Comparing an SS-18 with Chernobyl (that's the normal transliteration, at least in English) is not very meaningful.
The Chernobyl incident did not involve a nuclear explosion but did involve a lot of fallout. The SS-18 ICBM is an airburst only weapon, meaning that the warhead detonates some distance above the ground, which causes damage to a much greater area and minimise radioactive fallout (as there is not a patch of ground which is exposed to a large neutron flux). Unlike some ICBMs such as the Trident, the SS-18 cannot be configured to detonate at ground level.
So: Chernobyl's damage: largely long-term contamination. SS-18 damage: largely from the blast.
DU would be no more deadly that lead. Weapon-grade uranium would make the effected area pretty radioactive, to the extent that spending prolonged periods in it would make you sick.
We were supposed to be transporting formerly-nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that had had the warheads removed.
That story has some problems... Why would you transport a missile to be decommissioned under the wing of a bomber? That's where a missile goes when you want to launch it.
the weapons would have been destroyed in a fairly inert manor.
Inert like a dirty bomb, yeah. Sure, there will be no nuclear explosion, but you are still slamming a nuclear warhead into the ground at a few hundred miles per hour.
Maybe they just didn't bother looking at the thing which would tell them they were nuclear? I mean how often do you think they get in the air and then ask the co-pilot "Hey, can you check what sort of missile that is? I don't think I remember..."
It was dangerous because THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS ON BOARD! As another Slashdotter already said, what would have happened if they had engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing at a civilian airstrip? If they thought they were carrying cruise missiles with conventional explosive warheads, they might well have decided to drop them in the desert rather than land with a fire risk like that.
It's true that dropping, setting fire to, shooting, etc. cannot cause a nuclear weapon to detonate properly (i.e. actually fission), but that isn't the only really bad thing that can happen.
If the nuke hit the ground hard (for example was simply dropped off the plane), the missile's fuel would surely catch fire. That could easily set off the explosives which are supposed to detonate the nuke. It wouldn't be coordinated enough to actually cause a nuclear explosion, but it would instead very effectively pulverise the radioactive material and put it into the air. That's what we call a dirty bomb, and currently obsess about terrorists building.
I am confused about Intel branding. Last time I checked, Xeons were not their most efficient cores. Are these ones based on the Conroe architecture or something?
I saw this set as a puzzle once: You are in a locked room with no windows. You are sitting on the floor under what feels like normal gravity. You must determine whether you are on a planet or in a pressurised cabin on the edge of a big flywheel in deep space. You have any number of normal household objects. It is assumed that your far enough from the centre that the difference in perceived g between your head and feet is negligible.
The answer is to spin a coin on the floor. If the whole room is in fact rotating, the conservation of the coin's angular momentum will prevent it from spinning stably on the floor, as it will try to stay spinning on the same axis (and so once the room has gone round 90 degrees the coin will be spinning sideways and thus the edge will be hitting the floor and so on).
Momentum and velocity are relative. Angular momentum and angular velocity aren't.
For example, it is not possible to determine whether your spaceship is moving or not unless you have windows, but it's pretty easy to tell if you're spinning.
Do they give any reason that this might be so? Are the galaxies in the same area? Did they all form from some insanely massive rotating structure or something?
Slashdot Mirror
Thing is, opening up the case is a perfectly legitimate way to void a warranty, and carries a much more genuine risk of actually breaking in hinge.
And who says they aren't lunatics?
4) ???
5) Profit!
Doesn't anyone EVER actually RTFM? FFS. These problems are SO easy to fix if you aren't a total idiot. Honestly.
(Don't mod me troll; I actually use Gentoo)
Sorry failed to blockquote that first sentance.
Comparing an SS-18 with Chernobyl (that's the normal transliteration, at least in English) is not very meaningful.
The Chernobyl incident did not involve a nuclear explosion but did involve a lot of fallout. The SS-18 ICBM is an airburst only weapon, meaning that the warhead detonates some distance above the ground, which causes damage to a much greater area and minimise radioactive fallout (as there is not a patch of ground which is exposed to a large neutron flux). Unlike some ICBMs such as the Trident, the SS-18 cannot be configured to detonate at ground level.
So: Chernobyl's damage: largely long-term contamination. SS-18 damage: largely from the blast.
DU would be no more deadly that lead. Weapon-grade uranium would make the effected area pretty radioactive, to the extent that spending prolonged periods in it would make you sick.
Maybe they just didn't bother looking at the thing which would tell them they were nuclear? I mean how often do you think they get in the air and then ask the co-pilot "Hey, can you check what sort of missile that is? I don't think I remember..."
It was dangerous because THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS ON BOARD! As another Slashdotter already said, what would have happened if they had engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing at a civilian airstrip? If they thought they were carrying cruise missiles with conventional explosive warheads, they might well have decided to drop them in the desert rather than land with a fire risk like that.
In this case, between 5 and 150 kilotons, which I took to mean has configurable yield. Who knows what they were set to?
It's true that dropping, setting fire to, shooting, etc. cannot cause a nuclear weapon to detonate properly (i.e. actually fission), but that isn't the only really bad thing that can happen.
If the nuke hit the ground hard (for example was simply dropped off the plane), the missile's fuel would surely catch fire. That could easily set off the explosives which are supposed to detonate the nuke. It wouldn't be coordinated enough to actually cause a nuclear explosion, but it would instead very effectively pulverise the radioactive material and put it into the air. That's what we call a dirty bomb, and currently obsess about terrorists building.
Slam concrete into the ground at 200m/s and a lot of it will form a fine dust which will be scattered on the wind... Go figure.
Maybe they're going to start it up again now that Russia is doing it? Maybe that's how they ended up making this mistake.
I am confused about Intel branding. Last time I checked, Xeons were not their most efficient cores. Are these ones based on the Conroe architecture or something?
If you find out, tell me. :)
And no, you can't tell the difference between a gravity well and acceleration unless you can detect the gradient in g.
I saw this set as a puzzle once: You are in a locked room with no windows. You are sitting on the floor under what feels like normal gravity. You must determine whether you are on a planet or in a pressurised cabin on the edge of a big flywheel in deep space. You have any number of normal household objects. It is assumed that your far enough from the centre that the difference in perceived g between your head and feet is negligible.
The answer is to spin a coin on the floor. If the whole room is in fact rotating, the conservation of the coin's angular momentum will prevent it from spinning stably on the floor, as it will try to stay spinning on the same axis (and so once the room has gone round 90 degrees the coin will be spinning sideways and thus the edge will be hitting the floor and so on).
Is it much easier to see galaxies which are aligned such that the observed area of the sky they cover is greater?
Pwned.
What exactly does an experimental astrophysicist do? Create galaxies to see how they behave?
Does anyone apart from "Electric Universe theory" nuts believe in intergalactic EM fields which effect large-scale things?
Correct me if I'm wrong...
Momentum and velocity are relative. Angular momentum and angular velocity aren't.
For example, it is not possible to determine whether your spaceship is moving or not unless you have windows, but it's pretty easy to tell if you're spinning.
Do they give any reason that this might be so? Are the galaxies in the same area? Did they all form from some insanely massive rotating structure or something?