Micronuke theory question

Originally posted by gottago
but you've still got the fantastically lingering hotspots,

Yeah, what's up with that. And it only seems to be under the rubble, but for 3 weeks, and hot enough to keep metal molten? Even keeping something like the battery plates melted would be a feat but steel takes a lot of heat. And with all sorts of "heat leaks" as well. For 3 weeks. W-T-F

the concrete--and virtually everything inside the towers but the steel itself--turned to superfine particulate,

That's odd too. I wish someone had samples of it that could be analyzed. You should be able to tell what sorts of temperatures it was exposed to. And I'd still love to see other comparable demolitions to see what they produced.

spontaneously setting cars on fire,

I still think it's an effect of the dust cloud overheating/grinding out engines on the cars that were running at the time, maybe combined with some of the cars being burned by broken gas mains. I wish there was some easy way to track down the photo cars' owners by plate numbers on the vehicles and ask if their cars were running or not when they burned or didn't.

the wildcard of WTC 7 dropping in CD but also having the hotspots

Wasn't WTC7 supposed to be loaded down with heating oil on the top floors?

But my question would be, why WTC7? Why do another building that's going to raise eyebrows? I mean, here you've done this amazingly set up thing and it went like clockwork as far as I can see from results, but then you also do this other building you can't really account for cleanly. There must have been a point to it. It's not the sort of thing you would do for fun. I think if you could answer "why 7?" you would be a ways down the road.

the off-the-scale tritium/tritiated water samplings and the conveniently unsampled deuterium, etc.

My question here is - why did they sample the tritium at all? Do you see a large building and then say "wow, I think I'll go do a tritium sample in the runoff!" I probably wouldn't.

But still you have Bali and OKC and those same-day reports of dumbfounded FBI bomb-squad personnel removing several of our unexploded grapefruit-sized boogie-men from the remaining section of the Murrah bldg. Same MO of patsies meeting the same "al Quaeda masterminds" in the Philippines, same leaks causing insiders to stay away on the day of the event.

I sort of remember Murrah - I was gearing up for final hell right about then though.

The actual collapse was done in four stages in a twenty-second+ time frame. First, the coup-de-grace wallop in the sub-basements, felt all the way up at Columbia Univ's seismographs. Ten seconds later, the core as taken out at the impact area, initiating collapse. Almost immediately after, the upper structure was shattered to insure it didn't crash to earth in a single mass. Then the cascading race to the ground, beating the first debris ejected above.

I agree with this totally. Not only does it makes sense and look like what happened, it's pretty much how they teach you to do big structures like bridges. There's no way to tote enough to just blow it to smithereens, you have to weaken the main supports, cut the bearings and give it a shove.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

Originally posted by gottago
but you've still got the fantastically lingering hotspots,

Yeah, what's up with that. And it only seems to be under the rubble, but for 3 weeks, and hot enough to keep metal molten? Even keeping something like the battery plates melted would be a feat but steel takes a lot of heat. And with all sorts of "heat leaks" as well. For 3 weeks. W-T-F

WTF indeed. I still can't explain that--but what about good ol' themate? Lots and lots of it at the bases of the cores? But would all that going off give you the massive shockwaves (2.3 on the Richter scale) recorded up at Columbia? I doubt it.

Or maybe you had both, serious thermate then some serious explosives, in a short relay, to do the full deed in the sub-basements.

the concrete--and virtually everything inside the towers but the steel itself--turned to superfine particulate,

That's odd too. I wish someone had samples of it that could be analyzed. You should be able to tell what sorts of temperatures it was exposed to. And I'd still love to see other comparable demolitions to see what they produced.

Here are 2 links to the only analysis (USGS, so take it with a bucket of salt) of the dust that I've seen done. Beyond proving that the building contents were indeed pulverized, they don't go looking for exotic trace elements--doubtless because they knew not to.

USGS report

911 Research's take on dust

spontaneously setting cars on fire,

I still think it's an effect of the dust cloud overheating/grinding out engines on the cars that were running at the time, maybe combined with some of the cars being burned by broken gas mains. I wish there was some easy way to track down the photo cars' owners by plate numbers on the vehicles and ask if their cars were running or not when they burned or didn't.

