Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Nuclear Bomb For Sale by Physicist: Discount to Religious Organizations
Soon any large organization and multinational corporation will be able to develop WMD - there is a clear progression leading to this:
At first only the great superpower USA could come up with the idea to develop a nuclear bomb, and actually find a way to do it. Then when it became clear that it could be done, and what the science behind it was, ie atomic/nuclear physics rather than chemistry as is the case for conventional explosives, the large powers such as Russia, China, Britain and France were able to develop it.
At first only the great superpower USA could come up with the idea to develop a nuclear bomb, and actually find a way to do it. Then when it became clear that it could be done, and what the science behind it was, ie atomic/nuclear physics rather than chemistry as is the case for conventional explosives, the large powers such as Russia, China, Britain and France were able to develop it.
Over time, more of the knowledge regarding nuclear bomb-making became known to the wider scientific community, and as a result second-tier powers with unusual scientific skill such as India and Israel were able to create the bomb. Then the specialized knowledge became even more accessible, and physicists and engineers across the world were able to sudy the required processes, and so third-tier powers such as Pakistan and North Korea, both of them poor underdeveloped nations, were able to develop a nuclear bomb. Even Libya was close recently.
The theoretical background information is well-known by any physics major who took a course in nuclear physics, and the specifics are available to nuclear physicists the world over. The technology is understood by nuclear engineers around the world, and the actual machinery/equipment required is becoming more and more easily available, especially by purchase from the lowest-tier nuclear-armed countries, which are poor and corrupt dictatorships.
It seems reasonable to conclude that this progression of ease of development will continue: the relevant knowledge and technology will become more and more readily available, the cost and difficulty of constructing a bomb will continue to decrease, and some years from now it will be possible for a large sophisticated organization, whether Hezbollah, or Hamas or Al Quaida, or Om Shrinyo or the Moonies or an international coalition of white supremacists and skinheads or the Mafia, to hire or train in-house experts, buy equipment and construct a bomb.
There is one consolation: I would have said that the next step after that would be for individuals to be able to assemble nuclear bombs, like the psycopaths who murder and eat bunches of people, or a unabomber type etc, but given that the bomb would first be possesed by the organizations named above, it is unlikely that we would be around long enough for such a stage to arrive.
We really need to think carefully how to prevent all this from happening.
The theoretical background information is well-known by any physics major who took a course in nuclear physics, and the specifics are available to nuclear physicists the world over. The technology is understood by nuclear engineers around the world, and the actual machinery/equipment required is becoming more and more easily available, especially by purchase from the lowest-tier nuclear-armed countries, which are poor and corrupt dictatorships.
It seems reasonable to conclude that this progression of ease of development will continue: the relevant knowledge and technology will become more and more readily available, the cost and difficulty of constructing a bomb will continue to decrease, and some years from now it will be possible for a large sophisticated organization, whether Hezbollah, or Hamas or Al Quaida, or Om Shrinyo or the Moonies or an international coalition of white supremacists and skinheads or the Mafia, to hire or train in-house experts, buy equipment and construct a bomb.
There is one consolation: I would have said that the next step after that would be for individuals to be able to assemble nuclear bombs, like the psycopaths who murder and eat bunches of people, or a unabomber type etc, but given that the bomb would first be possesed by the organizations named above, it is unlikely that we would be around long enough for such a stage to arrive.
We really need to think carefully how to prevent all this from happening.
