• Question: Can you make a nuke in 5 minutes

    Asked by Stradbally to Gavin, Karen, Mark, Michel, Roisin on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Roisin Jones

      Roisin Jones answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Certainly not personally, nuclear physics is not my specialty! In general though, I think the answer is still no, nuclear weapons are highly sophisticated and delicate devices, which need a lot of care and work in their manufacture. I imagine their production time has decreased since they were first discovered, but still nowhere near the five minute mark!

    • Photo: Michel Destrade

      Michel Destrade answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      A couple of years ago a 14 year old (name is Taylor Wilson) was in the news for having built a nuclear reactor in his garage. Took him more than 5 minutes though!

    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Michel is right, there was a famous 14 year old who built his own nuclear reactor.

      Building a nuclear bomb isn’t easy either. You can’t get the elements required for a fission bomb in nature, you have to reprocess other materials that already exist, which takes a long time.

      But if you have the materials on hand, then it takes a matter of seconds. All you have to do is put enough Uranium-235 in one place and it’ll start a chain reaction.

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