Fear Cobalt

8/9/2005 3:10:38 PM

They feared everything in 1954.

8/9/2005 3:14:03 PM

Because the radioactive and physical properties of cobalt have changed in the last 50 years.

8/9/2005 3:31:57 PM

We don't seem any less paranoid now.

8/9/2005 3:36:53 PM

wow
as powerful as this appears
and it only got 4, maybe 6 inches of newspaper copy

nice

i'm shakin in my boots here

8/9/2005 3:42:42 PM

Quote :

"Because the radioactive and physical properties of cobalt have changed in the last 50 years."

Because I said that.

8/9/2005 3:45:07 PM

you implied it.

8/9/2005 4:07:39 PM

No I didn't.

8/9/2005 4:09:33 PM

you most certainly did. when you stated, "They feared Everything in 1954," you implied that a cobalt bomb is nothing to fear. Thus meaning that for you, in 1954, the capablities of cobalt are different than the capablities of cobalt in 2005, thus meaning the properties of cobalt changed.

8/9/2005 4:16:16 PM

They were racist against the Irish back in 1904.

My statement implies that the Irish are not inferior. Thus meaning that for me, in 1904, the inferiority of the Irish was different than the superiority in 2005. Thus meaning the capabilities of the Irish changed.

It could never be a simple as human progress away from primitive tendencies toward more enlightened consideration of the fact that the Irish are often as white as everyone else.

8/9/2005 4:24:30 PM

nail -----> head

8/9/2005 4:26:18 PM

^^It appears that dumbass here has made a man out of straw.

^and you bought it.



[Edited on August 9, 2005 at 4:42 PM. Reason : http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html]

8/9/2005 4:30:27 PM

you suck at scaning

could have been 1/2 that size and still be legible

8/9/2005 4:31:33 PM

Yeah, thats it.

Do whatever it takes to avoid admission of a mistake.

8/9/2005 4:31:49 PM

Screw Cobalt, give me Tungsten

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050608-gods-rods.htm

8/9/2005 4:37:00 PM

^^^It's not an issue of my scanning abilities. It is an issue of whether or not I want to take the time

^^pointing out a logical fallacy is not anywhere near dodging an issue.

^rods from god don't have the opportunity to destroy all life on earth with one shot.

[Edited on August 9, 2005 at 4:40 PM. Reason : .]

8/9/2005 4:37:21 PM

Very well. People living in the 1950's were afraid of many new technologies that accompanied
the nuclear age. Massive destruction on a scale previously unimaginable was now a distinct
possibility with which people were forced to live. When combined with the fact that the Cold
War had begun, it created an atmosphere of fear that permeated many aspects of American
culture.

Thus my statement "They feared everything in 1954." This was not a scientific statement about
the properties of cobalt, rather it was an observation regarding the society that was responsible
for the article.

[Edited on August 9, 2005 at 4:44 PM. Reason : .]

8/9/2005 4:43:34 PM

That article about the Cobalt bomb contains none of the irrational fears that you are spuriously placing on 1954 America.

8/9/2005 4:44:52 PM

I was not talking about the article, rather I was making an observation regarding the society
and era that that produced it.

8/9/2005 4:49:49 PM

so you added nothing of merit at all to the thread, meaning you were simpling padding.

8/9/2005 4:51:38 PM

I was putting the article in context.

8/9/2005 4:53:48 PM

no you weren't.

8/9/2005 4:55:51 PM

Well, yeah, I was.

8/9/2005 5:51:31 PM

My god, you people are fucking douchebags.

8/9/2005 6:41:55 PM

is there perhaps a chance that the article was wrong? that perhaps we've learned a thing or two about bombs in the past 50 years?

8/9/2005 9:34:52 PM

Forget Cobalt, Thorium G is the stuff that you need to worry about.

8/9/2005 10:40:58 PM

some scientists thought that a nuclear explosion would burn off the entire atmosphere on the planet.

8/9/2005 10:55:09 PM

I think I read a story once about how the Israelis built a number of cobalt bombs to use as a suicide weapon in the event that it looked like the Arabs were finally going to overrun them. However, before they had a chance to launch them, the United States came in and neutron bombed the entire country...

8/10/2005 12:49:02 AM

Damn Jews. Just can't get anything right, can they?

8/10/2005 1:16:40 AM

^^that really happened.

8/10/2005 1:29:40 AM

Basically one would use an ordinary nuclear weapon and add a layer of Co-59 to the outside of the weapon. One consequence of nuclear weapons is that they produce a high neutron flux. Neutron capture on the Co-59 would result in Co-60 which is a beta and gamma emitter with a half life of ~5 years. Having a ton of Co-60 as a product of a nuclear weapon is what is called a "dirty bomb" since gamma sources aren't very friendly to us humans.
I'd be kinda interested in seeing what the expected radiation dose one would recieve as a function of the amount of stable Co-59 in a bomb given the distance from ground zero. Perhaps I'll calculate it. But I think the initial nuclear explosion would be horrible enough to make the fallout something of an afterthought.

Today was Nagasaki day. RIP 75,000+ Japanese people.

