Sigh...this is why we don't have any comic-book grade mad scientists...reality keeps getting in the way. At this rate, mutated animal cyborg soldiers with death rays just got put back another few years...
Man Arrested For Trying to Split the Atom at Home
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
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so I'm just going to assume that he can never have kids after after watching a nuclear meltdown in a dog food can on his kitchen stove.
Wow. Two years is a short sentence indeed. He's lucky. And stupid. Don't mess with radioactivity, kids.
Okay, I will. You're wrong. Creating fission in of itself does not even come close to creating a nuclear explosion, especially with the small amounts of materials this guy was using. In fact, creating a nuclear explosion is amazingly difficult. The conditions have to be just right, everything has to be assembled and machined with incredible precision, with the explicit goal of obtaining an explosion in mind. Here's a small rundown of what needs to happen for a nuclear explosion:BakaSmurf said:
1. You need weapons grade Uranium. This means that the material contains about 70% or more U-235, the fissionable isotope of Uranium. Compare this to reactor grade Uranium, which is only about 20% U-235, and fission can be accomplished with even much less than that, just not very efficiently. There is only about .7% of U-235 in naturally occurring Uranium, so this must be separated and used to enrich the common U-238 isotope.
2. The enriching process itself is a mind-numbingly complex ordeal. It involves turning Uranium into a gas (it's usually a metal), and putting it in a centrifuge to cause the lighter U-235 to separate from the heavier U-238, which can then be siphoned off. These are specially designed centrifuges that operate at 20,000 rpm and are very expensive. Far from the budget of most amateur scientists. You need at least 50kg of U-235 to create an explosion, which would require 7,143kg of natural Uranium to acquire. Alternatively, you could use 16kg of Plutonium (Pu-239) but that has to be manufactured and 16kg is quite a lot for someone to make in their kitchen.
3. Now that you have your WMD grade goodness, you then need to configure it to explode. This can be done two ways. You can fire one piece of Uranium at ballistic speed into another, with the collision causing explosive fission, or you can implode a Plutonium core onto a neutron source. Both methods require precision machining and copious amounts of conventional high explosives, which you can't exactly get at a hardware store. These explosives also need to be made into specifically shaped charges.
4.
Yeah, this guy was just so close to recreating the Manhattan Project in his apartment. The closest he could come would maybe be a dirty bomb, but even then he would need a lot more radioactive material and explosives to disseminate it over a large area.
Now, by contrast, here are things you CAN buy at a hardware store that can be used to create small-scale fission:
Gas lantern mantles (contains Thorium-232).
A shitload of smoke detectors (contains Americium-241)
Lead
Charcoal (graphite)
Aluminum foil
Radium clock dials (e-Bay!)
Now you can't actually make a nuclear reactor per say (no chain reaction occurs) but you can, technically, split atoms. What this guy is most guilty of is bad lab practice. He never really had a "meltdown" on his stove, he was simply trying blend radioactive ingredients, using Sulfuric Acid as a solvent. This is feasible but he really should've invested in a Bunsen burner. The acid overcooked and splattered all over his range. This was a result of the acid, not the radiation. Also when I say a shitload of smoke detectors, I mean a shitload; as in over 100. A kid did a similar experiment in 1994 when he was 17. He eventually got arrested, but not for the experiment (although he too was sloppy about it), but because he was stealing the damn smoke detectors.
TO SUMMARIZE THIS WALL 'O TEXT:
I'm not necessarily condoning what this guy did and please for the love of waffles don't try this at home, but I think too big a deal is being made out of this and people should be allowed to perform small scale nuclear experiments with very small quantities of materials, as long as it doesn't endanger others. People should be well versed in nuclear physics and chemistry if they're going to try shit like this and should be willing to shell out at least $1,000 for proper lab equipment and have adequate space. This goes for any science project that includes dangerous materials, radioactive or otherwise. A good many things have come from educated amateur scientists and inventors, and it would suck to squash their ambitions.
Oh and for real badass-ness an MIT student safely built a fucking fusion reactor at home! [http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/] Sure it cost him $6,000 out of his own pocket, but damn that's awesome.
When one is trying to delicately explain in a roundabout way that a certain person isn't very smart, "...so he's in no danger of splitting the atom" is an expression that I've heard, akin to "he's not the sharpest tool in the shed."
And I just wanted to add that two posts above me is a great read.
And I just wanted to add that two posts above me is a great read.
