Nuke Thread.

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>>30260928

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>>30261367

/sci/ will explain the physics and radiation behind it

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>>30260928
>can someone explain radiation
I work in Health Physics (radiation protection), so I can give some broad strokes, but weapons aren't my area of specialty, so I can't speak about bombs specifically.

Also, I'm at work atm, so it'll take me some time to answer specific questions (I'm quite literally shitposting right now, but I'll get back to you in a bit).

4 types of radiation to worry about, and in broad strokes, 2 effects. The types are gamma, beta, alpha, and neutron, and the effects are somatic (long term) and stochastic (short term).

Short term effects are from severe cell damage/death, such as burns, skin sloughing, loss of hair, and GI tract damage/death. It takes a FUCKING LOT of dose to get to that point. Let's use a dentists x-ray machine for instance: you'd need around 250 x-rays in the same spot to see skin reddening. A CT scanner could get you there after maybe 10-20 detail scans (fuckers are POWERFUL), but that would affect the whole body, since the whole body is scanned, not just one little patch of jaw. GI tract issues needs about several times that. For comparison, average annual background dose runs around the equivalent of having each area of skin on your entire body x-rayed twice by a dentist's machine. Skin sloughing and loss of hair are worrisome, but when someone starts bleeding out the ass and shitting necrotic tissue, it may be time to say goodbye. It's a bad way to go.

>>30261547

What impact did Hisashi Ouchi being kept 'alive' have? Is he a key case study for death via radiation?

>>30261547
Cont'd (very oversimplified)

Long term effects basically means "Cancer." To get into that, we need to talk radiation types.

A neutron, given off during fission or fusion, will merge with the nucleus of an atom. When it does so, if the nucleus was already very heavy, it becomes unstable (too heavy) and breaks apart, giving off a neutron or 2. If there are more heavy nuclei around to be hit, this will start a chain reaction. Sometimes, though, the nuclei won't fission; they'll just give off other radiation. Thus, neutrons can make the potassium in your bones, and thus, you, radioactive.

A gamma is a high energy photon given off from an atomic nucleus, usually during either fission (decay or explosion) or fusion (x-rays are very similar; they're also photons, they just originate from the electron cloud rather than the nucleus, and are usually lower energy). They cause damage by interacting with atoms, usually giving them their energy, which causes the atom to give off some energy by jettisoning an electron (gross oversimplification, but good enough for government work).

Beta radiation IS an electron, which carries a magnetic charge, and it's that charge that interacts with almost any kind of other atom. Gammas and x-rays need to basically hit an atom dead on to affect it, whereas electrons just need to pass close enough that their charge can interact with the charge of that atom (fucking magnets). If that charge impacts, say, a DNA molecule, it can destroy bonds, making the cell unable to successfully reproduce, or only reproduce abnormally. That abnormal reproduction, when it spirals out of control, is cancer. Cancer usually takes years to show up. Thyroid cancer is the earliest, and takes at least 5 years.

Alpha particles are basically a helium-4 nucleus stripped of electrons, and is thus 2 neutrons and 2 protons. It's more highly charged than an electron and heavier, making it more likely to interact, and do more damage when it does.

>>30261582
Nothing we didn't already know. Some new therapies were rejected, but that's it. His slow tortuous death did not save any other lives.

Bastards.

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>>30261547
>*unless it's a bananaphone
kek

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>>30261547
>shitting necrotic tissue

>>30261669
Shielding (not this guy but I'll explain anyway):
>Alpha
Alpha radiation is the easiest thing to shield from. Even a piece of paper will shield Alpha particles. They also don't travel long distances.

>Beta
Shielding electrons pretty much means electric shielding (like the kind used in electric guitars, a piece of aluminium foil). This means pretty much any metal will already shield electrons.

>Gamma

These are big time fuckers. Heavy and thick mass will shield them partially. Also you can count on the inverse square law. This means, a protective factor of 2 will go to 4 by doubling the shielding, and it will go up to 8 by putting another layer on it.

For example, a good fallout shelter has at least 1 or 1,5 metres of earth (it works best if it's compact) on the roof, or, equally, 60cm of concrete.

>Neutrons
Usually water is used, the heavy mass principle also applies here.

The most common shielding for Neutron radiation (both Fast and Slow Neutrons) are water and heavy concrete walls, usually what is called "nuclear concrete", which is concrete filled with steel and lead solid spheres.

>>30261837
>Shielding electrons pretty much means electric shielding (like the kind used in electric guitars, a piece of aluminium foil). This means pretty much any metal will already shield electrons.
Careful with this; if you use heavier atoms, like metals, you produce bremsstrahlung x-rays. You want to use plastics like plexiglass.

>gammas
>Heavy and thick mass will shield them partially.
Ironically, the densest material for shielding is Uranium-238 (depleted uranium). It's slightly radioactive in and of itself, but when you're using it to shield a chunk of Ir-192 so hot you'd lose your fingers if you touch it, you don't worry about the U-238.

Nukes are easy to make honestly, any Australian student (and im sure literally any student) learns how to make them if they do physics in year 11/12

>>30262816
The science behind it is no longer the roadblock it once was. Today it is the infrastructure needed to produce the fissile material, and the precision to miniaturize the weapon into something deliverable.

>>30263662

Was has this been suspected for a while or was it only recently discovered?

http://www.janes.com/article/61023/north-korea-s-yongbyon-nuclear-site-likely-reactivated-iaea-says

>North Korea appears to have restarted its nuclear facility at Yongbyon, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on 6 June.

>"There are indications that the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon has been reactivated. It is possible that it is reprocessing spent fuel," IAEA spokesman Fredrik Dahl said in a news briefing, stressing that since agency inspectors have not been on the ground in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since 2009, "our knowledge of its nuclear programme is limited".

