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hacker_mage
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15 Sep 2006, 7:33 pm

I AM AN EVIL BOY GENUIS MY IQ IS OVER 145 AND I CAN BLOW UP ALMOST ANYTHING!! ! :twisted: :twisted:



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15 Sep 2006, 7:47 pm

"Am I right in assuming I can get a nuclear explosion on this suit? Because I'm telling you, that stuff does not dry-clean!"

Down boy! Go work for the military or civil engineering. They could use an explosives fanatic like you.


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15 Sep 2006, 7:59 pm

almost anything huh, try to make a huge block of ice explode

all you need is a huge block of ice and some thermite, the thermite has to be lit though for obvious reasons (to start the thermite reaction)

(disclaimer, don't actually try this unless you know what you are doing, it is dangerous, consider what water/ice is made of at an atomic level)



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15 Sep 2006, 8:25 pm

Pikachu wrote:

(disclaimer, don't actually try this unless you know what you are doing, it is dangerous, consider what water/ice is made of at an atomic level)


Hydrogen and oxygen, obviously.....

Oh s**t.

Does thermite actually break the hydrogen and oxygen apart, only for it to be recombined rather spectacularly?

Oh, major domo s**t.

Do not try that. For God's sake (and I mean it), do not try it!

Why?

Well, besides the energetics of hydrogen and oxygen combining (the most basic oxidation reaction), imagine ice turned into steam.

Very rapidly.

With (possibly) razor-sharp chunks of ice everywhere.

I haven't tried this, I haven't seen it happen or the results described to me. But I can imagine. It does not sound good.


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15 Sep 2006, 9:42 pm

What you are suggesting is that the H20 particles will split up. No they will not, they will just become steam and rise away from the reaction. You need EXTREME heat to turn it into a plasma. To split up H20, you will need to perform either electrolysis or use a dehydration solution.

So no, your plan fails.

A pack of C4, weapons grade Plutonium, and Uranium, maybe some thermite which is released before detonation, Hydrogen sealed in the outer chamber, under high pressure, and THEN you have a GREAT explosion.

Make big bombs for greater effects.



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15 Sep 2006, 10:17 pm

Anubis wrote:
What you are suggesting is that the H20 particles will split up. No they will not, they will just become steam and rise away from the reaction. You need EXTREME heat to turn it into a plasma. To split up H20, you will need to perform either electrolysis or use a dehydration solution.

So no, your plan fails.

A pack of C4, weapons grade Plutonium, and Uranium, maybe some thermite which is released before detonation, Hydrogen sealed in the outer chamber, under high pressure, and THEN you have a GREAT explosion.

Make big bombs for greater effects.


My paranoia was thinking for me. I was away having a coffee (or Coca-Cola, to be precise) break.

I know how a nuclear bomb works (at least in broad theory strokes), so some questions for all you bomb freaks out there:

1. What's so similar between a starting pool game and Little Boy?

2. Which bombs use the "gun-barrel", and which use the "implosion sphere"?

3. From above, why can't the fissile material used in the "implosion sphere" method be used in the "gun barrel" method?

4. What was Edward Teller's fear, relating to nukes, before he became their strongest advocate?

5. (Related) When nuclear fusion occurs in large stars, it'll eventually be unable to continue, as fusing this element (created from previous fusion stages) takes more energy than it outputs. What element is this? And what happens to the star?

I feel like being a smart-arse today. :twisted:


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Anubis
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16 Sep 2006, 8:58 am

1 The "Little Boy" was the gun barrel method nuclear bomb detonated over Hiroshima. A Uranium- 235 "bullet" is fired at a Uranium target through a "gun barrel" tube, causing cataclysmic destruction. In a game of pool, it is done by a pool cue and on a table. You are very likely to miss the target hole. However, the Uranium shot never misses unless the tube is somehow too big and the firing mechanism is aimed improperly in the first place. Basically, the gun barrel method is pool with explosives which ends after the first shot.

2. Only the Little Boy and several other nuclear weapons were "gun barrel" types, due to the inefficiency and instability of the design. No more "gun barrel" devices exist. All nuclear weapons are "implosion sphere" designs.

3. The assembly methods and way in which it works are unsuitable for such weapons. The weapon's length would have to be very long if Plutonum were to be used. Only Uranium-235 is practical for such a design.

4. That they would destroy the world? (Honestly, I do not know)

5. Helium or Beryllium.



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16 Sep 2006, 9:14 am

For some reason it is more fun to try to remember than look it up, but I think the answer to (5) is iron. Even our sun produces elements as high as carbon in the "solar phoenix" cycle which makes the picture of exactly what is fusion a bit more complicated.

One of the scary things is that the ultimate nuclear weapon is not a fusion device but a fission-fusion-fission device. As I understand it, once you have a working thermonuclear weapon, it can be surrounded by an arbitrarily large amount of U-238 (yes, U-238) and the device can detonate the entire mass. I think that this can also be done with a neutron bomb, which is a fusion device designed to "fizzle" and emit a lot of radiation with little blast. I think that the 65 megaton device that the Russians detonated a long time ago would have opened up a lava pit had it been detonated on or under the ground instead of two miles up. As it was it incinerated a huge area.



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16 Sep 2006, 9:29 am

w00t


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16 Sep 2006, 10:53 am

It would have caused earthquakes, that's for sure. Neutron bombs are used against military targets. They deliver deadly radiation to the soldiers inside armoured vehicles and fry electronics.



