Dr Frank Barnaby
Dr Frank Barnaby witnessed a nuclear test in 1953, conducted in the Australian desert.
He is a nuclear physicist, prolific author on nuclear weapons including How to Build a Nuclear Bomb - And Other Weapons of Mass Destruction and worked at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston in the 1950鈥檚.
I wonder if Dr Barnaby knew my dad Ron French he was an electronic engineer at AWRE in the 50's and went to Christmas Island I believe to take part in testing a nuclear bomb. I have some photos and bits and pieces relating to his trip.
Complain about this postDr Barnaby maybe needed an opportunity to get across how unbelievably toxic is plutonium. The terrorists don't need to cause fission. They only need a very little, and disperse it in a city, (bomb or otherwise) to make the place uninhabitable.
It may be possible to carry around masses of uranium small enough not to get hot by themselves. Moving even small quantities of plutonium is very difficult, it being so radioactive.
Complain about this postFor Dr Barnaby
What is the 'shelf life' of a nuclear weapon? What would need to be maintained?
Is there any difference in efficacy between a plutonium and uranium bomb?
Alastair Morton
Complain about this postLeeds
Re the Maralinga atomic bomb test in the Australian desert and the question of why people were not told in advance. Dr Barnaby said that notices were put up, in English, but didn't know if Aboriginies could read them. With the present introspection on how Australia has treated the Aboriginies, I have read that it has now been rervealed that shortly after the explosion, Aboriginies were found camped in the crater, 'because it was nice and warm'. So, no, they clearly hadn't read the notices and, more interestingly, clearly none of the officials had given a thought to the Aboriginies.
Complain about this postDoes Doctor Barnaby feel any responsibility to work as hard to find an "antidote" to the global annihilation that he has helped to make possible. How can we make our world safe, and take away this threat
Complain about this postDr Frank Barnaby's contribution (Sat 14/10):
As in the question that I sent in during today's programme (using the 'Contact Us' page): Why don't we build power generating nuclear reactors designed to burn up the plutonium stockplie?
I too was a teenage physicist, but cannot remember Pu being mentioned as a reactor fuel. Indeed Burcham's Nuclear Physics (1963) discusses only the use of Uranium in a reactor, but mentions both 239Pu and 235U for bombs. Bombs use fast fission, whereas Burcham discusses only slow neutran fission in detail for nuclear reactors.
As an aside, I remember going on a school trip to Calder Hall in about 1955, when I'm sure we were allowed to walk on the top of the reactor.
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