Nuclear Weapons 16 - The Hydrogen Bomb

Submitted by phoenix on 12/23/12 12:15pm

          In 1942, during the U.S. Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb, physicist Edward Teller promoted the idea of using an atomic blast to trigger a thermonuclear reaction that would result in a much bigger explosion. The Project team decided to focus on atomic bombs and not to explore his idea during the war. After the war, there was resistance from some scientists about technical difficulties with Teller’s ideas and other people were reluctant to create such a devastating super bomb that could only be used against large populations of civilians. Teller and his supporters said that it was inevitable that such bombs would be created and the U.S. would be at a strategic disadvantage if we did not have them.

        In 1949, when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb much earlier of the U.S. expected, U.S. President Harry Truman made the decision to proceed with research on the creation of such a thermonuclear or hydrogen fusion bomb. The exact way to trigger such a fusion reaction had not yet been determined when the project began.

        In 1951, a feasibility test for a fusion bomb was conducted in the new U.S. Pacific Proving Ground in the Marshal Islands.  A fission bomb in the shape of a donut was exploded with a small amount of liquid heavy hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) in the middle of the donut. The hydrogen fused and created a burst of fast neutrons which caused the U-238 in the bomb to undergo fission. The fusion reaction generated little energy but did prove the principle.

       In 1952, a full test of a fusion bomb was conducted at the Pacific Proving Ground. The device was not a deployable bomb. It was a twenty feet tall and weighed over sixty four tons. The explosive yield was equivalent to ten million tons of TNT. The island of Elugelab was destroyed in the blast leaving a crater over a mile wide in the ocean floor. In 1952, less than a year later, the Soviet Union exploded a thermonuclear bomb. It was a relatively small device but it was a deliverable bomb and a powerful propaganda tool.

         By 1954, the U.S. had managed to create an actual thermonuclear bomb that could be a deliverable weapon. When it was tested at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the fifteen megaton yield was three times bigger than expected. Poor weather conditions caused a cloud of radioactive fallout to spread over inhabited areas of the Marshall Islands. The affected areas were evacuated and are still uninhabitable. The exposed natives sustained high levels of cancer and birth defects over the following years.

          Hydrogen bombs had been advertised as being cleaner than fission bombs because the fusion reaction did not produce the radioactive materials that were produced by a fission bomb. However, the publicity was misleading because a powerful fission reaction was used to trigger the fusion in a hydrogen bomb and that fission reaction did produce large amounts of radioactive fallout. Hydrogen bombs were so powerful that, in addition to the destruction of civilian areas around military targets, huge clouds of fallout could threaten cities and even other countries that were miles away from the blast. Concerns for the welfare of the whole world began to be expressed if the superpowers with thermonuclear bombs went to war with the new weapons.

First United States Thermonuclear Device Test:

 

Nuclear Weapons 15 - The Soviet Bomb

Submitted by phoenix on 12/23/12 11:51am

              Soviet scientists contributed much to the development of nuclear physics during the first decades of the Twentieth Century. When nuclear fission was discovered in the late 1930s, Soviet scientists understood that theoretically, enormous amounts of energy could be released from the fission of uranium.  Work on fission research in the Soviet Union began in 1940. Stalin started a nuclear weapons program after getting a letter from a Russia physicist working on fission warning him that the U.S and its allies were working on nuclear weapons but he did not assign many resources because of the demands of the war with Germany.

           Although the Soviet Union was our ally in the fight against the Axis powers in World War II, the U. S. government did not trust Stalin. The British were informed about our Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons during the war but we did not inform the Soviet Union. Our mistrust of the Soviet Union was justified in as much as they had penetrated our Manhattan Project with spies. Stalin was aware of our work on an atomic bomb and was not particularly surprised or interested when Truman mentioned a powerful new weapon at the Potsdam Conference in late July of 1945. The Soviet spies were not actually trained agents but were rather private citizens who, for their own reasons, leaked information on our nuclear weapons research to the Soviets.

            After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II in the Pacific, the United States released a report on the Manhattan project. There was an intense international debate over nuclear weapons with the United States working to keep a monopoly. The Soviet Union lobbied for general bans on the use of nuclear weapons but were busy working on the creation of their own nuclear weapons. They used the Manhattan Project report as a guide to developing the industrial facilities necessary to an atomic bomb project. Enormous resources were expended and whole secret cities were created.