8/10/2005 1:44:59 AM

YOU MEAN BURN IN HELL YOU FUCKING JAPS WHO ALL WANTED TO KILL AS MANY US SOLDIERS AS POSSIBLE????

8/10/2005 1:58:18 AM

Mr. Tuvok, launch the tri Cobalt torpedoes.

8/10/2005 4:02:57 AM

Fear the

8/10/2005 9:38:37 AM

I hate mr. joshua

he needs to go back to chit chat.

8/10/2005 1:57:57 PM

My going to chit chat will make you no less of a dumbass.

You need to learn stop being so adversarial about everything, especially when you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

8/10/2005 2:27:44 PM

you need to not be a fucking idiot.

8/10/2005 2:29:25 PM

you go first, brainiac

8/10/2005 2:33:18 PM

Jesus fucking Christ, I'm sick of this.

Quit fucking trying to kill any and all discussions in here.

8/10/2005 2:38:43 PM

Yes, because you're making such an enlightening discussion about how you hate me.

Good stuff. Keep it up.

8/10/2005 2:46:07 PM

For the love of christ. you and bigben need to fucking go and have a "look I'm posting on teh wolfweb convention" Neither one of you has even placed any fucking thought into a single fucking goddamned fucking post. All you do is fucking convolute the discussion to the point where the fucking thread no longer is anywhere near the fucking original topic. As evidence, look at this thread. The nephillim thread, the fucking list goes on and on. this isn't fucking chit chat, or the o'reilly factor the last word doesn't fucking matter here. Especially if it is as fucking banal as every single one of your posts. You are the fucking pseudo-intellectual.

8/10/2005 2:55:25 PM

Is this what you do every time that someone makes you look stupid?

I'll post it again: you need to learn stop being so adversarial about everything, especially when you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

8/10/2005 3:02:43 PM

Quote :

"For the love of christ. you and bigben need to fucking go and have a "look I'm posting on teh wolfweb convention" Neither one of you has even placed any fucking thought into a single fucking goddamned fucking post. All you do is fucking convolute the discussion to the point where the fucking thread no longer is anywhere near the fucking original topic. As evidence, look at this thread. The nephillim thread, the fucking list goes on and on. this isn't fucking chit chat, or the o'reilly factor the last word doesn't fucking matter here. Especially if it is as fucking banal as every single one of your posts. You are the fucking pseudo-intellectual. "

8/10/2005 3:03:15 PM

Quote :

"the last word doesn't fucking matter here."

8/10/2005 3:04:47 PM

Quote :

