"If you ever find yourself in the presence of a destructive force powerful enough to decapsulate those isotopes, radiation sickness will be the least of your worries."
"Sterile" neutrinos,
Supersymmetric particles,
Kaluza-Klein particles,
Energy 'leaking' into higher dimensions...
These are some of the predictions of string theories.
And they all can, to some degree, be tested empirically.
All the technology that needs to be implemented to do this isn't readily available right now, but hopefully, in coming years with experiments such as LHC and IceCube coming online, we could start to see meaningful results - Remember, it took years for empirical confirmation of General Relativity, simply due to technical limitations.
Scores, if not hundreds, of RTGs have been used in space exploration, going back to the '60s. There have only ever been three - iirc - incidents where the RTG's have been breached, resulting in detectable radioactive release.
Despite always having been controversial, RTGs have been proven safe.
Even if you run the space probe from solar cells, you cannot have analytical instruments such as Alpha particle X-ray spectrometers and Mossbauer spectrometers without radioactive sources.
...connectors, resistors, microphone cords, meters, sockets and capacitors -- the stuff of illegal radio stations...
Good grief.
To think, we're rapidly approaching the point where possession of a resistor makes you { potential radio pirate | cracker | terrorist | public enemy number one} in the eyes of the media.
It speaks poorly of what our society has become today when their little science project - which will be found, presumably, with the busted balloon still attached to the makeshift electronics module - needs to be labelled prominently as "HARMLESS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT"...
Maybe we need to start putting warnings on every weather balloon instrumentation package: "NO, NOT EVERY ELECTRONIC DEVICE YOU AREN'T FAMILIAR WITH IS A BLOODY BOMB"
Israel will take out their nuclear infrastructure, if it looks like they could even be close to producing weapons-capable fissile materials. Look what they did to Iraq's Osirak reactor. If they have to turn Iran into a bloody Trinitite car park to stop them aquiring weapons, they'll do it.
You're exactly right - only a very small number of qubits. Trying to scale it up to handle larger problems is the main challenge in QC research at the moment, as i said. But, strictly speaking, working quantum computers do exist, for real, today.
Whilst you could call any Josephson Junction-based microelectronic computer chip a "quantum mechanical computer", it's possible to apply that term to any semiconductor-based microelectronics, if you wanted to.
From what has been described on the blog and website, i'm not convinced that what they're working on is much more than simply a superconducting RSFQ - Rapid Single Flux Quantum - chip, which although can concievably run at a breakneck speed compared to todays Silicon CPU's, is not a Quantum Computer in the normal sense. This thing isn't going to run Shor's Algorithm.
Also, i'm surprised to notice that there are people here who still consider QCs as science fiction - they're not. Quantum Computing has been practical in the lab since the 90's - and, for example, composite numbers have been factorised in polynomial time. The challenge faced by QCT research groups around the world at present is mainly building the things with a large number of qubits, and still maintaining successful operation. With regards to solid state devices such as the Kane QC model, one of the approaches being investigated involves building multiple small QCs and interconnecting them via conventional microelectronics - perhaps SETs, RSFQs, spintronics or maybe even plain old silicon microelectronics - to create a useful, many-qubit, computer.
I've been trying to explain along the lines of TFA ever since this supposed terror plot came to light.
Yes, if they were using sensitised nitromethane, or pre-prepared gelled Acetone Peroxide, then it is very much plasuible.
But everything i've read claims that they were supposedly planning to synthesise AP on the plane.
Now, you start off with your Hydrogen Peroxide, say 35%, and you could have this pre-mixed with your acid catalyst - say conc. Hydrochloric or Sulfuric Acid. You only need a small amount of acid - and HCl doesn't react anywhere near as exothermically as conc. H2SO4. So this pre-prepared mixture could conceivably be handled quite safely - it's certainly nothing like 'Pirhana Fluid', which IIRC, is equal volumes of conc. H2SO4 and H2O2.
