The Science of Nukes

Last night on Savage I was listening to someone espouse their belief that Iran's government is stoically committed to annihilating Israel, and vice versa. He believed Iran is committed to obtaining nukes, and Israel is committed to preventing that, to the point that he was reasonably certain that the whole region could quickly be drawn into a large-scale conflict.
Now, after researching this topic I have found belief in an Iran-Israel war to be ranging from doubtful to definite.

One thing that is for certain is that neither Israel nor Iran believe in the "mutually assured destruction" doctrine that has kept the U.S. and Russian nukes safely underground since their advent.

So how does a nuke work? Your run of the mill nuclear warhead is about the size of a small car, and fits snugly on top of a large missile. Each warhead contains 8-10 nuclear devices, which will separate and enable the single missile to strike multiple locations...making defense more difficult.
The two main ingredients in a nuclear warhead are uranium-235 and plutonium.

Think of the warhead inside a nuclear weapon as a propane tank, like the one on your gas grill. The inside wall of the tank is lined with explosives, and the core of the tank is filled with enriched uranium with a plutonium center. When the warhead detonates, the explosives along the outside edge of the device explode, which provides intense pressure inward on the uranium core. This compression triggers the nuclear reaction.
The nuclear reaction is caused basically by the fact that the uranium hates being close to itself, so much so that when pushed together, it will decay into smaller atoms that are less "claustrophobic", as well as a couple neutrons. This is the key to the chain reaction. The uranium decays into smaller pieces and ejects a couple neutrons...and these two neutrons travel to other uranium atoms and cause their decay...which releases four neutrons...etc. etc.
The reason that this is such a massive explosion is that the release of neutrons gives of a huge amount of heat energy.


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I'm taking it easy until the sun irradiates us all.

My horoscope told me to "concentrate on the leisure angle" and "take it easy; enjoy a long lunch with friends" so here's a leisurely-written science entry for you.

First off, Happy Birthday to Alec Baldwin! Talk about an epic actor.

In honor of another movie that uses science to create fiction then removes the science from it, here's an explanation of a solar flare-based armageddon.

Solar flares are...well, let's pretend like a sunspot is a zit on the face of the sun. A solar flare is the pus that shoots out when the zit is popped. The intense magnetic fields formed by the sunspot cause a violent explosion(s) of plasma from the sun, which can travel nearly the speed of light. This plasma leaves the sun in the form of a wide band of radiation, from gamma rays all the way down to long-band radio waves. When they hit the earth, they can cause all sorts of problems.

So imagine, if you will, that a massive once-in-1,000-years solar flare comes speeding towards earth. The first thing you'll notice is that your Garmin GPS has stopped working. This is because a massive burst of ionizing electrons has fried every satellite in orbit. The three astronauts in the International Space Station will also stop transmitting...for the worst reason. In fact, it's likely the energy will be sufficient to vaporize the entirety of the ISS, so anyone looking into the right part of the sky will see a tiny explosion as the ISS fragments and burns.
Then the sky will be bathed in ionization, which will look like the Northern Lights times one million. At that point, don't panic, you still have time to hug your kids.
Most of the harmful radiation from the sun will be absorbed in the earth's magnetosphere, and will superheat the atmosphere, destroying the ozone layer. However, all life on earth's surface will still be bathed in a massive dose of gamma rays. Of course, no one will immediately notice. We'll all just look up at the sky and watch the fireworks, then turn on the TV to see the news about what happened.
Unfortunately your TV won't turn on. The EMP will have fried all electronic devices on earth, and even if you did have a working TV because you happened to have had it in a Faraday cage during the solar flare, the broadcast satellites have burned up in the atmosphere, so there is nothing transmitting to your TV anyway.
Our cell phones won't work, the radio won't work, electrical transmission wires won't work, so by that evening you'll be sitting by candlelight in your dark, cold home wondering "just what the government is doing about this."
Unfortunately, the government won't be able to do anything. By the next morning, most of us will be throwing up blood as our internal organs dissolve. That massive dose of radiation we engorged yesterday will have killed the DNA in most, if not all, of our cells, so our bodies are dying off at a rapid pace. Cells that reproduce rapidly, like skin cells and the cells that line our stomachs and intestines, will be the first to go, so watch for your skin to start sloughing off like you have massive burns and you'll start leaking fluid. You'll also probably go blind, and your senses of smell and taste will disappear. Within another 24 hours, any organs that remain, like your kidneys and liver, have shut down both from an overload of work, and the fact that your body has no ability to absorb water. By 48 hours after the solar flare, you and every other living creature on Earth's surface, will be dead or nearly so.

The lucky ones, who happened to be deep underground or underwater during the event, will emerge to find the world a desolate place. All surface life is dead or dying, so food production will be difficult. It will also be hard to grow new food, as all seeds that were splashed with radiation are no longer viable. You cannot eat the dead, they are so strongly dosed with radiation that going near them will give you cancer. Your best bet is to eat fish, which were largely protected from the radiation by the water.
Of course, that's only a temporary solution, as the complete collapse of the planet's ecosystem will soon carry over into a massive dump of phosphorous and nitrogen into the world's oceans. Algae (assuming some survived the flare) will bloom like never before, de-oxygenating the world's oceans, killing all the fish.

