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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Nuclear power: the fast breeder
Message-ID: <26500057@inmet>
Date: Tue, 2-Sep-86 20:42:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.26500057
Posted: Tue Sep  2 20:42:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Sep-86 02:23:26 EDT
References: <495@meccts.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:meccts.UUCP:-49500:inmet:26500057:000:3239
Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!nrh    Sep  2 20:42:00 1986


>/* Written  9:15 pm  Aug 24, 1986 by mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP in inmet:net.sci */
>In article <495@meccts.UUCP>, mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) writes:
>> 
>> The potential of a small explosion due to a superprompt critical
>> condition in a fast breeder reactor has been known for a very long
>> time.  But the predicted size of such an unlikely explosion is on the
>> order of hundreds of pounds of TNT.  It is misleading to call it an
>> atomic bomb when a small "Hiroshima" equivalent bomb is 20,000 
>> *tons* of TNT.  
>
>   No, it isn't.  An "atomic bomb" is an explosive device which utilizes
>fissionable material as it's reactive source.  A "small explosion due to a
>superprompt critical condition" as an explosion which is the result of
>fissionable material as the reactive source.  No one here claimed that this
>explosion was in any way comparable to the Hiroshima bomb.  It is dishonest
>and misleading for you to claim that such an explosion is *NOT* in fact
>the equivalent of a (very small) atomic bomb. 

It is possible to make perfectly true statements that are misleading,
and it is the example of calling an explosion in a reactor
"an atomic bomb" that Michael is pointing out.  If I were to describe
a good steak dinner in as "ruthlessly sliced animal tissue, seared and 
adulterated with foreign vegetable and other pollutants" I would be
technically accurate, but misleading; I would have presented something
in one light that is ordinarily seen in another.

Were that the only basis for discussion here, Tom Keller would have
(no doubt) made an innocent, rather harmless sort of posting and
discussion could end.  Instead we have this article in which Keller
accuses Michael of being "dishonest" and "misleading" for not calling
an atomically-actuated explosion the "equivalent of a (very small)
atomic bomb."

Stuff and nonsense!  Why not insist he call the explosion the equivalent of a
very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  
small quasar bomb?  Or of a 
very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  
very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  
very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  
very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  very,  
small anti-matter bomb?

For that matter, why not insist that fission reactors be called
"slow" atomic explosives?  Why not accuse people of dishonesty unless
they refer to their grandparents as "worn out babies"?  Or that 
the sun must be referred to as a large hydrogen bomb?  Or that its
rays are "discoherent laser beams"?

Get the picture, Tom?  

As if this weren't enough, Tom seems to have completely misread
Michael.  Michael didn't say that the small explosion under discussion
was NOT an atomic explosion.  (Read the paragraph above).  He merely
pointed out that is misleading to call it an atomic explosion because
the image typically called to mind is that of (at least) a
Hiroshima-style bomb.

It would be dishonest and misleading for Tom to make statments that make
it sound as if Michael had claimed the atomic explosion was not an
atomic explosion, but in fact, I suspect it is simple misunderstanding
and knee-jerk-ism.