           The scientific director of the Soviet program was nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov. The administrative head of the Soviet effort was Lavrenty Beria, previous head of the Soviet public and secret police. Paranoid by nature, he did not trust his scientists or the information sent from the U.S. nuclear program. He assigned seams of scientists to work in different laboratories on duplicate projects. Their findings were compared and cross checked against the intelligence gained from the spies in the United States. The information from the United States nuclear research allowed the Soviet Union to advance more quickly than the U.S. had in the development of an atomic bomb. in August of 1949, the Soviet Union detonated a Fat Man style implosion plutonium bomb in Kazakhstan. The explosion of a Soviet bomb came much earlier than the U.S. expected.

            With the United States monopoly on nuclear weapons ended, the Cold War nuclear arms race had begun.

The first Soviet atomic bomb test:

Nuclear Weapons 14 - After the War

Submitted by phoenix on 12/23/12 11:46am

           In 1945, The United States was pouring resources into the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb. Part of the reason that the Manhattan Project was started in the first place was the knowledge that Germany was working on their own atomic bomb project. Werner Heisenberg was heading a team  to develop a nuclear weapon for Germany but the German government failed to invest enough resources for the project to make much progress. In March of 1945, Kurt Diebner was assigned the task of making a prototype German atomic bomb in Ohrdruf, Thuringia. Research was carried out at an experimental nuclear reactor at Haigerloch.  

            Following Germany’s surrender in May of 1945, Project Alsos was initiated by the United States. A team of scientists followed the Allied troops into Germany to investigate the German nuclear weapons program and prevent the Russian army coming in from the east from collecting any information, equipment or personnel that might help them create their own nuclear weapons program. Project Alsos reported that although the Germans did have a nuclear weapons program, they were not even close to creating an atomic bomb by the time the war ended.

            The horrendous damage done by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima shocked the world. The world had entered a dangerous new age of nuclear weapons of tremendous destructive power. A intense international debate raged over the question of who should control nuclear weapons. Many of the scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project lobbied international control of such weapons. They suggested that either an international agency be formed for the purpose of controlling nuclear weapons or that the information on how to build such weapons be distributed to all the major powers. It was not surprising that the United States, the only world power which had possession of nuclear weapons, was not enthusiastic about giving away such a strategic advantage over all other nations. The deep distrust that the U.S. had for the Soviet Union following the war encouraged the U.S. to work to maintain a monopoly on nuclear weapons.

           The idea of using a fission bomb to ignite a much more powerful fusion bomb had been proposed in 1942 by Edward Teller but rejected by the Manhattan project in favor of fission bombs. While Teller lobbied for the fusion bomb and worked on the design with a few others, worked continued on refining the design of fission based nuclear weapons. The U.S. scientists and engineers working on the fission bombs were concerned about the feasibility of such weapons and were also reluctant to create a bomb that was thousands of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan.  From a strategic perspective, it was felt that it would be more useful to have a lot of powerful nuclear bombs than to have relatively few super powerful bombs.

          The situation suddenly changed when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in August of 1945. The United States was no longer the only nation with a nuclear weapon and the nuclear arms race had begun.

German experimental reactor at Haigerloch:

Nuclear Weapons 13 - The Surrender of Japan

Submitted by phoenix on 12/23/12 11:43am

           By 1945, the Japanese had been losing the war in the Pacific for two years. They had been driven off the Philippines and other islands that they had occupied.  With the defeat of Germany in the European theater, the Russians deployed major portions of their armies to the Russian Far East. The Japanese merchant fleet which was critical for supplying war materials and fuel to the resource poor Japanese home islands had been destroyed. With their major factories destroyed by Allied bombing raids and their remaining battle fleet low on fuel, their situation was desperate. The Japanese tried to negotiate with the American government for a resolution to the war but found the American demands unacceptable. The Japanese prepared for a suicidal defense of the Japanese home islands against the coming American invasion.          

            In July of 1945, the United States, Britain and Russia convened in Potsdam in occupied Germany to discuss the punishment of Germany and other post war issues. During the conference, Truman was notified about the successful Trinity test of a plutonium bomb during the conference. He hinted to the Russians that the United States had a powerful new weapon but provided no details. Unknown to Truman, the Russians had penetrated the security surrounding the Manhattan project but Stalin was not impressed with what he had been told about nuclear weapons.

            On July 26, 1945 the United States, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of Japan to end World War II. The Declaration called for the removal of the Japanese government and military command, the occupation of Japan, lost of all territories conquered by Japan, total disarmament and prosecution of war criminal. The Japanese Supreme Council for the Direction of the War and the Emperor refused the demand and issued their own terms for surrender including allowing the existing Japanese government to remain in control of the Japanese homeland, carry out the disarmament, and prosecute the war criminals. They were also seeking confirmation of Russia’s neutrality according to a treaty they had signed.