The world really probably would never recover, or at least not for thousands of years. The massive burn up of ozone from the flare would open the world to being constantly splashed with cosmic radiation, which would consistently wipe out any DNA-based life forms that tried to leave the deep sea. Eventually, in thousands and thousands of years, the atmosphere might recover enough for earth to support life. Maybe.


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Op-Ed by Congressman Ryan (updated)

One thing I noticed as I skimmed Ryan's budget/tax proposal was that it bordered on "hyperlogic," i.e. his suggestions sounded reasonable...but strangely too reasonable to be practical.
A good example of hyperlogic is this: the easiest way to cure AIDS would be to test everyone on earth and round up all the people who test positive and kill them. You'd eliminate the HIV virus from the human population forever. And it'd be cheaper than developing a cure. But it's not practical, nor humane. Nor legal.

Ryan's tax/budget proposal seems to follow the same route. It's incredibly simple, with cute tax brackets and an "opt out" option for people who don't like the standard taxation method. But it's really not practical, or realistic. I don't really think he intends it to be, however.
What he wants is to propose something that people say "yeah, that makes sense" because it does, but they don't analyze it enough to realize the impracticality of expecting decreased revenue to somehow magically increase revenue. Then the Republicans hope people will say "why don't the Democrats do what Ryan proposed? It makes sense..." and they have then undermined the Democrats larger, more realistic budget proposal.

If all goes well, the Republicans hope, in 4 years the economy won't be doing much better, and they can parade around the op-ed piece, saying "le sigh, if only you people had done it our way, things would be so much better..."

See Ezra Klein's comments here, I basically agree.
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Oil as an economic thermostat

Okay, this and one more post about politics, then I promise to get back to science and engineering.

Back in October 2008, when the price of oil was falling faster than a bowling ball thrown from an airplane, various oil producing nations barked what their ideal price of a barrel of oil was, i.e. their "sustainable price." Venezuela and Iran led the charge with estimates around $100/barrel. The low-ball number came from Saudi Arabia, whose Oil Minister claimed $45-55/barrel was the lowest profitable number.

Basic economics states that all things being equal, consumers will buy the cheapest available product, and so the guy who is selling cheapest sets the market price for the product. So it makes sense that after the initial mega-dip to ~$30 oil, it has stabilized and now is oscillating between $45 and $55/barrel.

Although the ideal case would be that the U.S. economy would start growing, and grow as fast as possible, if I have learned anything in the last year is that unabated, explosive growth is usually fake, or at least unsustainable. Slow, steady growth, like a Burr oak tree, seems to be the best way to produce the longest, strongest economic growth period possible.

What I am suggesting is that we use the price of oil as a thermostat for U.S. economic growth. If the price of oil escapes two standard deviations above $55, then we need to increase interest rates and take other actions to slow U.S. economic growth. If the price of oil drops two standard deviations below $45, then we need to decrease the nominal interest rate and provide economic incentives to push the economy forward. This price, $55, could gradually increase at the rate of dollar inflation, in order to keep things on track.


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Tax Protests, Cont'd (2)

Here, you can find a map of upcoming tax protests around the country. Visit one, they're fun!


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Hush, don't tell anyone...

Bailout working; banks are paying back their TARP bailout money, with interest.


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The TAE Tax Plan

I heard the Republicans came out with their budget plan, including radical changes to income tax.

The TAE income tax plan:
For the first $100,000 of adjusted gross income, the citizen pays 10% Federal income tax.
For dollars $100,001-350,000, the citizen pays 25% tax.
For dollars $350,000-1 million, the citizen pays 35% tax.
For the dollars $1 million - infinity, the citizen pays 75% Federal income tax.

If you make less than $15,000 a year, you must pay the full 10%, because you drive on highways and visit parks just like the rest of us.

If you make $750,000 and don't like paying 75% tax on $400,000 of it and 25% tax on $250,000 of it, you can deposit as much as you want to reduce your income to your preferred level into 25-year government EE notes, or some similar long-term note, and not claim it as gross income on your 1040. If you want to withdraw that money before the 25 or 30 year note has maturated, then you must claim that money at that time on your 1040 as part of your gross income. If you let the money maturate for the full term of the government note, then you do not have to claim the money in your adjusted gross income.

Under my plan, everyone wins. People are not limited in their income potential by cruel taxation...they just have to responsibly save it or pay the higher tax rate. The rich don't get to complain about free loaders at the bottom of the income pool because they too are obligated to pay taxes...but at a lower rate than the current lowest rate for tax-qualified individuals.
The government wins because it keeps its fiscal strength through strong tax measures...plus gains the bonus of incentivizing investment in government bonds, increasing government's capital and liquidity.

Like all my plans, this one seems pretty fool-proof...


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