2018 Dead Pool

Quote: Fleastiff

You mean Scamway.
y.

Amway is 8 miles from where I'm
sitting. They have mile long facility
and have been a major employer
in the area for 50 years. We love
Amway.. I knew 3 guys who worked
there and got drafted and went to
Vietnam. Their jobs were waiting
for them when they returned, like
they never left.

Quote: AZDuffman

Here is a movie goof for you.

Big Enos wants "400 cases." When they load up, they show them shutting the doors, with the last 2 pallets at the very back of the truck. But 400 cases would be just 6-7 pallets. At the time, a 48' trailer (today they are 53') held 20-22 pallets. There is no way they would leave all that empty space in the front of the trailer, they would have loaded it in the back and put one of those "jam bars" across to keep it from shifting around.

Next time you think you have no life, come back and read that, and know that I noticed it.

Good catch! When that the movie came out, I doubt I even knew how many bottles were in a case.

On a similar note, I watched the new Mission Impossible movie yesterday. It centered around three balls of plutonium, each about the size of a bocce ball. People were lifting cases of just one ball as if the balls had the weight of a bocce ball. Given that plutonium is about at dense as matter gets, you would think they would be quite heavy, like a 16-pound bowling ball.

Also, and this is getting out of my area, but I thought such a large amount of plutonium in one place would be risking a nuclear reaction. Didn't the early atomic bombs work by just shooting too small pieces of uranium at each other? If you have over a certain amount in once piece, it can trigger a nuclear reaction.

I think here is where Paco needs to show up.

Quote: Evenbob

Amway is 8 miles from where I'm
sitting. They have mile long facility
and have been a major employer
in the area for 50 years.

t


I imagine the main site of Amway is prosperous. Doesn't mean it isn't scamway for many told they will make it in in pyramid style marketing.


https://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2010/11/amway_agrees_to_pay_56_million.html

Decades ago the AG in Wisconsin forced disclosure that 80 percent of Amway reps made zilch in their first two years and most just quit after that.

Any nuclear reaction is a matter of probability.

One early technique was a shotgun... shoot two pieces into a third piece and for an instant they are close enough to go bang.
Another was an IMplosion using shaped charges to squeeze a ball of the stuff into a denser ball.

Its always a question of bowling. Its just that you can't see the pins or the bowling ball but if you hit it just right... that's all she wrote.

Quote: Wizard

On a similar note, I watched the new Mission Impossible movie yesterday. It centered around three balls of plutonium, each about the size of a bocce ball. People were lifting cases of just one ball as if the balls had the weight of a bocce ball. Given that plutonium is about at dense as matter gets, you would think they would be quite heavy, like a 16-pound bowling ball.

I saw a similar thing in I forget what movie or TV show where they stole movie prints for some reason, and were running with them in two cases. I was a courier at the time (am part time now, can't get that outta my blood) and had to deliver some movies. I am a runt and not strong, even with that they are heavy stuff! Solid film that a lot of it was silver. Even Ric Flair would not be running with them as they were on the movie.

Quote:

Also, and this is getting out of my area, but I thought such a large amount of plutonium in one place would be risking a nuclear reaction. Didn't the early atomic bombs work by just shooting too small pieces of uranium at each other? If you have over a certain amount in once piece, it can trigger a nuclear reaction.

I doubt you could trigger one. Yes, you "just shoot one piece into another" But you do not "just shoot one piece into another." In fact, you may be confusing plutonium with uranium238. (IIRC 238)

To the Manhattan Project.........

Little Boy was a Uranium bomb, Fat Mat a Plutonium bomb. If you saw the movie, remember when they discussed implosion? Paul Newman chewed the head guy out after if that helps jog the memory. Plutonium is easier to make than U238, but harder to explode. So even though you can buy it at the corner store, it takes some doing to get the implosion just right.

U238 is easier to explode but harder to make. You have to centrifuge it, and maybe get one atom per thousands of RPM. And it has to be spinning real, real fast. This is how we sent that computer virus to delay the Iranian program.

Now, we tested the Plutonium bomb but no the uranium bomb. For the U238 the scientists said, "We cannot make a test bomb, but don't worry, it will work!" As we all know, it did.

The Plutonium bomb they knew would work IF the implosion was perfect. FWIW, the U238 is not so simple. Send the "chunk" at the target too slow an the explosion will consume the material, what they call "fizzle."

This is why there is little to worry about as to a terrorist made nuke. You cannot just do this in a garage machine shop.

Quote: AZDuffman

I doubt you could trigger one. Yes, you "just shoot one piece into another" But you do not "just shoot one piece into another." In fact, you may be confusing plutonium with uranium238. (IIRC 238)

Shows you what I know. Did not know you knew so much about nuclear science. I am going by something I read at the Nuclear Museum in ABQ that in the Manhattan Project they deliberately kept pieces of uranium on separate desks, as they thought that even being a few feet apart might trigger a reaction. Perhaps they were erring too much on the side of safety.

Quote: Wizard

as they thought that even being a few feet apart might trigger a reaction. Perhaps they were erring too much on the side of safety.

It's very difficult to cause a nuclear
reaction, that's why so few have the
bomb. I read an article years ago and
was amazed how difficult it was. You
work with incredibly small tolerances.

Quote: Evenbob

It's very difficult to cause a nuclear
reaction, that's why so few have the
bomb. I read an article years ago and
was amazed how difficult it was. You
work with incredibly small tolerances.

This is getting way out of my area, but I had the impression that in the Uranium bomb they dropped on Japan they simply shot too Uranium pellets at each other. They had to time it just right, so it exploded at a certain altitude, which seemed like the tricky part. Again, this is out of my area and I'm going off what I took from a documentary on the bombing.

Quote: AZDuffman

This is why there is little to worry about as to a terrorist made nuke. You cannot just do this in a garage machine shop.

I think a state sponsored nuclear terrorist attack is the only real possibility if any. I could be underestimating terrorists, but many of them have problems with regular explosives. And the level of such an attack would likely be on the scale of a seal operation. Sending some loose screws off with a nuclear device and hoping it works out would be beyond crazy.

Quote: Wizard

...I thought such a large amount of plutonium in one place would be risking a nuclear reaction...

You're right! "Tickling the dragon's tail" is a phrase that I remember from a TV show about this.


Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core.