Several FDNY, running for their lives, reported spontaneous combustion of vehicles as the dustcloud raced toward them. They say they literally exploded and burned. Weird. And I don't doubt them--what have they got to gain in making this stuff up?

the wildcard of WTC 7 dropping in CD but also having the hotspots

Wasn't WTC7 supposed to be loaded down with heating oil on the top floors?

But my question would be, why WTC7? Why do another building that's going to raise eyebrows? I mean, here you've done this amazingly set up thing and it went like clockwork as far as I can see from results, but then you also do this other building you can't really account for cleanly. There must have been a point to it. It's not the sort of thing you would do for fun. I think if you could answer "why 7?" you would be a ways down the road.

The fuel storage was in the basements, and there was a ConEd substation on the lower floors--so yes, you have the makings for hotspots, but how do you get them that hot with fuel oil?

My take on WTC7 is that it was a wildcard & done on the fly, and Silverstein pushed for it--blackmailed for it to be dropped--when he found out that it had been FUBARed. Greedy developer with big loss staring him in the face says "Hey guys you owe me one big time here--make it go away. Now." It's so sloppy and so in-your-face that it sticks out like a really sore thumb. It was the bridge too far. I think they got in there and rigged it quick & dirty to take it down. Thus all the mess and confusion and the fubared media reports that it had collapsed before it did. And it fell in CD, no plane.

the off-the-scale tritium/tritiated water samplings and the conveniently unsampled deuterium, etc.

My question here is - why did they sample the tritium at all? Do you see a large building and then say "wow, I think I'll go do a tritium sample in the runoff!" I probably wouldn't.

The official report byLawrence Livermore Labs doesn't say why they tested at all. And a classic of understatement. The gist being, "These incredibly elevated tritium levels, sampled after a gazilion gallons of water was already pumped on the smoldering debris, can be explained by exit signs and watch faces and is nonetheless not harmful to humans." Thanks for that, guys.

Since the building contents were pulverized and ended up coating lower Manhattan and the Hudson with several inches of dust, how'd just the exit sign remains manage to fall into the basements? Strange dispersion anomaly there.

But still you have Bali and OKC ...

I sort of remember Murrah - I was gearing up for final hell right about then though.

Check out OKC, its a WTC doppleganger.

The actual collapse was done in four stages in a twenty-second+ time frame. First, the coup-de-grace wallop in the sub-basements, felt all the way up at Columbia Univ's seismographs. Ten seconds later, the core as taken out at the impact area, initiating collapse. Almost immediately after, the upper structure was shattered to insure it didn't crash to earth in a single mass. Then the cascading race to the ground, beating the first debris ejected above.

I agree with this totally. Not only does it makes sense and look like what happened, it's pretty much how they teach you to do big structures like bridges. There's no way to tote enough to just blow it to smithereens, you have to weaken the main supports, cut the bearings and give it a shove.

Yeah, this is quite obviously how it went, but the how of how it went is the mystery.

BTW, take a look at Bezerk's thread on FDNY/EMS/NYPD witness testimony. A recurrent theme is that a whole floor simply blew out in a flash to initiate collapse. 3 explosions in rapid succession to start the first tower to go.

[edit on 1-7-2007 by gottago]

Originally posted by gottago

WTF indeed. I still can't explain that--but what about good ol' themate? Lots and lots of it at the bases of the cores? But would all that going off give you the massive shockwaves (2.3 on the Richter scale) recorded up at Columbia? I doubt it.

Or maybe you had both, serious thermate then some serious explosives, in a short relay, to do the full deed in the sub-basements.

It would give you a lot of thermal energy right then, but then the reaction's over, and you've got 3 weeks to cool. It's also heavy, and you have the same issues with lugging that much of it into the building and getting it into place. Not to mention that it cuts "raggedy" even on horizontal steel, on vertical surfaces it sucks, and you'd have a near impossible time getting the core members to fail within 5 or 10 seconds of each other much less at the same time. And it doesn't go 'boom'.

If you're going to do the deed by having access and time, I'd still go with a thermobaric rupture. The test results say it's significantly better than C4 on closed structural pieces like box girders.

Several FDNY, running for their lives, reported spontaneous combustion of vehicles as the dustcloud raced toward them. They say they literally exploded and burned. Weird. And I don't doubt them--what have they got to gain in making this stuff up?