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16 Sep 2006, 8:30 pm

Anubis wrote:
1 The "Little Boy" was the gun barrel method nuclear bomb detonated over Hiroshima. A Uranium- 235 "bullet" is fired at a Uranium target through a "gun barrel" tube, causing cataclysmic destruction. In a game of pool, it is done by a pool cue and on a table. You are very likely to miss the target hole. However, the Uranium shot never misses unless the tube is somehow too big and the firing mechanism is aimed improperly in the first place. Basically, the gun barrel method is pool with explosives which ends after the first shot.

2. Only the Little Boy and several other nuclear weapons were "gun barrel" types, due to the inefficiency and instability of the design. No more "gun barrel" devices exist. All nuclear weapons are "implosion sphere" designs.

3. The assembly methods and way in which it works are unsuitable for such weapons. The weapon's length would have to be very long if Plutonum were to be used. Only Uranium-235 is practical for such a design.

4. That they would destroy the world? (Honestly, I do not know)

5. Helium or Beryllium.


1. (Irritating buzz) Wrong. I should have said nuclear bombs in general, but Little Boy was to confuse any people not familiar with them. Think about how starting nuclear fission is like a starting pool game, and try again.

2. (Weak buzz) To my knowledge, uranium was used in the "gun-barrel" design and plutonium in the "implosion" design. You used this answer in the next (and wrong) question.

3. (Irritating buzz) Wrong. I read that if plutonium is used in the "gun-barrel" method, a premature explosion would blow the two pieces apart before crtical mass could be reached. Hence the development of the "implosion sphere" method.

4. (Weak ding-ding-ding) In a matter. He was afraid that (for some reason) there would be a chain reaction within the atmosphere of Earth that would burn the atmosphere away.

5. (Irritating buzz) Wrong! I'm really getting Feral at the lack of results here.


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Remnant
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17 Sep 2006, 5:12 pm

Anubis wrote:
It would have caused earthquakes, that's for sure. Neutron bombs are used against military targets. They deliver deadly radiation to the soldiers inside armoured vehicles and fry electronics.


Well, when you get into the sixty megatons range, one of them can cause a nuclear winter of some kind because it can throw a lot of vaporized dirt into the air. It would also be very very dirty.



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20 Sep 2006, 3:26 am

Anubis wrote:
What you are suggesting is that the H20 particles will split up. No they will not, they will just become steam and rise away from the reaction. You need EXTREME heat to turn it into a plasma. To split up H20, you will need to perform either electrolysis or use a dehydration solution.



Is there enough heat and a high enough temperture to break down much water ?
No there is not.

But there is chemistry.

Fe203 + 2Al == Al2O3 + 2Fe (molten Iron) + heat

2Fe(molten iron) + h20(ice) + heat == Fe203 + H2 (gas burn in air)

2Al (some melts in the thermite) + H20 +heat == Al2O3 + H2

People at a steel mill know you will get a nasty explosion if water gets in a crusible
of molten steel.

Yes a lot of steam and enough hydrogen to be very dangerous. Hazmat teams
know that sand is what you control thermite with.

Even carbon dioxide is dangerous with molten aluminium.



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20 Sep 2006, 5:38 pm

The answer to question one of my nuke pop quiz, is that a starting pool game is rather like the initial single-atom stage of a chain reaction, when a neutron (cue ball) hits the atom (arranged pool balls) and splits it apart. This is only a rough analogy, but designed to get you thinking.

Question 5's answer had a clue in my response to the question. Did anyone notice the highlighted letters in feral? The answer, of course, is iron, often considered at the nuclear level to be the most stable element, and absorbs more energy in nuclear fusion than put out. The explosion of the resultant supernova releases so much energy, it allows even heavier elements to be formed.


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22 Sep 2006, 9:56 pm

When I was a kid it was still legal to burn trash where I lived. I would add wood to make the fire hotter to burn down what remained and that would cause the barrel to glow red. I found out that when I sprayed water on it to cool it down the water would cut through the steel in a few seconds. Granted that the steel wasnb't all that thick because it was rusted, still, the steel burned. Water will actually burn steel at red heat and above. The water is cracked, the oxygen is taken by the iron and burns at a high temperature, the hydrogen unites with the oxygen in the air and returns that energy to the cycle, so we have a pretty efficient cutting implement.



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24 Sep 2006, 12:08 pm

Remnant wrote:
When I was a kid it was still legal to burn trash where I lived. I would add wood to make the fire hotter to burn down what remained and that would cause the barrel to glow red. I found out that when I sprayed water on it to cool it down the water would cut through the steel in a few seconds. Granted that the steel wasnb't all that thick because it was rusted, still, the steel burned. Water will actually burn steel at red heat and above. The water is cracked, the oxygen is taken by the iron and burns at a high temperature, the hydrogen unites with the oxygen in the air and returns that energy to the cycle, so we have a pretty efficient cutting implement.


Cool I like this story! I'm teaching my 4 year old nephew chemistry. He first learned
about water (H20). I would like to do your experiment one day. I have heard of
plasma cutters that use water as the plasma fluid so it would react in the same way I
think.

hmm how to due the experiment: Maybe build a charcoal fire so there is no water/hydrogen in the picture. Then use it to heat a sheet of thin steel. My guess
the secondary burning of hydrogen may not play abig role but it might. Any way drop
a narrow band of water on the hot sheet with a water pistol. I think industrial they would superheat steam and pass it over red hot metals to make hydrogen in the
old days for the Zepplins I think.

Oh I just thought the thin sheet of steel need to be set on a non-reactive material that would hold alot of heat to keep the steel hot. Maybe ceramic tile fired red hot. I guess
I would need a hair dryer fan blowing on the charcoal