From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Tue Jun 08 1999 - 13:58:05 MDT
At 01:33 PM 6/8/99 +0100, Charlie Stross wrote:
>On Mon, Jun 07, 1999 at 05:58:13PM -0400, Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>>
>> Thats what I thought, but I was thinking of the problems with
manufacturing and
>> disposing of waste... Of course, the fact that the explosive effect
exceeds its
>> toxic effects would not hinder any protester from noting this fact and
claiming
>> it violates some law or human rights treaty or some such nonsense. You
can never
>> confuse those folks with the facts.
>
>Ideology aside, have a cigar: the reason I suggested caesium was that
>it's dense, and would tend to explode (then presumably fragment, and keep
>on exploding) on contact with human bodies. Put it in a steel jacket or
>something similar to hold it together until it hits the target ...
Actually, a standard copper jacket will be adequate, and would probably be
required when using a material as soft as cesium. High-velocity rifle
bullets have copper jackets for the similar reasons i.e. to prevent the
lead core from distintegrating under the stress of extremely high RPMs.
(Bullet jackets are also used to control expansion and keep a barrel from
"leading", but that isn't terribly important here.)
For pistol bullets, your best bet would be to have a total metal jacket
made of copper, and a hollow-point with a thin, protective layer deposited
over the cesium. A rifle bullet would probably be best built by using a
"ballistic tip" design: a fully jacketed cesium core in a hollow-point
configuration, with a polycarbonate spitzer tip. This would insure both a
sealed core and dramatic fragmentation on impact. Cesium is not the kind
of material you want to have exposed to air.
BTW, isn't cesium radioactive?
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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