The radiation it would take would have flash-fried the fire-fighters too. I know you can suck up dust with a vehicle and make it burn so that it looks like that - fortunately we tossed the log book into the vehicle and everyone kept their mouths shut - that's a different story. The mechanics should have put the filter back IN when they took out the old one, it's not our job. It only cost you a few tax dollars, and it earned us endless favors from the motorpool guys.

FWIW, I have also seen a powerpoint that included a weapon system that was intended to take out internal combustion engines in a vehicle convoy by detonating in the engine some sort of weird-arsed gaseous hydrocarbon that was related to propane. You weren't supposed to know you were in it until your truck engine blew up. It didn't work on diesels, IIRC it did something like reduce the octane to zero and more or less instantly blew the heads/bearings to pieces. You could also breathe it in the concentrations at which it was active, and you couldn't tell it from sight, smell or falling over dead, which was part of the trick of getting you to drive into the cloud without suspecting you were about to be ambushed. I don't know what the long term effects were, if any.

What if - the core was done with a gaseous thermobaric that could act something similarly. Maybe not all the core members went off and/or some of it leaked out, went down the street (most of them are heavier than air, and pool) and lit the firefighter's turnout coats as well as blowing up the engines of the cars that were running?

Does anyone know what the prevailing winds were just before the event? Or is the path of burnt cars "downhill"? Any related anomalies that followed the subway route? Were any outliers near a subway vent?

My take on WTC7 is that it was a wildcard & done on the fly, and Silverstein pushed for it--blackmailed for it to be dropped--when he found out that it had been FUBARed. Greedy developer with big loss staring him in the face says "Hey guys you owe me one big time here--make it go away. Now." It's so sloppy and so in-your-face that it sticks out like a really sore thumb. It was the bridge too far. I think they got in there and rigged it quick & dirty to take it down. Thus all the mess and confusion and the fubared media reports that it had collapsed before it did. And it fell in CD, no plane.

Maybe it was another group? I can't imagine changing something that complicated at the last second and doing it so crappily - unless there was something that wasn't in 7 at the time the plan was set up, but could have been at the last second, that was the entire point of the mission, so that it was worth blowing the story in trade for completing the job.

I can't imagine what. For a totally frivolous example, say the Maltese Falcon was supposed to be in one of the WTC's. And you wanted to destroy it. So you set up the job with this fantastic cover, and you were going to pay for it after the fact with various stock and commodity trades you'd placed before hand.

Then the week before it was all to occur, you get a trustworthy rumor that it might be in 7 that day. 7's not covered in plan A. But if it IS in 7, you've done the WTC but the job was a bust. So, you bite the bullet and do 7 as well, although you can't do as good a job of it due to time pressure. So you try to cover it with flim-flam after the fact. I dunno.

Since the building contents were pulverized and ended up coating lower Manhattan and the Hudson with several inches of dust, how'd just the exit sign remains manage to fall into the basements? Strange dispersion anomaly there.

Oh, that's not so hard. If you crush them open, the tritium will burn and become water vapor the first flame or spark it reaches. If they burn open in a fire, bang. If you were spraying water over them when they did it, it would go into the basements. I actually don't have a lot of trouble with it. You should see higher tritium levels downwind in water samples also at the time, although it's sure to have dispersed by now.

I think this one's a red herring.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
What if - the core was done with a gaseous thermobaric that could act something similarly. Maybe not all the core members went off and/or some of it leaked out, went down the street (most of them are heavier than air, and pool) and lit the firefighter's turnout coats as well as blowing up the engines of the cars that were running?

Does anyone know what the prevailing winds were just before the event? Or is the path of burnt cars "downhill"? Any related anomalies that followed the subway route? Were any outliers near a subway vent?

Tom you may win me over to thermobarics yet--very interesting theory there. It kills 2 anomalies with one boom and that makes it quite compelling at first glance.

Just what was the make-up of that engine-block frying gas? (And talk about twisted, btw)

But then if this stuff can take out the core, if it seeped out wouldn't it ignite in a flash explosion far meaner than any gas leak? I think not only the turnout coats but the wearers would have been crispied, no?