            On August 9, 1945, the United States became the first nation on earth to use an atomic bomb on an enemy by dropping a uranium gun-type bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan. The Russians declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, and invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo on the Asian mainland. A plutonium bomb named Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. The devastation caused by the nuclear two bombs was terrible with casualties in the tens of thousands.

           In light of these new developments in the Pacific War, the Emperor convened the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. A captured U.S. B-29 pilot had lied to his interrogators and told them that the U.S. had one hundred atomic bombs and would start dropping them on Tokyo and Kyoto in the next few days. The Emperor told the members of his war council that they should accept the Allies terms for unconditional surrender. On August 12, the Japanese sent a telegram to the U.S. government accepting all of the Potsdam Declaration except for demanding that the Emperor retain his power and status. The Allies responded that their occupational force would be the ultimate authority in Japan after the war. The Japanese argued about how to respond and the Allies waited until August 14 and then staged the biggest bombing raid of the war with hundreds of B-29 bombers raining destruction down on Japan. In the meantime, a group within the Japanese military attempted to stage a coup to seize control of the government to prevent surrender. On August 15, a recorded speech from the Emperor was broadcast to the Japanese people telling them that Japan was surrendering.

Japanese foreign minister signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender for World War II:

Winter composting

Submitted by erika on 12/23/12 11:27am
Keeping your compost going through the winter months.

I'll be honest with you, when winter rolls around, I just keep chucking everything into my compost bin as usual. I'm lucky to live in a relatively mild climate where temperatures rarely get below freezing. It rains all winter, so my big challenge is keeping the lid on the big plastic composter I bought this year, to prevent the compost from getting soaked in all the winter rain. Beyond that, it's pretty much business as usual.

Obviously in winter, most people will not be composting gardening scraps. Unless you are one of those hard-core winter gardeners, in which case I salute you! But for most of us, the winter compost is mainly going to be kitchen scraps. (And for me, chicken coop litter.)
 
This can cause problem for some compost piles, because kitchen scraps are heavy on the "green" and light on the "brown." Ideally you will want to put an equal volume of brown and green ingredients, which will give you the desired ratio of 30:1 carbon to nitrogen. Add a ton of "green" all winter, and by springtime you can find yourself with a real sodden, slimy mess in your composter.
 
Winter is a good time to focus on composting stuff that you might not otherwise. Newspaper can be shredded up and composted, along with other simple paper products like egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, and corrugated cardboard. Other "brown" material you can use to fortify your offerings are dryer lint, vacuum cleaner bag contents and wood ash.
 
If you aren't creating a lot of kitchen scraps, one great way to "feed" your compost heap in winter is to check coffee shops for bags of coffee grounds. Many coffee shops offer giant sacks of spent coffee grounds free for the taking. 
 
If you live in a very cold climate, your compost heap could be in danger of freezing solid. Aside from bringing your composting to a halt during winter, this can also set you back in spring, as it takes time for the bacteria to build back up. Luckily, if you insulate your compost heap, it will often produce enough heat to keep itself thawed.
 
One of the easiest ways to insulate your compost is by surrounding it with straw bales. These are cheap and easily available at feed stores and garden centers, and as a bonus, they can be composted themselves or used as mulch. If you want a more permanent solution, Earth911 recommends stacked cinder blocks.

Help birds: Join the Christmas Bird Count

Submitted by erika on 12/23/12 10:42am
This annual tradition provides invaluable scientific data.

For over a hundred years, the Audubon Society has conducted an annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) to create a snapshot of bird numbers and distribution throughout America. The "Christmas" in Christmas Bird Count is something of a misnomer; the count takes place between December 14 and January 5, based on the scheduling of each area's locations. 

This is not to be confused with the Great Backyard Bird Count, a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society, which happens in February every year. The Great Backyard Bird Count is specifically aimed at getting bird counts from individual small areas (i.e. back yards), and it is a much more informal event.
 
The Christmas Bird Count is a large, nation-wide coordinated effort that takes place thanks to groups of volunteer birdwatchers. In past years there has been a $5 fee to participate, but the Audubon Society is waiving that fee for this year.
 
Data from the Christmas Bird Count has been invaluable in the past. It has identified declining populations which conservation societies were then able to work to protect, like the American Black Duck. It has demonstrated the effects of climate change on bird migrations, which was used in the recent Audubon & Climate Change presentation. The data from the Christmas Bird Count is used by the EPA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to help determine policy, as well as by countless independent researchers every year.
 
