/sci/ - Science & Math

LET'S PRETEND WE ARE MAD SCIENTISTS SET ON THREATENING WORLD PEACE WITH A NUCLEAR WEAPON.

Hey /sci/. Since kindergarten I've been fascinated by nuclear weapons and pondered (hypothetically) if it is possible for one dedicated individual to construct a low-yield fission device (probably gun-type assembly).

My father has managed many copper mines and one of the mines he operated produced tons of yellow-cake uraniuam as a byproduct, which they sold to the government for ass loads of money. He would see many trucks filled with yellow cake.

I got to thinking, what if someone found a way to skim some yellow-cake off of each batch, replacing it with something of similar appearance and mass. Never would he take enough from one to cause concern (if you watch Breaking Bad, it's similar to the train episode where they replace the meth precursor with an equal mass of water).

Then the man would have to store it, process the yellow-cake and from it produce pure uranium. Here's where it gets tricky-- for entire countries, let alone one individual: seperating the isotopes. He'd need about 20,200lbs of uranium to isolate about 145lb U235 (amount used in Little Boy). Would it be possible for him to do this running a batch of small but (hypothetically though I know not how) extremely effecient centrifuges without causing concerns of excess power-consumption to alarm authorities? Would he be able to get th 145lbs u 235 for the gun-type device in a manner of years, perhaps two decades at the most?

Creating the device would be (almost) a walk in the park by comparison, it's the isotope isolation that seems to be the hang up.

Does /sci/ think it is possible (although profoundly implausible) for one man to achieve this? I believe so, provided he can isolate the needed isotope and not fuck up and get caught at any point. It may be that to isolate u235 he would be unable to do so in his entire lifetime. What does /sci/ think?

>>2845841
This poster confirmed for completely stupid.

Picture related, it's what a uranium bomb looks like.