On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 14:56:26 -0600 "Billy Brown" <bbrown@conemsco.com>
writes:
>Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>> Lessee, you can make a 10 kiloton weapon these days to fit in a
>suitcase,
>lets
>> say, generously that that suitcase still weighs in at 100 kilos., so
>100
>> kilogram devices can produce 10 million kilograms of TNT levels of
>explosive
>> power. A ratio of 100,000 to 1. If a microgram nuke device is
>proportionate in
>> capability, if there is not a steep falloff in capability, then it
>should
>> produce the equivalent of 100 grams of TNT of explosive force. This
>is far
>> from a trivial amount if a robotic bug can deliver it into your
>eardrum.....
>> its equal to a good fraction of a stick of dynamite blowing up in
>your
>> ear.... Whatever is left gets fried from radiation....
>
>Actually, my understanding is that 'suitcase' nukes are generally
>under 0.1
>kT, and they are still a lot bigger than suitcases - 50 kg is a pretty
>good
>weight estimate. At any rate, there is no straight conversion from
>weight
>to explosive force - the smaller the bomb gets, the less efficient it
>becomes.
>
>Also, as I said before, a really small bomb won't produce an explosion
>at
>all. If you could build a microgram nuke (which you can't), it would
>simply
>produce a sharp burst of radiation (mostly x-rays). If it goes off in
>your
>ear, most of the energy will pass right through you and be absorbed by
>the
>surrounding building, ground, air, etc. It might cause radiation
>sickness,
>but with even primitive medical nanotech it takes an awful lot of
>radiation
>to kill people.
>
>Billy Brown, MCSE+I
>bbrown@conemsco.com
>
>
I think that a matter-antimatter bomb would exhibit the same efficiency (energy per unit mass) regardless of size. A single proton meeting a single antiproton would release the same amount of energy per gram as would a larger matter-anti-matter sample.
Ron Kean
.
.
.