Ever wondered how a trio of PhD grads almost built an atomic bomb using library books? Yep, that happened! Dive into our latest video as we unravel the wild world of nuclear physics, the elusive nuclear club, and the tech behind these powerful devices. From historical experiments to modern-day tension, this video is a must-watch for curious minds. Hit that subscribe button, and let us know your favorite part in the comments! #NuclearPhysics #Science #Education #History #NuclearWeapons
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
00:00:00 - 1964 Experiment: Atomic Bomb via Public Libraries
00:00:32 - Nuclear Club: Old Powers and Non-Proliferation
00:01:22 - Manhattan Project and Its Aftermath
00:02:43 - Expansion of the Nuclear Club
00:03:43 - North Korea's Rise to Nuclear Power
00:04:51 - Current Global Nuclear Landscape
00:07:59 - Complexities of Building a Nuclear Bomb
00:16:21 - Dirty Bombs: Realities and Limitations
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
00:00:00 - 1964 Experiment: Atomic Bomb via Public Libraries
00:00:32 - Nuclear Club: Old Powers and Non-Proliferation
00:01:22 - Manhattan Project and Its Aftermath
00:02:43 - Expansion of the Nuclear Club
00:03:43 - North Korea's Rise to Nuclear Power
00:04:51 - Current Global Nuclear Landscape
00:07:59 - Complexities of Building a Nuclear Bomb
00:16:21 - Dirty Bombs: Realities and Limitations
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NewsTranscript
00:00In 1964, an experiment was conducted in the United States.
00:04Three PhD graduates, who had just received their academic degrees, were gathered.
00:09And they were tasked with designing an atomic bomb using materials from public libraries.
00:14All of this was called a national experiment to understand how difficult it would be for
00:19a nuclear country to create an atomic bomb using open information.
00:23Just three years later, the experiment was stopped.
00:26The physicists nearly reached the required solutions, confirming the experiment's success.
00:31It turns out that any country with just three really good physicists,
00:36not even geniuses, can design a functional nuclear device.
00:41But if it's so easy to build an atomic bomb, then why isn't the so-called nuclear club expanding?
00:48Let's figure it out.
00:49The nuclear club refers to the group of nations that have managed to develop,
00:53produce, and test weapons of mass destruction.
00:57According to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
01:02the recognized old nuclear powers are the United States Russia, United Kingdom France, and China.
01:09Together with the United Nations, they are restraining the emergence of new nuclear powers.
01:14But the path of the old member countries of the nuclear club was also very difficult,
01:18and began more than 80 years ago. The Americans were the first to conduct nuclear tests in 1945,
01:26detonating the Trinity bomb with a yield of 20 kilotons in New Mexico.
01:31It was the result and the crowning achievement of the famous Manhattan Project.
01:35A blindingly bright flash was followed by a wave of heat and a shock wave of colossal force.
01:41It left at the site of the explosion a mushroom-shaped cloud that stretched 12 kilometers into the atmosphere.
01:48Thousands of meters of the surrounding desert sand turned into shiny, radioactive, jade-green glass.
01:56The tests were considered successful. The scientists who created the bomb were astonished.
02:02Physicist Isidore Rabi expressed concern that humanity had become a threat to all life on the planet,
02:08and had disrupted the balance of nature. The test reminded Oppenheimer of a line from the Bhagavad Gita.
02:14Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. The test director, Ken Baybridge, told Oppenheimer,
02:22We are all sons of bitches now. Just a few weeks after that, on August 6 and 9, 1945,
02:30the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were affected by the bombing. Since then and up to the
02:36present day, the United States has remained the only country to have used nuclear weapons for military
02:42purposes. In 1949, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the first to break America's monopoly
02:49on the atomic bomb by conducting a 22-kiloton test at the Semipalatinsk test site. Thus, nuclear parity was
02:57achieved. In 1952, the United Kingdom detonated its own bomb, and in 1960, France conducted a test in the
03:05Algerian oasis of Regan. Then it was the turn of the Asian powers. In 1964, China conducted tests near
03:13Lake Lopnoor, and 10 years later, India carried out an explosion in the state of Rajasthan.
