Von Braun and Suzanne.
Mike Painter
University of Texas has no record of any talks by the man.
My message "Sometime during the late 1950's or early 1960s Werner Von Braun
allegedly gave a talk to a group at the University of Texas in Austin.
It may or may not have been part of a class and it may or may not have been
sponsored by the physics department.
If you have the time and if it is possible I would like to know if this was
true and what the subject was. Thanks.
Response:
We have searched our holdings and the University's web site, but have been
unable to uncover any details about the talk. You may want to contact the
Center for American History on the UT campus. They are the University's
archive. You may also want to contact the physics department.
I've sent an email to both the archive and the physics department.
Ye Old One
Thanks for making the effort Mike.
From my searches I cannot find any record of him lecturing on anything
other than rockets. Face it, he was a famous person who could lecture
on rockets - which were, of course, a VERY hot subject at the time. So
why would anyone ask him to lecture on a subject that he would have
been fairly ignorant of. I say ignorant because he was excluded form
any American nuclear research and had no real contact with anyone
doing such research. Although the cyclotron was invented in 1929 I
doubt he would have really known much about them - certainly not
enough to have warranted a lecture on them. Then we have the claimed
subject "The Half Life Of U235 In A Cyclotron", how much more
ridiculous can it get?
--
Bob.
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't
make an exception for the last one.
Andre Lieven
And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life Of U235 In A
Cyclotron"
gets NOTHING BUT this thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a shameless liar.
Andre
Mike Painter
> On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:04:58 -0800, "Mike Painter"
>
> on rockets - which were, of course, a VERY hot subject at the time.
Agreed. Famous man with a hot subject. That's why I have contacted UT, they
will almost certainly have a record of it if it happened.
Paul J Gans
>Response:
Don't get your hopes up. Universities are notorious for keeping
bad records. There may indeed be no record and the event might
well have happened.
Your best bet is either the university archives or the archives
of the Austin paper(s).
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Earle Jones
"Mike Painter" <md.pa...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
*
In the same sense that Suzanne took a class from Von Braun, I once took
a class at Stanford from J. Robert Oppenheimer.
It went like this: The word came around in our lab, which was a mile or
so off campus in Menlo Park, that Oppenheimer was on campus and giving a
lecture at 2:00 in the big lecture room in the Physics Hall. A bunch of
us biked over and found the place teeming with the curious. We could
barely stand in the back door and see the stage. The room seated about
150 and there were at least 300 people there.
Oppenheimer was introduced (by Felix Bloch*, as I recall). He seemed
very appreciative of the crowd as he opened his remarks, "There are
probably about a dozen people here who will have any idea of what I am
talking about."
We hung around for about ten minutes and then went back to work.
earle
*
PS: Felix Bloch shared a Nobel Prize with Edward Purcell (Harvard) for
the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance. I did take a class in
Nuclear Physics from Purcell -- a one-quarter lecture class when he was
a visiting prof at Stanford -- I made an A.
ej
*
Kent Paul Dolan
> And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life
> Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT this
> thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
using those tools.
For instance, a google search for
u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
gets around 1400 hits, lots of them false positives,
but at least one of which informs us that von Braun
was student to a professor well known for using the
half-life of uranium to do useful mineral dating to
estimate the age of the earth, and several of which
place cyclotrons in Germany well before WW-II.
It's pretty much impossible to study under a
professor and learn nothing about that professor's
particular hobby horse subject.
It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
the German scientific community, would have
absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
Cyclotrons would have been useful research
instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
have been called in to talk bomb program scientists
and staff about, oh, say, missile throw weights
versus atomic bomb design weights, or whatever.
> Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
> shameless liar.
Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but you've
come nowhere close to exercising the due diligence
needed to prove your case against her in this
particular discussion.
FWIW
xanthian.
Sort of as an aside, for conspiracy theorists, this
piece of "speculative" history might suggest a whole
lot more that scientists in the German war effort
would have had on their plates for consideration and
gossip.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylzc6hy
The sanity of the author is a bit unweighed, but he
tells a good story for scaring the kids in the dark.