So this mixture can be mixed, on the plane, with acetone. Now, it needs to be done in an ice bath, - sure, maybe you can MacGyver this up on board somehow - and after waiting hours for the reaction to complete, the product needs to be filtered out and dried. In my opinion, this would be the hardest part to complete on the plane, and the hardest to conceal. It would be easier trying to get snakes on the plane.
TFA does mention something particularly scary in the context of aircraft terror - Dimethylmercury.
In a couple of bottles of eye drops or something, you would probably have enough to give everybody on the plane a lethal dose. No fancy delivery system needed, just drop it on the floor and let the volatility, vapour pressure and air circulation system do the rest.
He was simply one of the most extraordinary people that modern history has known.
http://lib.ru/ANEKDOTY/FEINMAN/feinman_engl.txt
That probably infringes somebodies copyright somewhere, but it's like Shakespeare or Aspirin - too good to not freely share.
Yeah, it's interesting, i don't know why it creates the response it does.
CCD's aren't exactly designed to detect particle raditation, so anything is possible.
Personally i think that over time the radiation would damage the CCD, eventually rendering it useless.
Isn't it now accepted that Curie's significant exposure to unshielded X-ray generators and such forth whilst working as a radiologist during WW1 contributed more to her illness than exposure to radioactivity?
The alpha from Am-241 has an energy of 5.638 MeV, which corresponds to a velocity of 0.053c or so, using the standard classical formula for kinetic energy, and taking the alpha mass to be 4GeV, off the top of my head. There is no way that could be fast enough, as far as i'm aware, to cause Cherenkov radiation.
The predominant health risk of Uranium is heavy metal toxicity, not radioactivity.
Uranium has quite a low specific activity compared to shorter-lived artificial nucleides, and decays predominatly by alpha decay as has already been pointed out.
Thus, soluble ions of Uranium, and other heavy actinides, are a signifcant environmental health concern, however, the insoluble oxides, such as UO2, PuO2 etc. aren't absorbed into the body, thus mitigating this hazard very significantly. Recall Bernard Cohen's famous offer to eat 800mg of Pu oxide on camera.
OK, you do have things like AN/Nitromethane,(sometimes used in mining, and used in McVeigh's attack) AN/Hydrazine (Astrolite), ANFO or AN-based slurries or liquid bulk emulsions used for blasting, but these aren't completely comprised of liquid components, more like semi-liquid mixtures, and aren't seemingly consistent with what we're hearing with regards to these thwarted airline attacks.
The reports i've read seem to suggest an organic peroxide explosive, which is very plausible given the wide knowledge and history of terrorist use of this stuff, but it also seems to be being suggested in news reports that, for example, Acetone peroxide can be deployed as a binary liquid, which is rubbish.
These kinds of things are synthesised by combining the right amount of the three precursors (A strong acid catalyst is needed) slowly, with the reaction vessel chilled in an ice bath, and the solutions pre-cooled, usually, and left to react for a considerable period of time. Then, the desired product (which will seperate from the reaction mixture typically as a precipitate of fine white crystals, or as a water-insoluble layer floating on top, depending on the exact product) is seperated, filtered, neutralised, and *dried*. A solid explosive OP compound is insensitive if it is wet.
Die Hard isn't real, of course.
The media reports i've read seem to suggest the idea of a binary liquid explosive, but in reality, i know of no such material that actually exists.
It's so over the top it's not funny.
They're concerned over 'liquid-based explosives', apparantly.
MEKP, Astrolite, NG, whatever. They could all be put inside a liquid medicine bottle, and would look just fine upon visual examination.
From TFA, they mention "radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel". Now, whilst Ra-226 is produced in the decay series of U-238, this isn't a nuclear reaction which is desired or significant in fission reactors to my knowledge, and Ra-226 is not a significant source of activity in spent fuel derived wastes.
Slashdot Mirror
Neal said it best.
"If you ever find yourself in the presence of a destructive force powerful enough to decapsulate those isotopes, radiation sickness will be the least of your worries."
I'm not content with just the RTGs - I want Jack Carter's whole house.
