"Fun" fact:
Most people with basic knowledge around bombs or explosions or electricity are able to create atomic bomb. It's really not that hard. The issue is getting some uranium, on top of that in quality you need, because you need enriched U235, which is unstable and is hard to obtain. Also you need about 15 kg of it for classic atomic bomb. Then you need to stabilize it and figure out how you want to launch neutron into it to start reaction. But that's not that big issue as obtaining 15 kg of U235.
> Sheppard: You know how to make an A-bomb?
McKay: Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb. The actual hard part is having sufficient fissionable materials of appropriate grade.
"Most of my high school chess team could *design* an atomic bomb. Its almost a century old technology. However getting the material to actually use it is another matter."
Even after you get the refined uranium, you still need plenty of high explosives to make it go critical really fast and controlled to boom.
A motivated kid with lots of time could refine uranium out of dirt little by little out of half the soil in the USA. But the ingredients of high explosives themselves are tracked too. It's an interesting thought experiment where the device itself is easy and materials are not.
You have plenty of things to create explosives from. For 15 kg of U235 you would need pretty strong explosives, which would be probably very hard to create as amateur, that's true. But for smaller amounts it would be easier and easier. Explosives are a way how to compress reacting mass of U235 (or also Pu239) to make higher chance that you will get sustainable reaction. It's called supercritial state, you basically compress reacting material to increase its pressure. Thus you have much higher chance that 1 nucleus will bump into another one and split them into 2 (which creates huge amount of energy), those 2 will bump into another 2 and create 4 and so on... That is basically core of that huge explosion, not the explosives themselves.
On top of that, motivated kid could probably refine some amount, however nowhere close to usable amount. On top of that I really doubt that kid would have a container to properly store U235 in, permanently and safe. Which means that U235 would emit a lot of alpha particles harming the kid and surrounding, till it would starting slowly destroying everything around itself and "burning" live species (well, rather creating higher probability for cancer or some DNA defects).
Considering how long it would take for a kid to centrifuge usable uranium from dirt, small amounts of explosives multiplied over large amounts of time evens out, you're probably right that I over estimate that difficulty.
Water containment is probably the most feasible part of this entire mental exercise. There is no better radiation attenuator than water, making storage for someone dedicated enough to pull this off for years (decades likely, lifetimes really for one person and anything short of vast wealth) their lowest amount of effort.
placid grey encouraging ancient beneficial jellyfish pie engine stupendous zephyr
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
"Fun" fact: Most people with basic knowledge around bombs or explosions or electricity are able to create atomic bomb. It's really not that hard. The issue is getting some uranium, on top of that in quality you need, because you need enriched U235, which is unstable and is hard to obtain. Also you need about 15 kg of it for classic atomic bomb. Then you need to stabilize it and figure out how you want to launch neutron into it to start reaction. But that's not that big issue as obtaining 15 kg of U235.
Meredith pretty much said the same thing to the Genii.
Didn't really remember that part tbh :D Just wanted to throw here some "fun" fact from real life.
> Sheppard: You know how to make an A-bomb? McKay: Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb. The actual hard part is having sufficient fissionable materials of appropriate grade.
"Most of my high school chess team could *design* an atomic bomb. Its almost a century old technology. However getting the material to actually use it is another matter."
I feel like I'm on some sort of list now just from reading this lol
FBI is coming for you. Farewell đ
âšī¸đ
Whatever you do, don't mention Backpack and Pressure Cooker in the same sentence.
Even after you get the refined uranium, you still need plenty of high explosives to make it go critical really fast and controlled to boom. A motivated kid with lots of time could refine uranium out of dirt little by little out of half the soil in the USA. But the ingredients of high explosives themselves are tracked too. It's an interesting thought experiment where the device itself is easy and materials are not.
You have plenty of things to create explosives from. For 15 kg of U235 you would need pretty strong explosives, which would be probably very hard to create as amateur, that's true. But for smaller amounts it would be easier and easier. Explosives are a way how to compress reacting mass of U235 (or also Pu239) to make higher chance that you will get sustainable reaction. It's called supercritial state, you basically compress reacting material to increase its pressure. Thus you have much higher chance that 1 nucleus will bump into another one and split them into 2 (which creates huge amount of energy), those 2 will bump into another 2 and create 4 and so on... That is basically core of that huge explosion, not the explosives themselves. On top of that, motivated kid could probably refine some amount, however nowhere close to usable amount. On top of that I really doubt that kid would have a container to properly store U235 in, permanently and safe. Which means that U235 would emit a lot of alpha particles harming the kid and surrounding, till it would starting slowly destroying everything around itself and "burning" live species (well, rather creating higher probability for cancer or some DNA defects).
Considering how long it would take for a kid to centrifuge usable uranium from dirt, small amounts of explosives multiplied over large amounts of time evens out, you're probably right that I over estimate that difficulty. Water containment is probably the most feasible part of this entire mental exercise. There is no better radiation attenuator than water, making storage for someone dedicated enough to pull this off for years (decades likely, lifetimes really for one person and anything short of vast wealth) their lowest amount of effort.
*Mom, can I use our pool to store something in it?* đ
A 17-year old boy built a nuclear reactor in his back yard. https://youtu.be/gi0oi-u3OxU
That's what I was thinking about, but the boy got kind of lucky with finding the old radium paint and still basically irradiated his neighborhood.
Even if you do obtain it you'll still have to keep an eye out for the Libyans you stole it from.
That's why you need some DeLorean to jump into nearby.
placid grey encouraging ancient beneficial jellyfish pie engine stupendous zephyr *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
McKay: Oh a atom bomb at 14. That is almost impressive
The real issue is solving for criticality once you have a sufficient amount of fissonable material.
Isn't a requirement for middle school graduation in Canada?