>The statements were made on the same day that IAEA director general Yukiya Amano delivered a statement to the agency's board of governors that he remains "seriously concerned" about Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

>>30260928
Is one most likely to die from blast, thermal, rads or pressure? I say in order- Blast, pressure, thermal, then rads, although I may be wrong.

>>30265485
I would say thermal would be the largest initial concern.

>>30265485
The "Blast" and "Pressure" are literally the same thing. The "blast" is a pressure wave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpressure

>>30264539
Suspected.

>>30265485
Blast

>>30261547
>4 types of radiation to worry about,

no, there are only two. electromagnetic and particle, all radiation is one of these two types. about 99% of the energy of the blast is released as gamma radiation, this is the flash. this superheats the surrounding atmosphere and causes the blast wave. if you're close enough it will kill you before the blastwave does, because it will have the intensity to do so. further away and it will 'only' cause burns.

the particle radiation is caused either by spreading isotopes and reaction byproducts from the fision/fusion event in the blast wave or the gamma rays and reaction byproducts inducing radioactivity in other substances.

>Short term effects are from severe cell damage/death, such as burns, skin sloughing, loss of hair, and GI tract damage/death. It takes a FUCKING LOT of dose to get to that point. Let's use a dentists x-ray machine for instance: you'd need around 250 x-rays in the same spot to see skin reddening.

gamma radiation is the most energetic type of em radiation in the universe. the levels emitted from a critical event (without detonation) will kill you. if you do survive the initial exposure you will die in a matter of days. google 'demon core' for an example. the level of gamma radiation emitted in a nuclear detonation with kill you, not via severe radiation toxicity, but by simple energetic effects. your entire body will be instantly ionized.

>>30263662
this. you can learn the physics from a first year textbook, the internet, whatever. actually making a weapon is an engineering problem and a complex one at that.

>>30260928
Any /k/ommandos manage to get one of these before the ban?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

>Bugorski worked with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 synchrotron. On 13 July 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when the safety mechanisms failed. Bugorski was leaning over the equipment when he stuck his head in the path of the 76 GeV proton beam. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns" but did not feel any pain.

>The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition and, over the next several days, started peeling off, revealing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone and the brain tissue underneath. As it was believed that he had received far in excess of a fatal dose of radiation, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow where the doctors could observe his expected demise. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D. There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly.Bugorski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was paralyzed due to the destruction of nerves.He was able to function well, except for the fact that he had occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures.

>>30265485
depends on proximity. remember that light travels faster than sound, so you will always see the flash before you are reached by the blast. therefore if you are close enough to the epicenter, then the flash will kill you. the effects of the flash will decrease rapidly with distance as the flash is both absorbed through heating the surrounding atmosphere and attenuated by that atmosphere. the exact interaction will be complicated and i don't know the details. so beyond that critical distance the blast will kill you. for distant observers then particle radiation carried by natural and induced winds (caused by the massive overpressure) will be your concern. i have however read that a 2 megaton detonation can cause severe burns at 45 miles, but i can't remember if they are thermal or radiation. i am also not sure if i trust the source or my memory (about 20 years ago i encountered that snippet). after the event then you have to worry about residual radiation, most likely particle. i couldn't tell you the level of gamma emitters post blast.

>>30267639
lucky motherfucker. what saved him was probably the intense focus of the proton beam. an emitter is generally very diffuse, emissions are random and occur in random directions. the geometry of the emitter might have a part to play in the direction of emitted particles but i am not sure. a particle accelerator will generate a very narrow focused beam and it sounds like he got pin-holed.

pin holed by relativistic protons. holy fucking shit.

>>30267639
>He continued going to the Moscow radiation clinic twice a year for examinations and to meet with other nuclear-accident victims. He "remained a poster boy for Soviet and Russian radiation medicine".[1] In 1996, he applied unsuccessfully for disabled status to receive his free epilepsy medication. Bugorski showed interest in making himself available for study to Western researchers but could not afford to leave Protvino

Christ, he gets shot in the fucking face with a particle accelerator and then gets fucked by the govt. that is supervillian origin tier shitty life.

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>>30267796
>that is supervillian origin tier shitty life.

>>30261837
So is nuclear concrete just concrete with lead shot aggregate?

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>>30265485
it depends on how big the blast is and how far away you are. gonna use a small 10 kiloton (half of a Fat Man) nuke as an example.

The blast itself creates EM radiation and a shockwave. EM waves travel at 671 million mph (speed of light), while the pressure wave travels at 768 mph (speed of sound).

Everything within 1 mile or so (unless shielded) will be fully exposed to ionizing radiation. This will kill you within a few hours, if not instantly.

Infrared radiation will vaporize or ignite anything within 3 miles or so. This will fuck your day up, if not kill you over a few hours.

The pressure wave will take longer to propagate, but will also reach around 3 miles. After the initial blast outwards, there is a second "blast" inwards towards the now-negative pressure zone (which creates the mushroom cloud shape). Either of these waves can fuck your day up.

Irradiated debris and dust from the blast zone is picked up by the wave and spread up and out, creating fallout. This fallout will fuck your organs up over time.

So in order of immediate threat, theres essentially a close-up rad burst, a longer thermal burst, a pressure wave, a secondary lighter pressure wave, then a lot of lingering rads from fallout.

Scale all the ranges up for bigger bombs, but thats pretty much how the blasts are structured.

BTW the Vault Boy in the Fallout games is demonstrating the old "rule of thumb" for avoiding fallout. You hold your thumb up at arms length against the mushroom cloud and squint thru one eye; if the cloud is bigger than your thumb, youre in the immediate fallout zone and should gtfo. Dunno if its at all accurate tho.