03:19Interestingly, the Indians only acknowledged their nuclear status in 1998. At the same time,
03:26angered by their neighbors' actions, Pakistan tested six devices in the underground tunnels of
03:31Balakistan province. And since 2006, North Korea's nuclear weapons have become a headache for the
03:38West. You could say that North Korea joined the nuclear club without knocking. And then in March 2022,
03:45in North Korea, they are testing the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. Today, this 17th
03:53model claims the title of the largest intercontinental ballistic missile in the world. Its diameter is
03:59estimated at 2.4 meters, and its total mass, when fully fueled, can reach 110 tons. North Korea turned
04:07the launch of the monster missile into a blockbuster. Now, let's look at the rhetoric of the powers.
04:13In North Korea, the missile tests are positioned as part of nuclear war deterrence forces. Two hours
04:19after the Hwasong's flight, South Korea launched five of its own missiles, calling it a demonstration of
04:25the ability and readiness to respond and punish immediately. In the United States, the missile
04:30launch was called a blatant violation of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions. And it
04:36was noted that North Korea risks destabilizing the security situation in the region. The United States
04:42will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland, the Republic of
04:47Korea, and Japanese allies, the White House statement said. Meanwhile, Russia and China's veto power makes
04:54new United Nations sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea impossible. The Japanese
04:59Ministry of Defense released a video showing the missile's condensation trail and announced that the
05:05current launch was the most technically successful in the history of the Democratic People's Republic of
05:10Korea. The head of the Ministry of Defense, Nobuo Kishi, was especially concerned. Calculations show that the range
05:16could be more than 15,000 kilometers, depending on the weight of the warhead. Therefore, the whole
05:22United States territory, including the East Coast, is within the radius. Now is the perfect time to
05:28return to the composition of the so-called United States Nuclear Club. Russia, Britain, France, and the
05:35People's Republic of China are among the old nuclear powers that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
05:41The younger powers, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, did not sign the document.
05:46After the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is collapsed, Soviet nuclear weapons were in Ukraine,
05:52Belarus, and Kazakhstan. However, these countries voluntarily relinquished their arsenals. Some
05:58countries provide their territory for the deployment of nuclear weapons within NATO. These are Germany,
06:04Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey, which do not have their own bombs.
06:10Israel stands apart. The country neither confirms nor denies rumors about having such an arsenal.
06:17According to experts, the Israelis have been developing nuclear warheads since the late 1960s.
06:23South Africa also had nuclear weapons, but all six warheads were destroyed after the end of the
06:29apartheid regime. There is a theory that Israel helped the South Africans develop their bombs.
06:34In 2015, Iran was accused of trying to obtain its own nuclear weapons under the cover of independent
06:41nuclear energy. Tehran and the group of six, consisting of the United States, Britain, France,
06:48Germany, Russia, and China, signed an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. The joint comprehensive
06:54plan of action involved the gradual lifting of sanctions in exchange for halting potentially dangerous
07:00developments. This process is not without obstacles. At the beginning of 2022, the Federation of American
07:07Scientists counted approximately 12,700 nuclear warheads in the possession of nine countries.
07:14About 90% of the weapons belong to the United States and Russia. Here's a breakdown by numbers of how
07:20the warheads are distributed within the nuclear club. Russia, 5,977. United States, 5,428.
07:30China, 350. France, 290. United Kingdom, 225. Pakistan, 165. India, 160. Israel, 90. North Korea, 20.
07:45However, it should be remembered that no country discloses the exact number of warheads in service.
07:52In addition, about a quarter of the world's nuclear weapons have been retired from service,
07:57but have not been dismantled. Now let's return to the question of how technologically easy it is to
08:03join the nuclear club. So what does it take to make a nuclear bomb? There are two simplest designs for
08:09atomic bombs. The implosion type and the gun type, as well as their hybrids. The gun type is considered a
08:16bit simpler. In it, one piece of uranium-235 is literally fired by a gunpowder charge into a target
08:24made of the same material. The point is that this element in the piece must be at least 80%
08:29and ideally more than 90%. Both pieces have a subcritical mass, so by themselves they cannot
08:36start a chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion. However, their almost instantaneous
08:42coming together allows for quickly reaching the critical mass needed to start a chain reaction with
08:46the parameters required for a nuclear explosion. The speed at which the two pieces come together,
08:52like in a cannon shot, is critically important here, because if it's too slow, the chain reaction
08:58will have time to heat up the pieces and start the process of their evaporation. In this case,
09:03the power of the explosion will be greatly reduced. The cannon type design is simple to set up. If you
09:09have uranium-235 of the required enrichment, any artillery factory can make the cannon itself. This
09:16type of bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The simplicity of making the ammunition
09:23also has its downside. The critical mass needed for a nuclear explosion is more than 15 kilograms.
09:30The Hiroshima bomb had imperfectly refined components and contained even more uranium than necessary.
09:37A higher mass of the munition doesn't just make it less compact. Where to? A more serious problem is
09:43that enriched uranium-235, the fissile material, is very difficult to obtain. In natural uranium,
09:50the uranium-235 isotope makes up only 0.7%, while the rest is the heavier uranium-238, which does not
09:59sustain a chain reaction. To raise the concentration of the uranium-235 isotope to 80 or 90%,
10:06the United States during the Manhattan Project used an extremely energy-intensive diffusion process.
10:12In this process, uranium is first fluorinated to uranium hexafluoride, then heated to 56.4 degrees
10:19Celsius, which causes the hexafluoride to boil. In its gaseous form, it is passed through a series of
10:25membranes. The heavier uranium-238 is gradually separated, and as a result, enrichment in the uranium-235
10:33isotope is achieved. This whole process is extremely energy-inefficient. The American
10:40diffusion plant consumed three gigawatts of power, which is about as much as three large nuclear
10:45reactors, or a whole dozen decent thermal power plants, produce. As a result, the plant lost economic
10:51competition to Russian producers who used centrifuges. In them, artificial increased gravity is created during
10:58rotation, and the heavier molecules with uranium-238 settle down, while those with more
11:06light uranium-235 remain higher. Uranium enrichment using the diffusion method is so expensive that it
11:14is not used simply for financial reasons, and the use of gas centrifuge technology requires the highest
11:20technological level from the operator. Let me explain with an example. In the 90s, when the Iron Curtain
11:26fell and Russian fuel producers, now the company TVEL, were able to start supplying the international
11:32market, it turned out that their fuel was objectively cheaper. Then, in the United States, they wanted to
11:38build their own gas centrifuges to compete with Russia on equal terms. This started in 1995. 16 years later,
11:47by 2011, they reached the first test launch of a centrifuge cascade. Consequently, some were destroyed
11:55spectacularly. After all, modern centrifuges for these purposes have a rotation speed of one and a half
12:02thousand revolutions per second. This is the cutting edge of human technology. It's very difficult to achieve in a
12:09short time. It takes decades of gradual improvement. It ended so sadly that the American government did
12:17not renew the license of the corporation that was in charge of all this. Consequently, the gas
12:22diffusion program was terminated for being too costly, and the centrifuge work was interrupted. The
12:28United States has long had no domestic producers of nuclear fuel, and even less so its own production of
12:34weapons-grade uranium. So it turns out that only a handful of people can really possess these technologies.
12:41Iran, China, and several other countries have their own centrifuges, but China buys them from Russia.
12:47Some players initially imported the technology, while other countries spent decades in huge financial
12:53resources on these technologies. However, as we have already noted, there is another scheme. Not a gun type,
13:00but an implosive one. There, not uranium. 235 is used, but plutonium 239. The fundamental difference here is that
13:10plutonium can be obtained without these two inconvenient conditions. Either the first, which are too expensive in
13:16terms of energy and finances, diffusion methods, or the second, extremely complex centrifuge installations. In addition,
13:24its critical mass is about six kilograms, which makes it possible to create significantly more compact nuclear warheads.
13:31This is a plutonium 239, ring 11, in diameter, weighing 5.3 kildurs made in America.
13:40This amount of plutonium is enough to make an atomic bomb with an efficient beryllium reflector.
13:46This type of fissile material is produced in a nuclear reactor, where uranium 238 captures one of the neutrons,
13:53and becomes plutonium 239. However, it's not that simple here either. If uranium 238 is exposed to the
14:01neutron flux from the reactor for a long time, there will be too much of it. Plutonium 240. It forms
14:08when
14:09uranium 238, having just absorbed a neutron, becomes plutonium 239 and then immediately captures a second
14:17neutron, turning into plutonium 240. The latter produces too strong a neutron background,
14:24and if it makes up more than seven percent of the plutonium used for nuclear weapons,
14:28the risk of the entire project failing increases sharply. After all, the implosion scheme involves
14:35an explosion that compresses the plutonium element of the device. With too high a neutron background at the
14:40very beginning of the explosion, which creates the conditions for a nuclear detonation, the fissile
14:46material will heat up and evaporate prematurely before a full reaction can occur. This will destroy the
14:51atomic device itself, but it won't produce the planned explosive yield. You'll end up with a very expensive,
14:58but relatively harmless firecracker. So, weapons-grade plutonium should contain little plutonium 240,
15:05specifically less than eight percent. This can be achieved by exposing uranium 238 to the reactor
15:11for only a very short period of time. Technologically, these should be reactors that allow you to quickly
15:18insert and remove rods with uranium 238 right during operation. In conventional ones, this is technically
15:25impossible. In theory, there's nothing impossible about creating a different type of nuclear reactor,
15:31such a highly specialized weapons-grade one. In 1942, the Americans built the world's first reactor
15:38entirely out of natural uranium, without any enrichment. To slow down neutrons to speeds at
15:44which uranium can capture them most effectively, they used graphite as a neutron moderator, which they cut
15:50on regular woodworking machines. For strength, the graphite structure was reinforced with a wooden frame.
15:57Nevertheless, someone had to design a reactor in which a rod with uranium 2388 could be quickly
16:04inserted and removed. An extremely small number of people know how to design nuclear reactors so that
16:10they actually work. And again, only a few countries have such scientific and organizational personnel,
16:16and doing this secretly from other states is practically impossible. However, to all this,
16:23a curious viewer might object that a dirty bomb can be made without advanced technology. Theoretically,
16:29that's not a problem. You could take a mixture of certain chemical elements, which we can't name since
16:34we're not allowed to provide practical instructions. Fill the tubes, which are usually loaded with nuclear fuel,
16:40with this mixture, and put them into regular standard reactors for about a year. Then take them out and use
16:47the material to fill any simple rocket or even an artillery shell. But you can't get any weapon of mass
16:53destruction this way. The number of casualties from radiation contamination won't be much higher than from
16:59the explosions of such munitions themselves. Producing the necessary amounts of dangerous isotopes takes a long
17:06time. They're hard to store, and it's impossible to do all this secretly. You can still make a couple of
17:12rods and quietly put them into shells, but no country in the world can secretly fill thousands of rods with
17:19the necessary elements, set up mass production, and create hundreds or thousands of dirty bomb-type munitions.
17:27And what if you try to fill a dirty bomb not with a special mixture of elements, but with spent
17:32nuclear
17:32fuel? You could try, but there would be two problems. First, spent nuclear fuel is most dangerous when
17:40it's noticeably hot. Not all of the most dangerous isotopes in it have burned out yet, but hot, spent fuel
17:47is very inconvenient to put into any kind of munition. And again, there's very little use for such dirty bombs.
17:54Most of it consists of long-lived isotopes, whose radiation is fairly moderate, and even traces of
18:01shorter-lived elements don't help much. Such spent fuel is dozens or even hundreds of times safer than the optimal
18:09mixture of chemical elements that has been in a reactor for a year. So theoretically, any country will retain
18:15this dirty bomb potential as long as it has at least one nuclear reactor in operation. But in practice, dirty
18:22bombs
18:22are ineffective in a military sense, and absolutely suicidal in terms of public relations.
18:28That's a brief summary of the price of joining the nuclear club. Of course, in this episode, we
18:34didn't cover uranium mining, nuclear power, various nuclear reactor technologies, and much more. But
18:40we'll leave that for future episodes. If you're interested, let us know with a like and a comment.
18:45Should we start working on it? Although we do have something about autonomous nuclear generators,
18:50check out the link below. Thanks for watching. See you on our channel.