"Sterile" neutrinos, Supersymmetric particles, Kaluza-Klein particles, Energy 'leaking' into higher dimensions...
These are some of the predictions of string theories.
And they all can, to some degree, be tested empirically.
All the technology that needs to be implemented to do this isn't readily available right now, but hopefully, in coming years with experiments such as LHC and IceCube coming online, we could start to see meaningful results - Remember, it took years for empirical confirmation of General Relativity, simply due to technical limitations.
Scores, if not hundreds, of RTGs have been used in space exploration, going back to the '60s. There have only ever been three - iirc - incidents where the RTG's have been breached, resulting in detectable radioactive release.
Despite always having been controversial, RTGs have been proven safe.
Even if you run the space probe from solar cells, you cannot have analytical instruments such as Alpha particle X-ray spectrometers and Mossbauer spectrometers without radioactive sources.
...connectors, resistors, microphone cords, meters, sockets and capacitors -- the stuff of illegal radio stations...
Good grief.
To think, we're rapidly approaching the point where possession of a resistor makes you { potential radio pirate | cracker | terrorist | public enemy number one} in the eyes of the media.
The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity: http://russp.org/BLC-3.html
It speaks poorly of what our society has become today when their little science project - which will be found, presumably, with the busted balloon still attached to the makeshift electronics module - needs to be labelled prominently as "HARMLESS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT"...
Maybe we need to start putting warnings on every weather balloon instrumentation package: "NO, NOT EVERY ELECTRONIC DEVICE YOU AREN'T FAMILIAR WITH IS A BLOODY BOMB"
Israel will take out their nuclear infrastructure, if it looks like they could even be close to producing weapons-capable fissile materials. Look what they did to Iraq's Osirak reactor. If they have to turn Iran into a bloody Trinitite car park to stop them aquiring weapons, they'll do it.
You're exactly right - only a very small number of qubits. Trying to scale it up to handle larger problems is the main challenge in QC research at the moment, as i said. But, strictly speaking, working quantum computers do exist, for real, today. Whilst you could call any Josephson Junction-based microelectronic computer chip a "quantum mechanical computer", it's possible to apply that term to any semiconductor-based microelectronics, if you wanted to.
From what has been described on the blog and website, i'm not convinced that what they're working on is much more than simply a superconducting RSFQ - Rapid Single Flux Quantum - chip, which although can concievably run at a breakneck speed compared to todays Silicon CPU's, is not a Quantum Computer in the normal sense. This thing isn't going to run Shor's Algorithm. Also, i'm surprised to notice that there are people here who still consider QCs as science fiction - they're not. Quantum Computing has been practical in the lab since the 90's - and, for example, composite numbers have been factorised in polynomial time. The challenge faced by QCT research groups around the world at present is mainly building the things with a large number of qubits, and still maintaining successful operation. With regards to solid state devices such as the Kane QC model, one of the approaches being investigated involves building multiple small QCs and interconnecting them via conventional microelectronics - perhaps SETs, RSFQs, spintronics or maybe even plain old silicon microelectronics - to create a useful, many-qubit, computer.
Not true - Curie picked up Chemistry and Physics.
I've been trying to explain along the lines of TFA ever since this supposed terror plot came to light.
Yes, if they were using sensitised nitromethane, or pre-prepared gelled Acetone Peroxide, then it is very much plasuible.
But everything i've read claims that they were supposedly planning to synthesise AP on the plane.
Now, you start off with your Hydrogen Peroxide, say 35%, and you could have this pre-mixed with your acid catalyst - say conc. Hydrochloric or Sulfuric Acid. You only need a small amount of acid - and HCl doesn't react anywhere near as exothermically as conc. H2SO4. So this pre-prepared mixture could conceivably be handled quite safely - it's certainly nothing like 'Pirhana Fluid', which IIRC, is equal volumes of conc. H2SO4 and H2O2.