The Texas Christmas Bird Count results are already in, for example, and the changes over the past few years are astounding. Between the record drought in Texas and the effects of climate change on migratory patterns, this was a tumultuous year for bird populations in Texas. And no one would have been the wiser, if it hadn't been for the Christmas Bird Count!
 
To join a Christmas Bird Count, the first step is to find the one in your area. Each Count takes place inside a specific geographic sampling area. If you are lucky enough to live within the sampling area, you can arrange with the group leader (known as the Count Compiler) to track the birds that visit your back yard during the specified time window. Bird watchers of all experience levels are welcome, but as many counts involve difficult terrain, winter weather, and long hours spent outside waiting for something to happen, it may not be the best event for younger children.

Frost flowers: The most beautiful natural phenomena?

Submitted by erika on 12/23/12 10:06am
Gorgeous and rare

I had never heard of frost flowers until a few days ago, when someone sent me a link to this page explaining all about them. How can I have not known about something so amazingly beautiful? 

Frost flowers (scientifically known as crystallofolia) are as ephemeral as they are breathtaking. Imagine something as delicate as one giant snowflake, and you're close. Frost flowers form under very specific conditions: the ground has to be warm enough for plants to not be dormant, and yet the air must be cold enough for frost to form. It's a difficult balance, and it means that most people will go their entire lives without seeing a frost flower in person.
 
The physics of frost flower formation are intricate. Active (i.e. non-dormant-for-winter) plants are constantly sucking water up from the ground through their stems. If the plant has not gone dormant when the air falls below freezing, the sap in its veins can freeze. When sap freezes, it expands. When this happens, it bursts the cells and stems of the plant and creates microscopic cracks. 
 
Under a particular set of conditions, the plant continues to draw water up into its stem after it has been cracked by ice formation. The water flows out of the microscopic cracks and freezes as it hits the air. More water is drawn up the stem, flows out of the cracks pushing the previously-frozen stuff forward, and freezes itself.
 
This essentially creates a situation where frost is being extruded from the leaf or stem of a plant. The shapes that it forms are called "frost flowers," and they are as amazing and as unique as snowflakes. Some of them look like puffy clouds of cotton candy; others like small trumpets made of ice, and still others form bizarre curlicues and rams' horns.
 
If you find one, the Kuriositas site recommends that you do not try to touch it. They are so fragile that they break at the slightest touch, and melt from the warmth of your fingertips. Instead, take a picture - and take it fast, because frost flowers dissolve quickly as the sun hits them or the day warms up.
 
There is another kind of phenomena called "frost flowers" which grow on newly-formed sea ice. Although these two phenomena have nothing in common but their name and the fact that they are formed by freezing water, the sea ice frost flowers are gorgeous as well.
 

2012: My year in reading

Submitted by erika on 12/23/12 9:23am
Last Night at the Lobster = My favorite read of the year

In 2012 I worked harder than possibly any other year of my life, and my sad reading statistics reflect it. I track the books I have read in Goodreads, and sorting my list by date makes it painfully obvious how poorly I did in 2012 (relatively speaking). 

I read 17 books in 2012, which sounds pretty good until you find out that I only actually completed 13 of them. The others I abandoned partway through. Life's too short, and my free time is too precious, to trudge through a book I'm not enjoying.
 
Still, I suppose 13 books isn't bad for a year. It's better than nothing, which is what 19% of Americans read every year.
 
Of those 13 books, 7 were non-fiction. The Happiness Project and Candyfreak were the two "stunt reporting" non-fiction books I read this year. I do have a taste for those books where the author does something wacky for a year and then writes about it.
 
Two of those non-fiction books are what I would consider the most important books I've ever read. I only wish I had read them sooner. The one-two punch of "Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office" and "Dealing With People You Can't Stand" had a huge effect on my life for the better. I know it's not fashionable to say that a self-help book changed your life, but these two books deserve that description.
 
As far as fiction goes, I had a lot of flops and tepid fizzles. Fiction didn't do me well this year, is what I'm saying. However, I read Last Night at the Lobster, and it was incredible. It was a whole entire epic adventure story, with all the trappings and dramatic turns of the form - it just happened to have a very mundane setting, and to happen in one day in the life of a restaurant which is about to close forever. 
 
Technically I suppose I didn't READ Last Night of the Lobster, I listened to the audiobook. And if I hadn't gotten an Audible subscription, I would have read even less this year. 2012 was the Year of the Audiobook for me. I live in a rural area with long drives everywhere, and being able to plug in an audiobook not only makes all the driving tolerable, it also let me squeeze a substantial amount of reading time into my over-stuffed schedule.
 
