From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sat Sep 28 2002 - 23:31:49 MDT
Charles Hixson wrote:
> On Saturday 28 September 2002 15:19, spike66 wrote:
>
>>Jeff Davis wrote:
>>Can you put 15 kilos of near-bomb
>>>grade uranium in an 'ingot' as shown without having a
>>>criticality problem?
>>>
>>Jeff, I wondered about that too. My foggy memory
>>is that it takes at least 4 kg of U235 to make a
>>criticality. I wondered if the elongated shape of
>>the ingot prevented the criticality. spike
>>
> That doesn't sound right. I though it was around 23 pounds... And the shape
> is crucially important. You could have tons of it in the shape of a long
> needle, and not have any criticality problems.
The 23 pounds might be right, assuming no high
explosive shape charges to supercompress the
metal and no slow neutron sources.
The fact that the package shown is elongated makes
it believable that they really managed to confiscate
15 kg of U235. If this is true, (note that it has
been reported by both BBC and CNN) then my estimates
of the probability of a U.S. city being nuked in the
next decade just went up several percent. Oy vey! spike
>
>
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