Dear god yes. If he made a fucking nuclear reactor in his kitchen, think of what he cold build in a laboratory.Shadow flame master said:
Man, I had pretty much the same experience last year when I was experimenting with using spherical geometry to focus light on to some photovoltaic cells on the patio outside my dorm. A few cops came up to me thinking that my experimental device was a bomb. Fortunately, I was able to explain the device to them and convince them that it would not explode.
I'm so glad now that I decided to go the solar route instead of the much more icky nuclear route as this gentleman did. He really should've gotten a permit from whatever the equivalent of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in Sweden.
Also, as anyone who read the blog would've noticed, it seems like the very small amount of fissionable material he used could've at most sent his kitchen aflame and certainly would not destroy the town as many posters in this thread seem to think.
I'm so glad now that I decided to go the solar route instead of the much more icky nuclear route as this gentleman did. He really should've gotten a permit from whatever the equivalent of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in Sweden.
Also, as anyone who read the blog would've noticed, it seems like the very small amount of fissionable material he used could've at most sent his kitchen aflame and certainly would not destroy the town as many posters in this thread seem to think.
Either that or:FalloutJack said:There is only one proper reaction to this.
[HEADING=1]GREAT SCOTT!![/HEADING]
How much power did it produce?
It's quite disturbing how many misconceptions and misunderstandings there are here. Let's try and set the record straight.
1. A nuclear power reactor cannot explode like a nuclear weapon. The material in use is too full of impurities, not densely packed enough and not enriched with enough fissile content to work like a nuclear weapon. Even in a meltdown, (which is a fancy name for everything gets too hot and melts, nothing more) you wouldn't get close. What you might get in a meltdown is hydrogen gas production from a reaction between the fuel rod metal (that encases the uranium) and steam. The hydrogen gas can then explode (hydrogen has a tendency to do this, see Hindenburg etc. [yes I know about the paint..]). A hydrogen gas explosion is what happened at Fukushima following a meltdown. It's also what they feared might happen at Three Mile Island, though it never did because they managed to stop it going that far.
2. He was using DEPLETED Uranium 238. The clue is in the question people, DEPLETED. That's like trying to start a fire by using ashes instead of wood, it's not going to happen. The useful bit is already gone, refined away in the enrichment process. Depleted Uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural Uranium in the ground, although it is still toxic and poisonous, like other heavy metals such as lead.
3. His 'meltdown' was a chemical reaction, other people have already explained this well so I wont bother repeating them.
4. He should go to prison. Stupidity can be, and often is, criminality. The Deepwater Horizon guys in the Gulf of Mexico were criminally stupid and should go to jail. This guy is criminally stupid and should too. The radiation risk is minimal, cause he was too dumb to get far on that front. But he was still playing around in his kitchen with a whole bunch of toxic substances that could have reacted chemically, potentially killing him. Additionally, he could have poisoned neighbours and his local environment as it seems likely he would have also been too stupid to clear up safely once he was done. 2 years might be a bit much, but 30 days might give him a nudge in the correct, safer, direction.
1. A nuclear power reactor cannot explode like a nuclear weapon. The material in use is too full of impurities, not densely packed enough and not enriched with enough fissile content to work like a nuclear weapon. Even in a meltdown, (which is a fancy name for everything gets too hot and melts, nothing more) you wouldn't get close. What you might get in a meltdown is hydrogen gas production from a reaction between the fuel rod metal (that encases the uranium) and steam. The hydrogen gas can then explode (hydrogen has a tendency to do this, see Hindenburg etc. [yes I know about the paint..]). A hydrogen gas explosion is what happened at Fukushima following a meltdown. It's also what they feared might happen at Three Mile Island, though it never did because they managed to stop it going that far.
2. He was using DEPLETED Uranium 238. The clue is in the question people, DEPLETED. That's like trying to start a fire by using ashes instead of wood, it's not going to happen. The useful bit is already gone, refined away in the enrichment process. Depleted Uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural Uranium in the ground, although it is still toxic and poisonous, like other heavy metals such as lead.
3. His 'meltdown' was a chemical reaction, other people have already explained this well so I wont bother repeating them.
4. He should go to prison. Stupidity can be, and often is, criminality. The Deepwater Horizon guys in the Gulf of Mexico were criminally stupid and should go to jail. This guy is criminally stupid and should too. The radiation risk is minimal, cause he was too dumb to get far on that front. But he was still playing around in his kitchen with a whole bunch of toxic substances that could have reacted chemically, potentially killing him. Additionally, he could have poisoned neighbours and his local environment as it seems likely he would have also been too stupid to clear up safely once he was done. 2 years might be a bit much, but 30 days might give him a nudge in the correct, safer, direction.
