I am not a math major so I want to know is the math they write on the board real or made up? What about the concepts and other math related information?
shareNot math per se, but they are physics, nuclear engineering, and fluid dynamics formulaics.
They are real equations but most of the time unrelated to the physics or engineering problem they are working on.
Maybe they were afraid that some pro-ISIS kid could take screen shots and copy the formulas and make a "device"...would that even be possible?
Paranoia strikes deep...
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
The thing that stops people from building nuclear weapons is the lack of weapons-grade uranium (or plutonium), as well as the technology and skill required to stably encase it within an explosive device. There are only 10 nations in the world that have created functional nuclear weapons.
The chances of ISIS building functional nuclear weapons would be about as likely as them sending someone to the Moon.
Yeah, my guess is any formula they have up on the boards for public consumption on the tv screen are formulas that would have been ground breaking or new solutions in 1942 but are now commonplace scientific knowledge?
So, there may be no security harm today, in having them up there?
It is only the unavailability of the fissile material (U235 or Pu239) that keeps nuclear weapons from being made by non-state entities. If one could get their hands on Little Boy/Fat Man quantities of the stuff, enough of the design details behind nuclear weapons can be gleaned from unclassified sources to make assembling a crude bomb a possibility for a resourceful group.
If you really want to see the "nitty gritty" internals of the FM/LB designs, read John Coster-Mullen's book. Pretty much lays bare the internals (down to schematics for the implosion detonator), and he got it all from the open literature.
http://www.amazon.com/Atom-Bombs-Secret-Inside-Little/dp/B0006S2AJ0
That and the Tritium they got from Hanford, the sister station, in Washington State.
shareWhich, I will randomly appear and comment on, I was born in! (Richland, right nex to the facility). Not that it is at all relevant to the conversation, but I rarely meet anyone who even knows about it outside of enthusiasts or locals.
"Aw Crap!" - Hellboy
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What amazes me is the fact that these calculations, which could take hours or days are now probably done it seconds by computers.
shareYou don't even need that.. It's nothing an iPhone can't handle.
sharePlus, that same phone has a better computer than Apollo 11 had...a fact that still blows me away.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
As for the math, I love the references to the slide rule that come up every now and then.
I learned math on a slide rule. OUCH.
I remember the first student to show up at university with the latest invention, a hand-held pocket calculator that, at the time, cost the earth.
We stood around him in a circle and oooed and awwwed and had him show us how it worked.
Lord luvaduck...
I had a buddy who went Stanford for his advanced degrees, and then became a nuclear physicist at Fermilab, near Chicago.
While still in high school, he and some of the other science geeks wore their slide rules to class, in imitation-leather holsters or scabbards, as though they were Bowie knives.
And then they would have "duels" with them...they'd "draw their weapons" and compete to see who could solve a problem faster. True story. I am not making any of this up.
Me? My weapon of choice was words. As a journalism student and budding wordsmith, I thought the only use for a slide rule was in a swordfight.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
The principal brands of slide rules were Post and Keuffel & Esser, and their owners held each other in the same low regard as PC and Apple people do today...;-)
shareI have a slide rule iPhone app. We've gone full circle.
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