World peace

[Keith Hamburger]

Quote by: Scribbler1 I don't think it's that easy to start a chain reaction, at least not in the way you mean. Actually it is a chain reaction that makes them explode. The bomb goes off when you blast one piece of Uranium into another, making the chunk big enough to reach critical mass. Now, a hydrogen bomb needs an atomic bomb as a detonator but I'm still not sure if a nearby a-bomb explosion would do it. Anyone far enough along in physics to help out?

No, it wouldn't do it. The design has to be fairly specific to compress the deutirium or tritium oxide to start a fusion reaction. It would actually be quite easy to disarm a fusion weapon by damaging the symmetry of the fusion and fission charges.

Keith

[lili462]

Quote by: Samildanach Perhaps instead of getting rid of nuclear weapons we should just share out the ones we have. If we gave every country five nukes then everyone would be too scared to go to war with each other. On the upside it would probably also solve the Iran/ Iraq conflict through mutual annilation.

if we handed out nukes the world would be over...the day after tommorow (cheesy i know)

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Keith Hamburger No, it wouldn't do it. The design has to be fairly specific to compress the deutirium or tritium oxide to start a fusion reaction. It would actually be quite easy to disarm a fusion weapon by damaging the symmetry of the fusion and fission charges. Keith

I didn't think so, but the information I remembered was old and semi-forgotten, thanks.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: lili462 if we handed out nukes the world would be over...the day after tommorow (cheesy i know)

There's an idea. Let's give some nuclear weapons to the Palestinians. Their behavior right after they held their free and fair election was such I would think we would all be a lot more at peace the very next day.

[Morgan_Freeman]

War is a characteristic of our current worldwide system of sovereign states. As long as these states exist, war will exist. In this regard, I consider a nation being on a "war footing" as nearly equivalent to being in an active state of war. This means having a standing military apparatus ready to respond to threats from other sovereign nations.

If this system of sovereign nations were replaced with worldwide individual sovereignty, people would still likely arm themselves as a matter of self-defense. The possibility of large-scale conflicts would be greatly diminished, however. And as humanity becomes increasingly wealthy and educated, and technology becomes more advanced and widespread, the benefits of armed conflict, whether individual or concerted, will greatly diminish.

[Samildanach]

if we handed out nukes the world would be over...the day after tommorow (cheesy i know)

Rubbish...the only place that they would even possibly get used is the Israeli/Iranian conflict in which case it would save the world a lot of future trouble and finally provide a resolution to the never ending conflict. Apart from that the only country I am really worried about having them is the US, they after all are the only ones who have actually used them against people and the only nation that is invading other countries every few years. I am all for innocent until proven guilty and hand them out.... two for every country....this would preclude large scale invasions like Iraq.

[Samildanach]

It would actually be quite easy to disarm a fusion weapon by damaging the symmetry of the fusion and fission charges

Hahaha...like to see you try that while it is counting down with a mercury switch in place and a few laser beams running around the weapon on the inside with a pressurised seal and pressure sensor with an external titanium shell casing. Easy to defuse my ass.

[Samildanach]

Nations are made up of people who have rights, whether or not they recognize them. If a people has a disagreement with another people that leads to oppression by force, those oppressed people will lash out using force. Many of the problems today are because people who make up "large" nations, have large amounts of the populace that want to fragment due to their nations piecemeal power concentration, and the marginalizations of the choices allowed by the power structures, and the lines that still exist from colonialism, world wars, and ancient empires. The more fragmented the power becomes (the nations) the more equal the power of the citizens will be. Much like a free market, the more choices there are, the more peace there will be, and a LARGE portion of the people will migrate to where their way of life is most easily afforded and obtained. IF the people who made up the areas drew the lines on the map, it would be much different than it is now, which is enough to say that until these disputes are settled by forces of THEIR OWN, there will be NO settlement of disagreement. I believe the term is "irreconcileable differences".

Hmmm...if I understand what you are saying correctly....you are saying that fragmentation of power is a good thing as it provides different people different ways of life in different areas and if a government suddenly had to concentrate on the people in its own country it would have no choice but to try to exert power over them?? and make the country more uniform with one law for all.
IF this is the point you are trying to make then I possibly agree with you to a certain extent.
I am not trying to cut down on migration between nations here if you dont like living where you are living by all means migrate to a country that has laws you can live with. For example if nuclear weapons are everywhere, that just negates largescale conflict, it doesn't mean that people still can't migrate between countries to find a place they would like to live. For example the EU has a lot of individual countries each with their own law, if they all owned weapons then that wouldn't actually change anything other than the fact each would now have a weapon and could guarantee they wouldn't be invaded. They already concentrate on making laws for their own citizens. they talk of an overbearing EU law but most countries won't sign up for it.
Although in a hundred or couple of hundred years time I would not be surprised if the country borders start to break down and people just become citizens of the EU and it becomes a proper nation. I tend to think of it like the culture in Peter F Hamiltons culture series. Don't know if you have read any of them.