As for prevailing winds, there were hardly any. The normal slight breeze to the ENE, but nothing that would stir much up. Think of the lazy smoke coming off the towers.

Maybe it was another group? I can't imagine changing something that complicated at the last second and doing it so crappily - unless there was something that wasn't in 7 at the time the plan was set up, but could have been at the last second, that was the entire point of the mission, so that it was worth blowing the story in trade for completing the job.

I can't imagine what. For a totally frivolous example, say the Maltese Falcon was supposed to be in one of the WTC's. And you wanted to destroy it. So you set up the job with this fantastic cover, and you were going to pay for it after the fact with various stock and commodity trades you'd placed before hand.

Then the week before it was all to occur, you get a trustworthy rumor that it might be in 7 that day. 7's not covered in plan A. But if it IS in 7, you've done the WTC but the job was a bust. So, you bite the bullet and do 7 as well, although you can't do as good a job of it due to time pressure. So you try to cover it with flim-flam after the fact. I dunno.

But the basic fact of WTC7 was that it was an ungodly mess--totally fubared in execution, while the towers, an infinitely more complex and demanding task, came down without a hitch. So something's totally off there.

Think about it, if you were planning from the start to take out WTC 7, you'd do it more or less immediately after the north tower fell. Totally believable--debris got it, it went too. I'd even make it topple a bit to the south, to give it "authenticity." Instead, it lingers all afternoon, with explosions going off now and then caught on tv (!), and finally it drops with a half-hour's foreknowledge on the BBC. Total mess.

9/11 was so intricately planned but yet you have this obvious blunder at the end. to me it screams last-minute hack-job.

I think this one's a red herring.

Still a lot of herring.

And btw, what do you make of the dust?


[edit on 2-7-2007 by gottago]

Originally posted by gottago

Tom you may win me over to thermobarics yet--very interesting theory there. It kills 2 anomalies with one boom and that makes it quite compelling at first glance.

Just what was the make-up of that engine-block frying gas? (And talk about twisted, btw)

But then if this stuff can take out the core, if it seeped out wouldn't it ignite in a flash explosion far meaner than any gas leak? I think not only the turnout coats but the wearers would have been crispied, no?

Wow, it's been a while. My memory says it was some sort of relative of acetylene or xxxtane (cetane? there's a lot of -tanes), but the intent was that it would make any gasoline-air mix detonate instead of burn, and at quite a low density too. They were supposed to drop it along convoy routes to immobilize gas engines. Diesels weren't affected, neither were turbines. You could dive bomb a battlefield with it and M1 Abrams would truck along like nothing had happened.

Oh, and there was maybe going to be a hand held version for a convoy ambush tool or contact breaker. You could stop a vehicle or two with it, if they were close behind you. I don't know if it ever got released.

At any rate, I was thinking about only running vehicles getting it, and some comparatively far from the building, and that popped to mind.

As far as what happens when the stuff's thinned out before you blow it, I don't know from experience. We never had any on hand, it's only been the last few years they put any in the field, which is sad because I would have really enjoyed it. That looks like fun. The stuff we worked with in projects wasn't fooled around with that way and we didn't get some to go screw with.

However, remember if you toggle off natural gas explosions, they have to be confined to go "bang", otherwise if it's dense enough to burn it'll go "whoof!" and take off your hair and set your clothes on fire.

But the basic fact of WTC7 was that it was an ungodly mess--totally fubared in execution, while the towers, an infinitely more complex and demanding task, came down without a hitch. So something's totally off there.

It could be a last-minute "aw f---" where something changed and you had to improvise, or it could also be a pawn-off.

Ah, how to explain that one. Ok, let's say there's a gubmint official of another gubmint that's a pain in your gubmint's arse, and the ptb want to render said official harmless. But that's illegal, right. So, you don't do it. Someone else did. Let's say you have a guy named, Zevahc, who's in charge of some third world country. Can't be implicated in that! Bad juju. So you infiltrate and agitate the "Peaceful Lions of Democracy" or whatever the prevailing counter-governmental group is at the time, and you help them plan an attack on the Revolutionary Guards at an outdoor rally where Zevahc will be speaking. They're there to toss rocks and run around with banners for the cause. But while they're doing that, you hang one in Zevahc's left eye from about 300 meters off. Whoops! Who's going to get the blame? You got it. Obviously the attack was a crafty diversion. The Lions get the blame and you skedaddle. Pawn-off.

