've probably already written off at least one city somewhere that their weapon could be used on without like and kind retaliation.
NK isn't going to end the world as we know it... at least with their current capabilities... but it doesn't have to do it alone. Serbia wasn't worth a World War either, but one happened anyway. If NK becomes a problem in the middle of a larger future crisis, there's going to be real trouble.
Are you trying to tell me this wasn't a protest song? You have shaken my world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Several countries around the world have nuclear weapons, why should north korea be denied the same? This is a case of larger countries trying to push smaller ones around out of arrogance.
While the regime in north korea is not without its flaws, they are also not stupid. They want nuclear weapons to give them a voice at the bargaining table, specifically because they don't like the way larger countries push them around. They're not actually going to use these weapons any more than any other country, because they know the result would be their own destruction.
Imposing sanctions on them will not stop their nuclear program, all it does is increase their determination because sanctions are far less likely and far less punitive if they have a credible nuclear weapon, just look at russia's actions in ukraine, if a smaller non nuclear armed country annexed part of another it would have resulted in war against them.
Similarly sanctions hurt the people of north korea far more than the government, cutting the people off from the rest of the world only helps to further strengthen their regime while those in power have their own black market channels to generate their own wealth.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Which country doesn't have a history of genocidal land grab, ethnic cleansings, or "worst form of slavery very late"?
Tonga!
Wait, shit, no.
Greenland!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This is what people tend to forget. India was granted independence because the United Kingdom spent a good portion (most?) of its national wealth in WWII. There was also pressure from FDR to grant them independence. And without American loans after the war, Britain would have collapsed.
This couple pictures exemplifies the difference between North and South :
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/n...
Because the Soviet propaganda ministry was better at doing it's job in west Germany than the N Korean propaganda ministry is at doing it's job in S Korea.
Those German's kids are glad their parents protests failed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It should also be noted that independence was never granted to the Japanese backed rebels fighting in India during WWII.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Im surprised no one has yet mentioned the Rothchild's or Central bank?
That is the definitive way of remotely sensing the detonation of a nuclear weapon, isn't it?
This assumes that for all of the actors involved, nuclear obliteration is the worst possible option.
It might not be a valid assumption.
The word "thermonuclear" in "thermonuclear bomb" comes from the term "thermonuclear fusion", which itself is a clarification of "nuclear fusion" (as opposed to "nuclear fission"). It's an unfortunate terminological quirk that by now is firmly entrenched and is a de facto standard. "Fission bomb" and "fusion bomb" would have been more accurate descriptions, but that ship has sailed.
Kim Jong Un isn't insane and doesn't have unlimited power. He has plenty of support at the moment because it suits others in the military and political ranks, but he has to maintain that support and that allows others to influence him.
The system is insane, but the actors as the top are not.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"There are, as far as I know, no existing bomb which gets more than 50% of its yield from nuclear fusion."
Even if that were true... so what?
Are you denying that the core functionality of a fusion bomb is the fusion part? Or that, now that you name them, the core functionality of a neutron bomb is neutron production (even if it _is_ a kind of thermonuclear bomb)? Given that current designs are quite complex (i.e. physion-fusion-physion designs) the "thermonuclear" nickname looks even more adequate, since it's more generic.
On the other hand and up to my knowledge, on Castle Bravo's case, the most powerful USA probe at about 15Mt, less than 1Mt was assigned to physion.
Are you denying that the core functionality of a fusion bomb is the fusion part?
Yes, that is what I am denying. I do not think it is fair to say that it is core functionality when it contributes less than 50% of the explosive power.
Thermonuclear is obviously correct, and neutron bomb is fine too, but fusion bombs just aren't really fusion bombs.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Someone should now start the VaultTec company now, I'd join. I'm saving my bottle caps now
10 people who did exactly what Ghandi did in the several hundred years before, were all taken outside and shot.
Exactly this.
A long time ago, a relative went to China. He said that you can tell the North Korean refugees because they're so obviously underfed, so a Chinese family who shelters one will keep him or her inside until they can fatten up the refugee.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If you haven't noticed, Pakistan has the bomb, and is a heavily Islamist nation. So far, so good.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I thought the reason why no one bothered making the big Bertha type of bombs anymore was because it was much more effective to have a bunch of smaller ones in a MIRV type setup... Which is much more dependent on the delivery system. From what tests NK has done, while they may be a nuclear power, their delivery systems are not really on the same level. If your target isn't that far away (i.e. SK), it probably doesn't have to be that far advanced. That said, it could be reasonable that they follow the similar development strategies (i.e. one big bomb) as other nations did long ago, likely for the same reasons (delivery issues... Tsar Bomba was dropped by a bomber plane if I remember correctly, which barely had time to get out of the way, another reason to limit size due to delivery system)...
Having said that, I seem to recall NK trying to advance their "satellite" launching ability...
Personally, I think it's old terms we're pretty much stuck with. Thermonuclear is probably a reference to the need to make the fusion materials very hot. Calling them atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs is also not particularly apt. I tend to refer to them as fission and fusion, but with the caveat that fission bombs are often enhanced by fusion, and fusion bombs typically get the majority of their energy from fission.
Given all that, I suppose "nuclear" and "thermonuclear" are about as good as anything.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why its difficult to build a hydrogen bomb?
http://qz.com/588519/why-its-s...
Casteism