[SteveA]

Maybe equalizing forces would help keep the peace for a while but ultimately as long as we live in a world where individuals rely on large social institutions, whether they be nations, religious groups or ideologies etc. to dominate over others, then it's probably a losing situation. In other words, man hasn't evolved past the tribal culture and evolution probably won't be fast enough to save things. Thousands of years ago, the most a villiage could do was harrass a few neighbors but now you can have a handful of people threaten the world. It's ironic that one of the skills that made humans successful in nature is probably the same "skill" that's going to be the undoing. I say this simply because I hope some people come up with a solution because it eludes me. It just seems we collect more undergrowth and "controlled burns" become more difficult over time. If you look at casualty counts over time in wars and compare them to global population growth, you'll see that we're "getting better" at warfare than population growth will be able to keep up with and sometime someone's going to make a mistake ... even trying to spread around nukes would only delay this ... though maybe a bit of a delay would give time for someone to come up with a solution but would people even recognize a solution if they were presented with it? (Assuming there truly was a viable solution) I guess nature/God gives no guarantees. You just do what you can and hope for the best.

[Keith Hamburger]

Quote by: Samildanach Hahaha...like to see you try that while it is counting down with a mercury switch in place and a few laser beams running around the weapon on the inside with a pressurised seal and pressure sensor with an external titanium shell casing. Easy to defuse my ass.

<YAWN> No one said they would be easy to get to. The question was whether a nuclear explosion could set off a fission explosive since they are inextricably linked in the fusion weapon. (As a previous poster said, it takes a fusion explosion to make a fission weapon work. If you don't understand it, just move on.)

The answer to the question is NO. The fission explosive has to be specifically shaped to provide the compression necessary to start a fission reaction. If the symmetry of that fusion explosive is damaged, the fission explosive will not work (and even, but less likely, the fusion explosive probably won't work, either).

Any high explosive detonated sufficiently near a fission weapon is likely to destroy the symmetry necessary for fission to be initiated and therefore will destroy the weapon.

From there, I'll let you get back to your James Bond fantasies.

Keith

[lili462]

Quote by: Samildanach Hahaha...like to see you try that while it is counting down with a mercury switch in place and a few laser beams running around the weapon on the inside with a pressurised seal and pressure sensor with an external titanium shell casing. Easy to defuse my ass.

your telling me there is not chance all hell would break loose if we just handed out nukes? yea ok...... maybe i over exxagerated when i said the world would end..but it wouldnt be a pretty site.

[Forseti]

The problem isn’t nations. It’s terrorist. If we hand out two nukes to every country that wants one, the chances of one getting away from one of these countries is increased greatly. Countries rise and fall all the time. What happens when one falls and it’s nuke shows up missing. All one needs to make a nuke is to get weapons grade Uranium to critical mass. In other words, all you need is some one willing to put two pieces of Uranium together then you have a destroyed city. Then what happens? Mad is no more, the only thing that the country that was hit could do is go after the organization that hit them and it’s not likely your going to be able to retaliate with your nuke. Nations will not be the next to hit the button, they have something to lose. A group of desperate men with nothing to lose will be the next to set off the bomb.

[Osborn F Enready]

The U.S.S.R., one of the most poweful, far reaching intelligence and defense super powers in THE WORLD at one time, (supposedly) lost nukes.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040213.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase_nuke
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/pro...tnw/chap5.html

If they (we in my case) can't keep them, who can?

You know what a suitcase Nuke is? THAT is a terrorist threat moreso than any missile.

[Samildanach]

The answer to the question is NO. The fission explosive has to be specifically shaped to provide the compression necessary to start a fission reaction. If the symmetry of that fusion explosive is damaged, the fission explosive will not work.

That is something I would debate actually. You are thinking about efficent bomb design...which by all means is what we have to day because it minimises size but there is no reason why you could not in theory have an inefficent bomb design in terms of explosive and still have it work if you have enough explosive, after all the epxlosive is just there to create enough kinetic energy to initiate the chain reaction through compression. In fact I can think of at least ONE other bomb design where the explosive would not have to be spherical in nature to ensure a chain reaction...and one where you might not even need explosive at all to initiate the reaction.