524
Iran could develop nuclear suicide bomb vests, claims JD Vance (www.9news.com.au)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
228 comments fedilink hide all child comments
💥 1
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

The point is that even bringing the parts together until a critical state was reached, the material did not explode. If the Demon Core were left in its critical state like that but otherwise undisturbed, it surely would have melted but would not have gone off like an atom bomb.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    To my understanding, you can't really do more than bring the parts together in a compact arrangement and keep them like that, so if the demon core would stay together (and not, say, get blown apart by the release of energy), then the issue would be a lack of fissile material (or reflectors), no?

    See also an image of a nuclear bomb design (I think Little Boy) from Wikipedia, which illustrates the idea of sliding a rod of fissile material into a hollow cylinder, though the bomb did it in reverse. I think the design might be obsolete due to inefficiency, and it might need the tough shell to hold it together (and act as a neutron reflector).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent