

How two students built an A-bomb (2003) - ken
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science

======
sdurkin
Google John Aristotle Phillips.

He was a princeton student in the 70s who designed a nuclear bomb as a junior
paper, and built a rather realistic mockup in his dorm. It was published and
placed in the library alongside the other junior papers, until the FBI came
and confiscated it.

<http://europeancourier.org/terrorism_05_21_2006.htm>

~~~
DabAsteroid
_John Aristotle Phillips ... designed a nuclear bomb as a junior paper._

No. <http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html#4>

_The effort by the Princeton student, John Phillips, was much more widely
publicized. He made extravagant claims that his bomb would explode with a
force of more than 10,000 tons of TNT. He took on a publicity agent, wrote a
book, appeared on many TV and radio shows, received very wide newspaper
coverage, and even ran for Congress.

What he claimed to have produced was a design for a bomb in a term paper
prepared for a physics course. I spoke to his professor in that course, who
said that there was nothing in his paper that would ordinarily be called a
design. There were only crude sketches without dimensions. There were no
calculations to support his claim that his bomb would work. He had collected a
lot of information that would be useful in designing a bomb, for which the
professor gave him an A grade.

Phillips was being called by media people so frequently that he had to have a
separate telephone installed in his dormitory for that purpose. His professor
told me that he himself had been contacted by many newsmen, but they never
printed what he told them — they only trumpeted that Phillips had designed a
workable bomb.

Several people have told me that professional government bomb designers have
said that a design for a bomb by some student would work. I know that this
could not be true because it would be a very serious breach of security
regulations for a person who was ever involved with the government program to
comment on a design that is available to the public. Note that the MIT
student's design was judged by a "Swedish expert." With regard to such claims
about Phillips' design, no professional could possibly consider a sketch
without dimensions to be a design capable of being evaluated for performance.
Science and technology are highly quantitative disciplines, but apparently
Phillips does not understand that fact.

There have been numerous statements in newspapers, including our university
paper, that any college student could design a nuclear bomb. In reply, I
published an offer in our university paper of an unqualified A grade in both
of the two courses on nuclear energy that I was teaching for any student who
can show me a sketch of a workable plutonium bomb together with a quantitative
calculation showing that it would work. My offer has been repeated about 10
times over the last 15 years. Three students turned in papers, but none of
them had as much as 5% of what could be called a design.

All of this discussion has been about designs on paper, but as is clear from
the above quoted statements by experts, that is only a small part of the task
faced by terrorists. The fabrication requires a wide degree of expertise and
experience in technical areas. It requires people capable of carrying out
complex physics and engineering computations, handling hazardous materials,
arranging electronically for a hundred or so triggers to fire simultaneously
within much less than a millionth of a second, accurately shaping explosive
charges, attaching them precisely and connecting the triggers to them, and so
on. Where would terrorists find this expertise?_

~~~
sdurkin
I apologize. Its a bit of a campus legend, and as such tends to grow in the
telling.

I was aware that it had been partially debunked, but I was not sure to what
extent. Thank you for the clarification.

------
mattmaroon
Very interesting. It's long been said that getting the material was by far the
hardest part. I guess this gives the exact date for when that was determined.

~~~
stcredzero
I've read somewhere that you can get a very low-yield explosion by just
dropping a big enough chunk of weapons-grade fissionable material onto another
one. You only get several hundred tons of TNT equivalent of explosive force,
but lots of radiation. It would make the perfect terror weapon.

~~~
DabAsteroid
You either read or remembered wrong, or that source was referring to something
like an explosives-grade uranium dart being dropped through one or more
explosives-grade uranium donuts and from a great height. That method would not
work for plutonium, which -- because of its greater propensity to prematurely
generate neutrons -- requires the more-rapid mass-assembly method of an
implosion.

~~~
stcredzero
Ah, I remembered, but not specifically enough. It was Uranium, but I forgot
that it had to be darts through a donut, and I didn't know it had to be a
great height.

Is that 2 stories? 10 stories?

------
bootload
_"... Today, the fear is back: with al-Qaida resurgent, North Korea out of
control, and nuclear rumours emanating from any number of "rogue states", we
cling, at least, to the belief that not just anyone could figure out how to
make an atom bomb ..."_

Interesting read. A greater threat today is multiple detonation of car bombs.
Easier to build & deploy ~
[http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.09-lebanon-
shia-...](http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.09-lebanon-shia-sunni-
car-bombers-interview-robert-baer-syriana-chris-watt/)

------
jimdesu
My dad is a nuke engineer (studied under Rickover) who hires bomb designers --
he maintains that the physics behind building a bomb is simple and easy, and
far from classified. What distinguishes the really scary weapons from home-
brew isn't the science behind it, but all the engineering tweaks that optimize
the results. Given his background and Q clearance in DOE, even if he wasn't my
dad, I'd be inclined to believe him....

------
Flemlord
_"They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn,
gave them a shiny bomb-casing full of used pinball machine parts!"_

~~~
lakeeffect
classic.

------
kajecounterhack
Isn't it possible for people who want the bomb to kidnap people like this?
Unlikely, but possible?

Maybe it was a bad idea to declassify what they did in their lives, I mean in
the interest of their security and all...or at least until they were dead!

~~~
staunch
The entire point of this story is that you don't have to be Einstein to build
a nuke. Even in the 60's there was enough publicly available information that
anyone with an advanced knowledge of Physics could do it. Imagine how much
easier it must be now.

On the other hand, we should be worried that someone will kidnap some
Plutonium. That it is difficult to get is the only thing saving us. Not very
comforting.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_we should be worried that someone will kidnap some Plutonium._

Why steal it, when it is so easy to make?

 _it is difficult to get_

Plutonium (even explosives-grade) is not difficult to get. All one needs is a
uranium-fueled research reactor.

<http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html#4>

 _Another alternative would be to use a research reactor, designed to provide
radiation for research applications rather than to generate electricity. At
least 45 nations now have research reactors, and in at least 25 of these there
is a capability of producing enough plutonium to make one or more bombs every
2 years. Research reactors are usually designed with lots of flexibility and
space, so it would not be difficult to use them for plutonium production.

A plant for generating nuclear electricity is by necessity large and highly
complex, with most of the size and complexity due to reactor operation at a
very high temperature and pressure, the production and handling of steam, and
the equipment for generation and distribution of electricity. It would be
impossible to keep construction or operation of such a plant secret. Moreover,
only a very few of the most technologically advanced nations are capable of
constructing one. No nation with this capability would provide one for a
foreign country without requiring elaborate international inspection to assure
that its plutonium is not misused. A production or research reactor, on the
other hand, can be small and unobtrusive. It has no high pressure or
temperature, no steam, and no electricity generation or distribution
equipment. Almost any nation has, or could easily acquire, the capability of
constructing one, and it probably could carry out the entire project in
secret. There would be no compulsion to submit to outside inspection._

However, making a plutonium-based explosive is difficult (from the same link):

 _The fabrication requires a wide degree of expertise and experience in
technical areas. It requires people capable of carrying out complex physics
and engineering computations, handling hazardous materials, arranging
electronically for a hundred or so triggers to fire simultaneously within much
less than a millionth of a second, accurately shaping explosive charges,
attaching them precisely and connecting the triggers to them, and so on. Where
would terrorists find this expertise?

Experienced and talented scientists and technicians generally enjoy well-paid
and comfortable positions in our society and hence are not likely to be
inclined toward antisocial activity. Recruiting would have to be done under
strictest secrecy, which would have to be maintained over the development
period of many weeks. Even one unsuccessful recruiting attempt could blow
their operation. Moreover, a participant would face a high risk of being
killed in this work. And if the plot were discovered he would face
imprisonment, not to mention an end to a promising career. Terrorists would
surely face severe difficulty in obtaining the needed expertise._