So, you know that the WTC is going to get it, and when. You're not that group. (I don't know the "who"s here) But you know when and how. So you set up your own job on the side and do - whatever, knowing it will be blamed on the WTC group. Was there something valuable over there?

And btw, what do you make of the dust?

I don't have enough baseline to know if it's odd. Still haven't found a nice CD of a 100 (more or less) story building to compare to.

[edit on 2-7-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Originally posted by Meatclown ...if miconukes were used, would there be lingering traces of alpha radiation in the bodies of the victims of the immediate blast or rescue workers who died shorty after?

Dear Meatclown:

Alpha particles wouldn’t have ‘lingered’ inside peoples lungs. They’re merely helium atoms looking for two electrons. Once they find them they turn into normal, electrically neutral helium. Trouble is, when they steal those electrons from cells inside our body, they cause considerable (permanent) damage. Alpha particles are not radioactive. The source (atom) emitting them is. In the case of the WTC’s the source, the hydrogen nukes, would have been short-lived. Still, plenty of doctors have recognized the tell-tale signs of harm done to their patients by said substance. One of them, Ed Ward has even posted right here on ATS. But their voices are being systematically drowned out.

Also, the simplest of energy calculations by Jim Hoffman 911research.wtc7.net... show that if only for practical reasons, nukes were used.

WTC single tower energy analysis — KWH source (+) or sink (-)

(+) 111,000 falling of mass (197 billion grams falling average of 207 m)
(-) 135,000 crushing of concrete (90 billion grams to 60 micron powder)
ignoring water vaporization
(-) 400,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 1020 K)
(-) 11,300,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 1020 K)
assuming water vaporization sink was not supply-limited
(-) 1,496,000 vaporization of water (2.38 billion grams water)
(-) 41,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 373 K)
(-) 1,145,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 373 K)

Total (Unaccounted For) Energy Deficit for one WTC tower: (-) 14.4 million kWh
By the way, this is the energy equivalent of 12,348 U.S. tons of TNT per tower

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods


Also, the simplest of energy calculations by Jim Hoffman show that if only for practical reasons, nukes were used.

WTC single tower energy analysis — KWH source (+) or sink (-)

(+) 111,000 falling of mass (197 billion grams falling average of 207 m)
(-) 135,000 crushing of concrete (90 billion grams to 60 micron powder)
ignoring water vaporization
(-) 400,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 1020 K)
(-) 11,300,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 1020 K)
assuming water vaporization sink was not supply-limited
(-) 1,496,000 vaporization of water (2.38 billion grams water)
(-) 41,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 373 K)
(-) 1,145,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 373 K)

Total (Unaccounted For) Energy Deficit for one WTC tower: (-) 14.4 million kWh
By the way, this is the energy equivalent of 12,348 U.S. tons of TNT per tower

No problem! Just fix some of the erroneous assumptions, like so:

(+) 111,000 falling of mass (197 billion grams falling average of 207 m)

Haven't checked it, probably should.

(-) 135,000 crushing of concrete (90 billion grams to 60 micron powder)
ignoring water vaporization

It wasn't all crushed to 60 micron powder. Number is erroneous. Set it equal to the falling of mass number.


(-) 400,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 1020 K)

Didn't happen = 0

(-) 11,300,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 1020 K)

Didn't happen = 0

(-) 1,496,000 vaporization of water (2.38 billion grams water)

Didn't happen = 0

(-) 41,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 373 K)

Didn't happen = 0

(-) 1,145,000 heating of suspended concrete (90 billion grams from 300 to 373 K)

Didn't happen = 0

Wow, how about that! It comes out on the dot.

The argument is circular. You are assuming a nuke, so when you put in faux energy requirements that assume a nuke, they show a nuke is required. Wow, how about that. Ignoring the fact that you seem to have duplicated a couple of the numbers.

But let's look at one in particular - "(-) 400,000 heating of gasses (2 billion grams air from 300 to 1020 K) "

If you could believe a temp as low as 1020K in the building when you set off a nuke, which I find quite difficult, you'd still have an overpressure of just about 35 psi just from the air in the building. That's more than just "falling down". The building would have blown apart. Hell, 1% of people in the immediate area would die of lung damage. Windows would have blown out of buildings for blocks around.