So this mixture can be mixed, on the plane, with acetone. Now, it needs to be done in an ice bath, - sure, maybe you can MacGyver this up on board somehow - and after waiting hours for the reaction to complete, the product needs to be filtered out and dried. In my opinion, this would be the hardest part to complete on the plane, and the hardest to conceal. It would be easier trying to get snakes on the plane.
TFA does mention something particularly scary in the context of aircraft terror - Dimethylmercury.
In a couple of bottles of eye drops or something, you would probably have enough to give everybody on the plane a lethal dose. No fancy delivery system needed, just drop it on the floor and let the volatility, vapour pressure and air circulation system do the rest.
And you wouldn't know a damn thing for months.
He was simply one of the most extraordinary people that modern history has known. http://lib.ru/ANEKDOTY/FEINMAN/feinman_engl.txt That probably infringes somebodies copyright somewhere, but it's like Shakespeare or Aspirin - too good to not freely share.
Yeah, it's interesting, i don't know why it creates the response it does. CCD's aren't exactly designed to detect particle raditation, so anything is possible. Personally i think that over time the radiation would damage the CCD, eventually rendering it useless.
Isn't it now accepted that Curie's significant exposure to unshielded X-ray generators and such forth whilst working as a radiologist during WW1 contributed more to her illness than exposure to radioactivity?
The alpha from Am-241 has an energy of 5.638 MeV, which corresponds to a velocity of 0.053c or so, using the standard classical formula for kinetic energy, and taking the alpha mass to be 4GeV, off the top of my head. There is no way that could be fast enough, as far as i'm aware, to cause Cherenkov radiation.
The predominant health risk of Uranium is heavy metal toxicity, not radioactivity.
Uranium has quite a low specific activity compared to shorter-lived artificial nucleides, and decays predominatly by alpha decay as has already been pointed out.
Thus, soluble ions of Uranium, and other heavy actinides, are a signifcant environmental health concern, however, the insoluble oxides, such as UO2, PuO2 etc. aren't absorbed into the body, thus mitigating this hazard very significantly.
Recall Bernard Cohen's famous offer to eat 800mg of Pu oxide on camera.
You're right, a bad thing. The difficulty of isotopic seperation is the only thing that prevents every man and his dog building fission bombs.
OK, you do have things like AN/Nitromethane,(sometimes used in mining, and used in McVeigh's attack) AN/Hydrazine (Astrolite), ANFO or AN-based slurries or liquid bulk emulsions used for blasting, but these aren't completely comprised of liquid components, more like semi-liquid mixtures, and aren't seemingly consistent with what we're hearing with regards to these thwarted airline attacks. The reports i've read seem to suggest an organic peroxide explosive, which is very plausible given the wide knowledge and history of terrorist use of this stuff, but it also seems to be being suggested in news reports that, for example, Acetone peroxide can be deployed as a binary liquid, which is rubbish. These kinds of things are synthesised by combining the right amount of the three precursors (A strong acid catalyst is needed) slowly, with the reaction vessel chilled in an ice bath, and the solutions pre-cooled, usually, and left to react for a considerable period of time. Then, the desired product (which will seperate from the reaction mixture typically as a precipitate of fine white crystals, or as a water-insoluble layer floating on top, depending on the exact product) is seperated, filtered, neutralised, and *dried*. A solid explosive OP compound is insensitive if it is wet.
Don't the low pressures and temperatures often destroy the LCD?
Die Hard isn't real, of course. The media reports i've read seem to suggest the idea of a binary liquid explosive, but in reality, i know of no such material that actually exists.
It's so over the top it's not funny. They're concerned over 'liquid-based explosives', apparantly. MEKP, Astrolite, NG, whatever. They could all be put inside a liquid medicine bottle, and would look just fine upon visual examination.
We've got Snakes on this Brane!
Give it a few years... 11 dimensional storage. Oh yes.
From TFA, they mention "radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel". Now, whilst Ra-226 is produced in the decay series of U-238, this isn't a nuclear reaction which is desired or significant in fission reactors to my knowledge, and Ra-226 is not a significant source of activity in spent fuel derived wastes.