"Weapons of Total Destruction Many might remember the Neutron bomb which, when exploding, leaves buildings and roads intact while showering life on earth with lethal doses of neutron radiation. This way an enemy can kill all life within a zone and take possession of a city and all of its content. Dreadful, is it not, but not the Doomsday weapon conceived of in 1950 - the Cobalt Bomb. In the light of the current talks in China with North Korea, let us reflect on the awesome power of destruction we have brought into existence. The Cobalt Bomb is capable of wiping out life on earth. It explodes and emits long-lasting and lethal gamma radiation, the most energetic radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. Has the Cobalt Bomb been constructed? If it has, then it is part of a classified arsenal of weapons, but who would want to unleash a weapon of such destructive power that none who inhabit the earth would survive? Perhaps only those who can take refuge in a deep underground Ark. From the Encarta Encyclopedia... "The Hydrogen Bomb or H-bomb, weapon deriving a large portion of its energy from the nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes. In an atomic bomb , uranium or plutonium is split into lighter elements that together weigh less than the original atoms, the remainder of the mass appearing as energy. Unlike this fission bomb, the hydrogen bomb functions by the fusion, or joining together, of lighter elements into heavier elements. The end product again weighs less than its components, the difference once more appearing as energy. Because extremely high temperatures are required in order to initiate fusion reactions, the hydrogen bomb is also known as a thermonuclear bomb. The first thermonuclear bomb was exploded in 1952 at Enewetak by the United States, the second in 1953 by Russia (then the USSR). Great Britain, France, and China have also exploded thermonuclear bombs, and these five nations comprise the so-called nuclear club"nations that have the capability to produce nuclear weapons and admit to maintaining an inventory of them. The three smaller Soviet successor states that inherited nuclear arsenals (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus) relinquished all nuclear warheads, which have been removed to Russia. Several other nations either have tested thermonuclear devices or claim to have the capability to produce them, but officially state that they do not maintain a stockpile of such weapons; among these are India, Israel, and Pakistan. South Africa's apartheid regime built six nuclear bombs but dismantled them later. The presumable structure of a thermonuclear bomb is as follows: at its center is an atomic bomb; surrounding it is a layer of lithium deuteride (a compound of lithium and deuterium, the isotope of hydrogen with mass number 2); around it is a tamper, a thick outer layer, frequently of fissionable material, that holds the contents together in order to obtain a larger explosion. Neutrons from the atomic explosion cause the lithium to fission into helium, tritium (the isotope of hydrogen with mass number 3), and energy. The atomic explosion also supplies the temperatures needed for the subsequent fusion of deuterium with tritium, and of tritium with tritium (50,000,000 and 400,000,000, respectively). Enough neutrons are produced in the fusion reactions to produce further fission in the core and to initiate fission in the tamper. Since the fusion reaction produces mostly neutrons and very little that is radioactive, the concept of a 'clean' bomb has resulted: one having a small atomic trigger, a less fissionable tamper, and therefore less radioactive fallout . Carrying this progression further would result in the suggested neutron bomb, which would have a minimum trigger and a nonfissionable tamper; there would be blast effects and a hail of lethal neutrons but almost no radioactive fallout; this theoretically would cause minimal physical damage to buildings and equipment but kill most living things. The theorized cobalt bomb is, on the contrary, a radioactively "dirty bomb having a cobalt tamper. Instead of generating additional explosive force from fission of the uranium, the cobalt is transmuted into cobalt-60, which has a half-life of 5.26 years and produces energetic (and thus penetrating) gamma rays. The half-life of Co-60 is just long enough so that airborne particles will settle and coat the earth's surface before significant decay has occurred, thus making it impractical to hide in shelters. This prompted physicist Leo Szilard to call it a "doomsday device since it was capable of wiping out life on earth." ---- The idea of the cobalt bomb originated with Leo Szilard who publicized it in Feb. 1950, not as a serious proposal for weapon, but to point out that it would soon be possible in principle to build a weapon that could kill everybody on earth. To design such a theoretical weapon a radioactive isotope is needed that can be dispersed world wide before it decays. Such dispersal takes many months to a few years so the half-life of Co-60 is ideal. The Co-60 fallout hazard is greater than the fission products from a U-238 blanket because many fission-produced isotopes have half-lives that are very short, and thus decay before the fallout settles or can be protected against by short-term sheltering; many fission-produced isotopes have very long half-lives and thus do not produce very intense radiation; the fission products are not radioactive at all. The half-life of Co-60 on the other hand is long enough to settle out before significant decay has occurred, and to make it impractical to wait out in shelters, yet is short enough that intense radiation is produced. Initially gamma radiation fission products from an equivalent size fission-fusion-fission bomb are much more intense than Co-60: 15,000 times more intense at 1 hour; 35 times more intense at 1 week; 5 times more intense at 1 month; and about equal at 6 months. Thereafter fission drops off rapidly so that Co-60 fallout is 8 times more intense than fission at 1 year and 150 times more intense at 5 years. The very long lived isotopes produced by fission would overtake the again Co-60 after about 75 years. Zinc has been proposed as an alternate candidate for the "doomsday role". The advantage of Zn-64 is that its faster decay leads to greater initial intensity. Disadvantages are that since it makes up only half of natural zinc, it must either be isotopically enriched or the yield will be cut in half; that it is a weaker gamma emitter than Co-60, putting out only one-fourth as many gammas for the same molar quantity; and that substantially amounts will decay during the world-wide dispersal process. Assuming pure Zn-64 is used, the radiation intensity of Zn-65 would initially be twice as much as Co-60. This would decline to being equal in 8 months, in 5 years Co-60 would be 110 times as intense. Militarily useful radiological weapons would use local (as opposed to world-wide) contamination, and high initial intensities for rapid effects. Prolonged contamination is also undesirable. In this light Zn-64 is possibly better suited to military applications than cobalt, but probably inferior to tantalum or gold. As noted above ordinary "dirty" fusion-fission bombs have very high initial radiation intensities and must also be considered radiological weapons. No cobalt or other salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, and as far as is publicly known none have ever been built. In light of the ready availability of fission-fusion-fission bombs, it is unlikely any special-purpose fallout contamination weapon will ever be developed. The British did test a bomb that incorporated cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer (Antler/Round 1, 14 September 1957). This 1 kt device was exploded at the Tadje site, Maralinga range, Australia. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated. Well, let us hope that Doomsday Weapons are never built. With enough H-Bombs, we could come close to a D-Weapon. A Doomsday weapon would not be just a WMD, but a WTD (Weapon of Total Destruction). Now that efforts for non-proliferation of these nuclear weapons are underway, and with more countries trying to get into the nuclear party, the doomsday cloud looms once again. Let us hope no nation anywhere on earth, threatens humanity with such WTDs. "The world we've made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking" -- Albert Einstein. Bill Hamilton Executive Director Skywatch International, Inc. Website: http://www.skywatch-research.org Fiat Lux et Veritas "

http://www.rense.com/general40/dooms.htm

8/10/2005 3:09:57 PM

Quote :

"a weapon of such destructive power that none who inhabit the earth would survive?"

I find that VERY difficult to believe. Is this guy saying there is such a thing as a Q bomb? (see reference)

8/10/2005 5:41:13 PM

You guys heard of the Adamanatium Bomb?

8/10/2005 5:42:51 PM

FEAR!!!!

BOO!!!

DOWN WITH FEAR!!!!!

I'm sick of fear it hurts my tummy.

I think my boss hates me

8/10/2005 5:45:06 PM