It only takes 10psi of overpressure to knock down a reinforced concrete building. Most of them are going to be a spread-out pile afterwards. At 35 psi of overpressure, the WTC buildings would have just popped like balloons, and the overpressure wave would have flattened the neighboring buildings.

On top of which, the air would have heated significantly more in the vicinity of the weapon, thus you would have gotten a much bigger localized bang. Which seems odd since the basement didn't blow out, or any other one part of the building.

And the paper didn't burn - remember that's 1300 degree F air you're talking about.

Oh, and on the alpha particle thing, it's not the simple act of grabbing a couple of electrons that makes an alpha particle dangerous, it's the energy of the particle. In particular, the ones you form by D-T fusion have about 3.5MeV of energy, and if they penetrate into a material (including a cell) will cause damage by heating, impact, and mostly by ripping the electrons off of neutral molecules as it passes by, forming free radicals.



[edit on 2-7-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Not sure on the units here but here are two diagrams dealing with particle size distribution from the WTC dust:






Ignoring the implications of the particles between "fine" and "ultrafine", averaging that out should provide a generalized particle size of the WTC dust, no? That can be used for energy calculations.

[edit on 2-7-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
Total (Unaccounted For) Energy Deficit for one WTC tower: (-) 14.4 million kWh
By the way, this is the energy equivalent of 12,348 U.S. tons of TNT per tower

OK, explain how that works, 12.3 kilotons is only just less than the bomb at Hiroshima. That can't possibly be right.
First A Bomb used, "Little Boy"

Please elaborate on why you think “that can’t possibly be right”. 12.3 kilotons is actually a lazily low estimate just to keep things simple – we’re ignoring the (significant) energy it took to obliterate the steel at the twin towers, and they were ‘steel city’.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
Please elaborate on why you think “that can’t possibly be right”. 12.3 kilotons is actually a lazily low estimate just to keep things simple – we’re ignoring the (significant) energy it took to obliterate the steel at the twin towers, and they were ‘steel city’.

Well, considering it would be equal to that of the bomb on Hiroshima, for each tower, and considering that that is a lot of energy to restrict into one tower of volume. Even if it were somehow directed upwards this now raises the issue of surviving firefighters in WTC 1 stairwell even more. Not to mention the lack of a mushroom cloud, which I may be wrong about this, but you get them from underground tests too. And that even if there were those molten bits underneath afterwards, that sounds more like enduring fission from meltdown like Chernobyl, which ended as it flowed sufficiently to disperse and end the reaction.

That’s exactly the point – it would have been the same amount of energy as at Hiroshima, per tower. But in a different form. Much less visible and audible blast and instead far more invisible and directed yield – high-speed Neutrons. And there was plenty of mushroom cloud, the towers themselves were the puffs.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
That’s exactly the point – it would have been the same amount of energy as at Hiroshima, per tower. But in a different form. Much less visible and audible blast and instead far more invisible and directed yield – high-speed Neutrons. And there was plenty of mushroom cloud, the towers themselves were the puffs.

Well, yes, but a mushroom cloud from a nuke rises a lot more than that from the WTC.

But what do neutrons do to structures?

Here is some info I would like to add to this topic for consideration:



Federal Building, destroyed by a bomb (left) WTC6 (right)

Looks pretty similar to me, and there were reports that micro nuclear devices were also used at OKC bombing probably very similar to the devices used in at the WTC. How could 1 bomb of leveled half the OKC building?



Good visual comparision of scale

Micronukes/Nanonukes Can Be Made by the US
Statement by Dr. Peter Leitner, before the Joint Economic Committee United States Congress, Tuesday, April 28, 1998: "These experiments involve the actual testing of extremely low-yield fission devices (as low as the equivalent of several pounds of TNT) within a confined environment...".


The Hiroshima bomb was 20 kilotons TNT equivalent.

Several pounds TNT equivalent is roughly 1 millionth of a Hiroshima bomb-- making it easily a "micronuke" in comparison to a smallish nuke.

"Modern nuclear warheads range in yield from 100 kt to 20 Mt TNT equivalent."