Andre Lieven
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> > And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life
> > Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT this
> > thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
>
> Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
> pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
> using those tools.
>
> For instance, a google search for
>
> u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
Starts with the first two results being this thread. It
provides NO articles or citations that connect VB
with either U235 work, or cyclotrons, never mind
BOTH...
The fifth result listed a "Braun U", rather than Wehrner.
And, the tenth was on the half life of Am241...
> gets around 1400 hits, lots of them false positives,
Try ALL of them being false positives, aside from two
for this thread.
If you wish to suggest that there was a true positive,
please post it.
Otherwise, you're trying a Fallacy of Proving a Negative.
> but at least one of which informs us that von Braun
> was student to a professor well known for using the
> half-life of uranium to do useful mineral dating to
> estimate the age of the earth, and several of which
> place cyclotrons in Germany well before WW-II.
But, with nary a connection between the two topics.
> It's pretty much impossible to study under a
> professor and learn nothing about that professor's
> particular hobby horse subject.
Sure. But, it is not logical to state that someone like
VB would speak on such a fast moving topic, when his
ONLY possible qualification would then be at least 20
years *out of date*.
> It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
> the German scientific community, would have
> absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
> uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
No, on the basis of being able to speak about either
topic by the late 50s, it is highly unlikely, because his
possible knowledge on either topic, never mind on a
combination of the topics, would have then been at
least 20 years out of date, in a field where the state
of the art was moving amazingly fast.
One might as well expect a designer of the prop
fighter ME-109 to give a talk to designers of the
supersonic jet fighter F-104... Ain't gonna happen.
> Cyclotrons would have been useful research
> instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
> war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
> have been called in to talk bomb program scientists
> and staff about, oh, say, missile throw weights
> versus atomic bomb design weights, or whatever.
That's also greatly unlikely, as his only expertise in
that area would have been for the V-2 (Then, 15 plus
years out of date.), or the tactical Redstone missile.
VB had zilch to do with ANY US ICBM or IRBM project
at that time. So, he had the same qualification, zilch,
to speak about ICBM and/or IRBM capabilities. Never
mind zilch quals to speak of the buckets of instant
sunshine nuke payloads...
> > Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
> > shameless liar.
>
> Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but you've
> come nowhere close to exercising the due diligence
> needed to prove your case against her in this
> particular discussion.
As I have explained above, yes, I have.
Further, there is simply NO record of ANYONE having
given a talk on the half life of uranium *in a cyclotron*,
period.
As Suzanne is the positive claimant about that, The Burden
Of Proof is all HERS.
> FWIW
>
> xanthian.
>
> Sort of as an aside, for conspiracy theorists, this
> piece of "speculative" history might suggest a whole
> lot more that scientists in the German war effort
> would have had on their plates for consideration and
> gossip.
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylzc6hy
The ONLY thing that this links to is your post.
> The sanity of the author is a bit unweighed, but he
> tells a good story for scaring the kids in the dark.
Suzanne can't even claim to tell any good stories...
Andre
Mitchell Coffey
Or they could forget about it. There's no conclusive way to prove
this negative. As it is they're merely disputing the ancillary views
of a war criminal.
Mitchell
Kent Paul Dolan
>> u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
>> FWIW
>> xanthian.
>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylzc6hy
If you think about it, that would be physically
impossible, as the posting would have to exist
somewhere in a news spool and have a URI before a
tinyURL pointer to it could be constructed, and yet
that pointer was already _in_ the post.
Of course, when I just checked that preview tinyURL
again, it points exactly where it was supposed to
point.
As I said earlier, you need to learn to use your
tools, not just let them mislead you into making a
public fool of yourself.
>> The sanity of the author is a bit unweighed, but
>> he tells a good story for scaring the kids in the
>> dark.
> Suzanne can't even claim to tell any good
> stories...
