Re: Gamma-ray weapons

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>]

It is interesting how this article,

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-08/llnl-pcr081301.php,

contradicts the use of hafnium noted in the New

Scientist publication.



--- Fred Dawson <fd003f0606@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> Report from New Scientist 14 August

> 

> Gamma-ray weapons could trigger next arms race

> 

> 

> 

>

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994049

> 

> 

> 

> An exotic kind of nuclear explosive being developed

> by the US Department of

> Defense could blur the critical distinction between

> conventional and nuclear

> weapons. The work has also raised fears that weapons

> based on this

> technology could trigger the next arms race.

> . . .

> Scientists have known for many years that the nuclei

> of some elements, such

> as hafnium, can exist in a high-energy state, or

> nuclear isomer, that slowly

> decays to a low-energy state by emitting gamma rays.

> For example,

> hafnium-178m2, the excited, isomeric form of

> hafnium-178, has a half-life of

> 31 years.

> 

> The possibility that this process could be explosive

> was discovered when

> Carl Collins and colleagues at the University of

> Texas at Dallas

> demonstrated that they could artificially trigger

> the decay of the hafnium

> isomer by bombarding it with low-energy X-rays (New

> Scientist print edition,

> 3 July 1999). The experiment released 60 times as

> much energy as was put in,

> and in theory a much greater energy release could be

> achieved.

> 

. . .



=====

-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com



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