Several pounds TNT equivalent is roughly 1 billionth of a 20 Mt TNT equivalent bomb-- making it a "nanonuke" in comparison to a large nuke.

Originally posted by VicRH
Here is some info I would like to add to this topic for consideration:
Federal Building, destroyed by a bomb (left) WTC6 (right)
Looks pretty similar to me, and there were reports that micro nuclear devices were also used at OKC bombing probably very similar to the devices used in at the WTC. How could 1 bomb of leveled half the OKC building?

Well It destroyed at least 2 of the main supporting struts of the front half of the building.

Good visual comparision of scale

With the really small ones, believable yes, but not with Hiroshima equivalent.

[edit on 3-7-2007 by apex]

Originally posted by bsbray11
Not sure on the units here but here are two diagrams dealing with particle size distribution from the WTC dust:

If you could depend on the data - I have to wonder what the units for "molecular dissociation" are, for example.

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
Please elaborate on why you think “that can’t possibly be right”. 12.3 kilotons is actually a lazily low estimate just to keep things simple – we’re ignoring the (significant) energy it took to obliterate the steel at the twin towers, and they were ‘steel city’.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

Seeing that you got 35psi of overpressure with just heating the AIR in the building, and to your boy's numbers too, which are spectacularly low, how do you think you're going to cope with several megatons of steel vapor at a couple thousand degrees C?

Originally posted by apex

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
That’s exactly the point – it would have been the same amount of energy as at Hiroshima, per tower. But in a different form. Much less visible and audible blast and instead far more invisible and directed yield – high-speed Neutrons. And there was plenty of mushroom cloud, the towers themselves were the puffs.

Well, yes, but a mushroom cloud from a nuke rises a lot more than that from the WTC.

But what do neutrons do to structures?

Pretty much what I've listed in the thread.

Even if you COULD direct them as WITW claims, you can't, there are spectacularly unignorable issues which WITW is frantically hand-waving and hoping you won't notice.

The neutron flux from a fusion bomb would obliterate the building alright, but by explosive force.

Neutrons from a DT fusion explosion carry away 14.1MeV of energy each. That's a good bit, and when you've got the density you would have from a bomb, it's enormous. 80% of the energy of the nuke (ignoring the contribution from the primary you'd need to set off the weapon) goes into the kinetic energy of neutrons.

This doesn't cause the building to "powderize" and waft gently to the ground as he is proposing.

Pretty much every material will be heated catastrophically. Some elements have large scattering cross-sections, like plastics, paper and people. This will be heated by elastic collision. Some elements will have large capture cross-sections, and will be heated by capturing the neutron. These won't only become hot, they will become radioactive.

And when I say "hot", I mean tens of thousands of degrees C. They will become a gas and explode the building from overpressure.

His "beam of neutrons" won't last as a beam, if you could do that to begin with, either. When neutrons hit matter and scatter, they actually scatter in a literal sense, the beam will be dispersed.

Not only that, of the momentum that the neutrons are putting into matter to heat it, a percentage comes back out as gamma and x-rays, which are lethal, and the neutrons that leave the building through the walls are incredibly lethal in tiny doses.

Just a couple of observations. I'm not claiming any of this to be gospel, but this is the mental model I've been able to construct and what it implies for me.

First, Mini nukes and critical mass: Only a bomb that relies on a chain reaction needs critical mass. You can split exactly the number of atoms you want, with no regard for critical mass, if you either don't rely on free neutrons to split the atoms, or if you use an inordinate number of free neutrons not generated by fission.
It's simply a question of having the technical means to do this. Even if I did have the security clearances to know whether or not we do, they would have been revoked by now, so all I'm saying is that a bomb that depends on critical mass is not impossible on its face, it just may or may not be practical/


Second, Nukes in the WTC: Why? Nukes are good for creating very large explosions from comparatively small devices, and for generating destructive levels of overpressure.
If you wanted to turn the WTC into a giant pipebomb, then by all means, put a nuke inside it.
But if you just wanted to drop the building, it would be easier to handle it like any other controlled demolition.

Now, if 9/11 were not an inside job, and the decision was made to "pull" the buildings, then OK, if you had mini nukes on hand anyways, it would probably be a hell of a lot faster than trying to place charges in just the right places, and I suppose maybe if you blew the lower level to smithereens that the building might just pancake under the influence of gravity, especially if they design these things to come down safely (which some tell me they do and some tell me they don't).