> Andre
I'm not going to justify that swill you posted with
a point by point rebuttal. If you insist on
remaining deliberately ignorant, are so mind-blind
that you introduce conditions into events that had
no reason to be affecting those events, and are not
literate enough to read what I wrote intelligently,
nor literate enough to review search results
intelligently
[Of _course_ the most precise hits the search
found are to this thread. Do you ever bother to
_think_ before you type?]
which your responses confirm to be the case, me
writing more is a waste of my time. YOU read what
you wrote above (including several deliberate lies)
and see all the places you have (again, if I recall)
made a public laughingstock of yourself.
Then again, if you can't read what I wrote, why
should you be able to read what you wrote?
xanthian.
Oh, and just to give your unjustified smugness that
you _must_ be correct a bit of a nudge, remember
that isotope decay rates slow as radioactive
particles approach the speed of light, and then read
the "Plasma Separations" paragraph here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ya8n4ff
So "u235 half-life in a cyclotron" is a perfectly
valid concept.
Hatunen
<xant...@well.com> wrote:
>Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> > And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life
> > Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT this
> > thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
>
>Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
>pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
>using those tools.
>
>For instance, a google search for
>
> u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
>
>gets around 1400 hits, lots of them false positives,
>but at least one of which informs us that von Braun
>was student to a professor well known for using the
>half-life of uranium to do useful mineral dating to
>estimate the age of the earth, and several of which
>place cyclotrons in Germany well before WW-II.
The cyclotron having been invented by Lawrence around 1929-30,
that's not too surprising. Once Lawrence built one, everyone
would have wanted one.
>It's pretty much impossible to study under a
>professor and learn nothing about that professor's
>particular hobby horse subject.
>
>It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
>the German scientific community, would have
>absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
>uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
>
>Cyclotrons would have been useful research
>instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
>war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
>have been called in to talk bomb program scientists
>and staff about, oh, say, missile throw weights
>versus atomic bomb design weights, or whatever.
>
> > Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
> > shameless liar.
>
>Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but you've
>come nowhere close to exercising the due diligence
>needed to prove your case against her in this
>particular discussion.
That doesn't explain Suzanne's muddled mention of the half-life
of uranium in a cyclotron. If it all generally happened as she
says (and I think the argument over whether it was a class or a
lecture is pretty pointless) it would appear she may not have
understood it and it has now been passed through the defective
memory filter of things not well understood. Perhaps Braun had
some reason to mention cyclotrons and some reason to mention
uranium, but I simply don't believe he talked about half-life in
cyclotrons.
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
alextangent
>
> Oh, and just to give your unjustified smugness that
> you _must_ be correct a bit of a nudge, remember
> that isotope decay rates slow as radioactive
> particles approach the speed of light, and then read
> the "Plasma Separations" paragraph here:
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ya8n4ff
>
> So "u235 half-life in a cyclotron" is a perfectly
> valid concept.
Well, no. A calutron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron) is a form
of mass spectrometer used to separate out U isotopes. The beam of
atoms travels at well below the speed of light in the plasma gas; if
the beam approached the speed of light (something that would take an
extraordinary amount of energy given the quantities of plasma
involved), the trick of bending the ions in a magnetic field just
wouldn't work. And given that the half life of U235 is 700M years, I
really don't understand how you might be able to measure the
difference. Given U235 at just subluminal for a *year*, the difference
in half-life would be a vanishingly small number of the order of 1 in
10^-8. The path length in the average calutron would be measured in
micro seconds.
Doesn't wash, sorry.
Ye Old One
>Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> > And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life
> > Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT this
> > thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
>
>Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
>pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
>using those tools.
>
>For instance, a google search for
>
> u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
>
>gets around 1400 hits, lots of them false positives,
>but at least one of which informs us that von Braun
>was student to a professor well known for using the
>half-life of uranium to do useful mineral dating to
>estimate the age of the earth, and several of which
>place cyclotrons in Germany well before WW-II.
Both fact are very true. However, the use of uranium in dating has
nothing whatsoever to do with a cyclotron.
WvB would not have had anything to do with nuclear matters once he
started working on the military rocket programme.
>
>It's pretty much impossible to study under a
>professor and learn nothing about that professor's
>particular hobby horse subject.
True.
