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On David's comments about achieving critical mass with LEU, I defer to his expertise. I did not mean to be taken literally about "throwing together a pile of the stuff" and in being an "atom bomb" as that is normally understood, and I failed to make that clear. Yet although it is not a "bomb" like Hiroshima, what I heard one physics geek explain recently, which is what my comment was based on, is that a properly configured nuclear pile could be made to blow up and scatter lethal amounts of radiation for miles around, citing Chernobyl and saying, in effect, "imagine if you didn't do this by accident but *consciously* set out to create the biggest possible mess." He was arguing against the idea that less-than-almost-pure U-235 wasn't militarily useful in what he calls asymmetrical warfare. Perhaps David would be willing to evaluate whether this is a real-world scenario or scare propaganda. Joaquín ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
