From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!faustus
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.politics
Title: Re: Any nuke designers out there?
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.203
Posted: Mon Apr  4 17:20:56 1983
Received: Tue Apr  5 04:23:27 1983
References: sdccsu3.456


I'm no nuke designer, but as I understand it, a bomb made with Uranium
(I forget the isotope #) can be detonated very easily, as all you need is a lot
of uranium to come into close proximity reasonably fast. But with 
plutonium, you have to cause the critical mass to be formed much
faster as the stuff tends to go off before a chain reaction involving
most of the material can begin and it just blows the stuff apart and
creates a big plutonium cloud, etc. That is why it is infinitely 
less difficult to build bombs out of uranium than plutonium.

	Wayne