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| quote: | Originally posted by Rememberence_
No because it isn't inflammable (or 'flammable' as you yank bastards would say). Also, most explosives will not detonate simply from a naked flame or a heat source, which is why blasting caps or other types of detonators are needed to supply the necessary shock wave which will cause detonation (i.e. with C-4). That means you can use C-4 as fuel for a campfire and be totally safe.
But enough about explosives... Plutonium isn't one, it is a radioactive metal. In order to use it to create an explosion, what you must do is put a certain amount of it into one mass, and this amount must be greater than or equal to the 'critical mass'. Basically what this means is that when you have a small amount of plutonium (i.e. subcritical: less than the critical mass, which for plutonium-238 and plutonium-239 is roughly 10 kilograms), it gives off radiation, but the radiation can escape faster than it is being produced. A mass above that 10Kg mark however is supercritical, meaning that there is so much radiation (neutrons) being given off within the mass that it can't escape fast enough... neutrons hitting other neutrons cause additional neutrons to be radiated at a self-sustaining rate, and very quickly the fission chain reaction escalates exponentially, resulting in a nuclear explosion of sorts.
Just to give a brief illustration of how this is situation comes about in a plutonium bomb... subcritical sized pieces of plutonium can be arranged, separated, in a sphere, with conventional shaped explosives surrounding the nuclear fuel. To detonate the plutonium, the conventional explosives are detonated at precisely the same moment, forcing the separate subcritical pieces of plutonium inwards to form one supercritical mass, and bob's your uncle. |
nukes are much more complicated than this, but I won't go into many details because there's the risk of having a very angry government coming after me.
also, for Plutonium, density (compression) is essentially more a factor than mass. At normal density, a supercritical mass of plutonium is quite larger than the 10kg mentioned (which is about the volume of a coke can because plutonium is extremely dense). Shaped charge explosives are used to compress it to several times its normal density, with a neutron emitter in the center, at which point it THEN becomes supercritical.
as for this event, no idea if I can make it out or not. I'm still waiting to see where I'll be working this summer, if I'm in Texas at the time I'll try to be there. I might be "stuck" here in Cali though .
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I'm far from an expert on the subject, so I'd love to know more detail...