My wish for 2013 is to find and enjoy some great fiction. I didn't do too well in that department, and it's mostly my fault. I need to work harder to find books that I will enjoy. Here's hoping! 

Reading Pile: 12/22/12

Submitted by wrathamon on 12/22/12 9:02am
Iron Or After The War, Indestructible Hulk, Black Beetle & Nowhere Men

Iron: Or After The War HC- I was really looking forward to cracking into this after seeing the beautiful cover design and quality of the format. Unfortunately, after about twenty pages into the story I was starting to get sleepy because the storytelling isn’t that engaging. Vidaurri’s artwork can be exceptionally beautiful in its bleak simplicity, and slightly reminiscent of Scott Hampton or Jon J Muth. However, he over utilizes a few specific page layouts again and again to the point where he quickly seems like a one rick pony. It’s a pretty layout, but it only works so often. He also utilizes are very dark and bleak palette of colors with very little details or backgrounds, so you’re pretty much just always looking at snowy landscapes and unlit bare walls. The plotting is a bog of unclear story elements and none of the characters really felt developed. Mostly, I just didn’t even care. It’s a pretty enough package at $24.99, and considering it felt like forever for me to trudge my way through the story I guess that says something about its density. One particular complaint on the design though, I friggin’ hate it when they put gold or silver on the cover to the point where it flakes off on your fingers. C+

Indestructible Hulk #2- It looks like Waid found the sweet spot again and found the right tone and motivating concept for the character. I’m not crazy about the $3.99 price tag for twenty pages of story, but it’s enjoyable and hopefully Waid can maintain the momentum. I’m also enjoying Leinil Yu’s artwork more on this title than I have on anything else in the past five years plus, so hooray for that. B+

Black Beetle #0- If you already pick up Dark Horse Presents, then fair warning because this issue is just all reprints. If not, it’s a good kick start into the series coming up. Screw the Dynamite pulp hero material like the Shadow and Green Hornet, just pick this up. Francesco Francavilla’s artwork is amazing and he captures pulpy action an crime noir perfectly. It’s a fairly quick read, but it’s a lot of fun. B

 

Nowhere Men #2- This issue did a great job of maintaining my interesting and propelling the story forward. I’m really looking forward to seeing where they can take this and hopefully it will continue to develop into another great hit. A- 

Embracing and imbibing in jet lag

Submitted by Mulv Jones on 12/22/12 7:49am
Use jet lag as a medium for creativity and discovery.

It’s almost like living in a dream. A whimsical world that only exists when the rest of the world is sleeping. Lights seem a little brighter, and the silence, though somewhat deafening, renders those in the environment a solace not readily available during the waking hours. This, my friends, is how the world can look during a little period known as jet lag.

Whether you are crossing countries or continents, changing time zones can leave a person with a truly debauched body clock. Night can become day, and day begins to resemble night. With all that confusion going on in a person’s head, things often become truly weird. Though normally regarded as a nuisance, the lack of sleep, combined with the odd hours, can actually be used to tap into parts of a person's personality that are normally lost to a consistent schedule. Jet lag can actually be used as a medium for creativity and discovery.

While I had previously described jet lag as obnoxious, after reading Pico Iyer’s “In the Realm of Jet Lag,” I began to see it as an opportunity to tap into a impulsive, illusive side of my personality. In the essay, Iyer speaks of jet lag in saying, “ I often think that I have traveled into a deeply foreign country under jet lag, somewhere more mysterious in its ways than Morocco or India…it’s not quite a dream state, but it’s certainly not wakefulness, and though it seems as if we’re visiting another continent, there are no maps or guidebooks to this other world.”

Iyer, known for his traveling writing, describes his internal state, while suffering jet lag, as a new place he hasn’t been before. Though he is in a place he’s known for years, the amalgamation of sleeplessness, different hours and travel is enough to completely change the landscape. Iyer treats his new found sleeplessness as if traveling to a new destination. 

In the footsteps of Iyer, I find myself savoring the moments spent wandering airports and alleys at odd hours. The Mulv I know that normally makes the decisions seems to be lost in the schedule I’ve failed to adopt, and this new Mulv runs the show. Sleepless nights, darkness and empty streets render me with a sense of serenity. An esoteric glee warms my entire being knowing that the majority of people are asleep, as I capriciously explore my surroundings.

I can’t begin to describe all the positives of embracing jet lag, but I can assure you allowing it to take over for at least a few days is a must for all travelers. Let the experience guide you, and maybe you’ll be one of  the lucky ones who becomes acquainted with another side of your personality. 

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