Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:37:36 -0500 From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: weaponized ping-pong balls Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> On 02/11/13 15:22, Mike B. wrote: > On 2/11/2013 9:55 AM, Barry Newton wrote: >> Ping pong balls, phooey! I understand that if you search hard enough, >> you can find detailed plans for nuclear bombs. And possibly receive >> visits from earnest young men in bad suits. > > Probably not anymore...not since Analog published details of the entire > procedure, including where and how to get fissionable materials. Not > sure what year that was...sometime in the late 80s I think. > > It wasn't a really big bomb...only about 10 Kt...and it wasn't portable > (it filled the basement of a house), but it wasn't too hard to > build...if you had basic construction skills and enough expendable workmen. I liked the Mother Jones issue that published it. It looked like so much fun, putting the material to be centrifuged into a bucket, standing in your living room, and spinning around holding the bucket for half an hour.... mark "why is the world spinning?" -- "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution." - Khalil Gibran