Why has Science Become Politicized?

No. A "Law" is an explanation of a specific phenomenon usually expressed as a formula (mathematical, chemical or logical). A Theory is composed of many laws.

 

The A-bombs were just shape charged implosions of two heavy metals.

Does not take a genius.

 

Actually it does, or absolutely everyone would have 'em. Look at North Korea - several tests, consuming frightening amounts of money and resources, and all underpowered duds. Not showing any real promise with rocket science, either.

Question: How much uranium (simple fission bomb, think Little Boy) does it take to reach critical mass? How big does the ''bullet'' need to be to start the reaction? How fast should it be traveling? An implosion bomb is MUCH more complex than a gun-triggered bomb.

 

Trial and error.

Works like a charm.

Los Alamos spent a lot of money guessing right for the first shot.

 

No, they used very complicated mathematics to determine critical mass. They KNEW the gun-fired bomb would work FROM THE MATH ALONE. Little Boy was never tested, the one dropped on Hiroshima was the prototype. The Trinity Test was the test for Fat Man, the implosion bomb.

 

This pack of geniuses was overpaid and wasted a lot of time.

 

The time was required to produce enough uranium 235 and plutonium to actually make the bombs. Which is why we only had those two bombs to use at the time. We were getting ready to ship the plutonium to the airbase the first two strikes came from, but it was cancelled when the Japanese surrendered. At the time, we had the breeder reactor capacity to produce 2-3 bombs worth of fissile material every six months.

 

Sounds familiar.

Where was the smelting of the ore done?

Or was it extracted by chemical reactions?

 

I have been discussing science and climate change on the internet for at least 17 years and the overwhelming majority of denialists are also republican.

I KNOW there are a few here who are republican/right who are not denialists and in fact work hard at defending science but to be honest the level of ignorance in science I continually see makes me want to cry

Try the following

1) Earth' climate is changing well, because it DOES
2) Earth is warming because our solar system has moved into a "hot spot" in space
3) Scientists are reading the CO2 levels wrong because everyone knows CO2 is heavier than air
4) It is the sun you idiot (yeah like no scientist studying solar output has noticed this :roll"
5) The Great Barrier Reef is dying because you Australians are blowing hot air over it (yeah we are all lined up along Cape York farting in the direction of Donald Trump)

I could go on......

We have known of the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere since the mid 1800's but there are still people who are challenging this

 

This is a strawman because unless there is some political thing happening in America all the rest of us DO understand that that climate change does not neccessarily mean impending disaster - that said though if we do NOT warn of disaster we end up looking like fools when it happens. Worse we cannot fully prepare. Why does America have a military when it has never been directly attacked? Why have a fire hydrant in a house that has never caught fire? We have to prepare for the worst but hope for the best

 

The fissile material came from Oak Ridge, TN (aka: the Atomic City) and Hanford, WA. Extraction was done using magnetic spectrometers (Calutron), gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion - google it. Ninety percent of the costs for the entire project were for building the reactors and producing the fissile materials. Only ten percent went to Los Alamos and the pack of geniuses.

 

This looks like the fuel version.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/nuclear-basics/how-is-uranium-ore-made-into-nuclear-fuel.aspx

 

Why is this so common on here? jfc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof

 

Which is nothing like the weapons grade version. Weapons grade uranium to reactor grade uranium is like Everclear to Bud Lite. Reactor rods are 3-4 percent U235 (the fissile isotope), while weapons require 90 percent or more.

This article has a good (but definitely laymans) description of the entire process.

 

Ok that makes perfect sense --

1 - use acid to make yellowcake

2 - gasify with fluorine

3 - centrifuge the gas to concentrate into weapons grade.

Etc. -- they don't take it from there.

To get components out of a gas you mix it with another gas. Etc.

 

Under cultural-marxism every thing has to be politicized even the climate to further the real agenda of the radical left.

Free speech has been politicized by the left, you can't use this word or that word.
Guns have been politicized by the left. Any black scary looking gun is politically incorrect and is called an assualt weapon.

Even food has become politicized by the left and fast food is now politically incorrect.

First it was a chemist manufacturing LSD who yelled "global cooling !!!"

Then a scientist who studies bat crap yells "global warming !!!"

Then the inventor of the internet along with a scientist who studies rocks yells "climate change !!!"

During the 1970's leftist environmentalist loons yelled that lumberjacks were cutting down old forest where the spotted owl lived and spotted owl were only able to shack up in old trees so all lumbering in America must end and all lumber mills were politically incorrect. Until it was discovered that a spotted owl was living under the eaves of my garage in the city.

So the next target was mountain lion hunting and the liberal loons outlawed mountain lion hunting in California and the mountain lions had a lot of sex with popping out a lot of little mountain lions who ate up all of the big horn sheep in California. Knocked the whole ecosystem out of whack in California. Mother natures says "thank you" liberals and mother nature doesn't like being ****ed with by political correctness.

Rarely the left ever gets any thing right.

So those on the right who didn't consume large quantities of LSD or could give a rats ass about bat crap and own black scary looking guns and eat greasy politically incorrect cheese burgers and hear loons yelling climate change they have a laugh knowing that Earths climate has been changing every day for over the past ten million years.

Don't **** with mother nature !!!

Where the left got it wrong is that they politicize every ****ing thing in the world including the weather.

 

BZZZT Wrong!

It doesn't work that way.

YOU made a bogus allegation and were called upon to substantiate it.

That YOU can't reflects BADLY on YOUR credibility.

Your bogus allegation is dismissed as utterly worthless.

Have a nice day!

 

The Fundamentalists who take the bible literally were charged with being responsible for taking care of the planet and all animals.

Science is proving that they are failing miserably in their duty to their deity because they are doing far more harm than good.

So the Fundamentalist are resorting to believing that "goddidit" when it comes to global warming.

 

It is not so common. In this case there was clamoring to provide sources for stuff that is commonly available and in the case of trashing anti warming scientists has been in the science press for years. I was just being exercised and I responded in kind.

 

You failed to meet YOUR burden of proof for your allegation and your credibility could suffer as a result of your failure.

 

Blah, blah, blah.

 

I think you are correct about the breakdown by party. My problem (and I am a conservative) is that climate science disagreements ought to be neutral with politics. This tells me that the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats know close to nothing of the science. Obama, just for one example, is a strong advocate of global warming yet I'm not sure he even knows how to spell it.
When first studied in the 1800s it was thought CO2 cooled. Going back 500 million years or so (with all the inaccuracies inherent) the best correlation to global temperature is UV radiation. CO2 shows a positive but low correlation (as it does somewhat in the 20th century.)
We do know that CO2 causes global warming -- that is the common but wrong question. What we (the scientists) don't know is the marginal relation between CO2 and warming. While they assume a doubling of CO2 will produce the same increase in temp every time it doubles, it is highly unlikely to be correct -- they just don't know what else to do.

 

Good comments, Phyxius.

 

What does any of this have to do with the validity of the specific statistic I brought up?
Your entire comment is the perfect microcosm of what's "wrong with science"- it's not up to the scientist to decide to skew their reports "just to be safe" in terms of national policy.
Scientists are supposed to report the truth as best as they can see it.