But that disregards the testimony of firemen hearing multiple explosions. It assumes that 9/11 was not an inside job and thus there wasn't time to plan to do it right, and it assumes that there just happened to be mini-nukes laying around somewhere in NYC that someone managed to get cleared to use in a hell of a hurry.

So although a mini nuke might not be impossible as best I can work it out, it doesn't seem like the most logical way to go.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Just a couple of observations. I'm not claiming any of this to be gospel, but this is the mental model I've been able to construct and what it implies for me.

First, Mini nukes and critical mass: Only a bomb that relies on a chain reaction needs critical mass. You can split exactly the number of atoms you want, with no regard for critical mass, if you either don't rely on free neutrons to split the atoms, or if you use an inordinate number of free neutrons not generated by fission.
It's simply a question of having the technical means to do this. Even if I did have the security clearances to know whether or not we do, they would have been revoked by now, so all I'm saying is that a bomb that depends on critical mass is not impossible on its face, it just may or may not be practical/

I think you meant to say a bomb that doesn't depend on critical mass?

Anyway, that concept of criticality is grossly misunderstood by laypeople.

Here's the deal. The real issues are the mean free path, and the effective radius.

For the mean free path, it's among other things a function of the condition or state of the material, and the likelihood that a material will capture one of the sorts of neutrons you have on hand.

If you have a mean free path that is short enough for a neutron liberated in the center of the mass to be captured and induce a fission event before it leaves the mass, then you are tap dancing on the edge of criticality. There are some other factors that relate to shape and whatnot. But the controlling concept is that you have to be likely to cause a fission event in the pit from a neutron generated in the pit.

For simple geometric shapes you can do a solid-of-rotation looking problem (remember cal3?) with several multiple integrals and out will pop the degree of criticality. There are pre-solved tables that will give you things like the criticality of an infinitely long rod of material, and you plug in the material specs and churn and out pops the criticality number. (or a sphere, disk, ovoid..) For other shapes, there are programs that will use numeric solution techniques to solve the problem for you.

But it's all really mean free path and/or critical radius calculations. The shorter the mfp, the more critical the mass. The material's nuclear behavior go in as constants. The radius of the mass (sticking to spheres for the moment) and the mean free path are THE controlling factors.

Now the "critical mass" numbers you hear are for a sphere of the material at STP. You will also hear them with and without reflectors at STP. For a gun-type bomb, that might be important. How do they get that mass? Well, you take the mean free path calculated at STP, and figure up the radius that just brings the material to criticality. Then you calculate how much a sphere of that radius weighs, and that's the "critical mass" number you hear.

But "critical mass" is not a fixed number. Criticality is a function of mean free path and radius. Diddle with them and you change the critical mass.

There are a number of ways to affect the mean free path. The ones that you use in a compression weapon are neutron reflectors, which bounce some percentage of neutrons back into the pit, giving it a larger effective radius, and compression. Compression affects the density. The denser the material, the shorter the mean free path. In fact, diddling the density is the best way to go, because in the equation of critical mass, there's a density term in the denominator associated with the MFP changes, with a square.

If you use reflectors, the exponent changes with the efficiency of the reflector, but it's still an exponent. This means that if you double the density of a pit without a reflector, for any fixed mass you reduce the critical mass by about a factor of 4. There's no term with more "leverage" than the density term in a compression weapon, it's the only one with an exponent.

Thus a mass which would be sub-critical on a desktop becomes supercritical under compression, because compression increases density, which reduces the "critical mass" by the square of the increase in density.

There's a limit to how far you can increase the density of a material even using the New Improved Explosives, but it's good enough to get the critical mass for Pu239 down to let's say a few hundred grams.

Second, Nukes in the WTC: Why? Nukes are good for creating very large explosions from comparatively small devices, and for generating destructive levels of overpressure. If you wanted to turn the WTC into a giant pipebomb, then by all means, put a nuke inside it. But if you just wanted to drop the building, it would be easier to handle it like any other controlled demolition.

...

So although a mini nuke might not be impossible as best I can work it out, it doesn't seem like the most logical way to go.

I agree 100%.