>
>It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
>the German scientific community, would have
>absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
>uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
Why would he?
>
>Cyclotrons would have been useful research
>instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
>war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
>have been called in to talk bomb program scientists
>and staff about, oh, say, missile throw weights
>versus atomic bomb design weights, or whatever.
Possible, but in reality it would have been the other way round if
there had been contact, which there wasn't, they would have been
telling him how big a rocket they needed.
>
> > Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
> > shameless liar.
>
>Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but you've
>come nowhere close to exercising the due diligence
>needed to prove your case against her in this
>particular discussion.
Rubbish, case proven long ago.
One of my main points being that once in the USA WvB would not have
been allowed within a mile of any nuclear secrets.
--
Bob.
Hatunen
<bl...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>On Nov 17, 7:02 pm, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Oh, and just to give your unjustified smugness that
>> you _must_ be correct a bit of a nudge, remember
>> that isotope decay rates slow as radioactive
>> particles approach the speed of light, and then read
>> the "Plasma Separations" paragraph here:
>>
>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ya8n4ff
>>
>> So "u235 half-life in a cyclotron" is a perfectly
>> valid concept.
>
>Well, no. A calutron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron) is a form
>of mass spectrometer used to separate out U isotopes. The beam of
>atoms travels at well below the speed of light in the plasma gas; if
>the beam approached the speed of light (something that would take an
>extraordinary amount of energy given the quantities of plasma
>involved), the trick of bending the ions in a magnetic field just
>wouldn't work.
I covered that in my original response in another thread..
>And given that the half life of U235 is 700M years, I
>really don't understand how you might be able to measure the
>difference. Given U235 at just subluminal for a *year*, the difference
>in half-life would be a vanishingly small number of the order of 1 in
>10^-8. The path length in the average calutron would be measured in
>micro seconds.
>
>Doesn't wash, sorry.
And I see little reason von Braun might have talked about such an
arcane factoid. One wonders if vB had even heard of a calutron...
Mike Painter
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
>> And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half Life
>> Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT this
>> thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
>
> Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
> pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
> using those tools.
>
> >
>
It is absolutely possible that Suzanne heard such a lecture.
Why someone would talk about it is another question since the half life of
U235 is rather high and near light velocities would have to be obtained to
make any significant difference in or out.
In general however Suzanne is always wrong, especially when talking about
science.
Light does not slow down so you can hear it. (Part of a longer equally bad
explanation)
Ripples from a stone toss into water move in a radial pattern, not orbital.
These are only the ones I remember but there are a large number of them.
When she started she often would post references. Reading those references
always showed that her conclusions were not that of the writer.
Given two conclusions drawn from the same data by the same person, she will
deny one and accept the other with no other reason than "because". She needs
nothing other than what she would like to be right.
"I don't know what others think, but I can tell you that
I feel an inner confirmation that it is the truth, so I
don't need outside archaeological evidence to prove to
me that it is true."
Suzanne does this all to "prove" the bible is absolutely correct.
Her statements have reached the point where truth is an extraordinary event
and demands extraordinary evidence to support it.
Mike Painter
Good timing., this just came in."I looked in our subject file for the
University of Texas Department of Physics, which consists mostly of clipped
newspaper articles from throughout the 20th century that feature the
Department, but I did not find mention of the von Braun talk there."
He is going to work on it more Friday.
Mike Painter
> and it has now been passed through the defective
> memory filter of things not well understood.
Who needs "not well undstood"
I spent at least 40 years with secure knowledge of something I remember
learning in an excellent high school physics class in the 57/58 school year.
I was wrong when I looked into the subject a few years ago.
Interesting the wrong part of it was probably there by the early 60's at
least. (And the 60's didn't start in the early 60's.)
Mike Painter
>
> Or they could forget about it. There's no conclusive way to prove
> this negative. As it is they're merely disputing the ancillary views
> of a war criminal.
True but if they provide evidence that he was there in that time period and
talked about rockets, it would imply that she was wrong again.
Andre Lieven
<yawn>
> >> The sanity of the author is a bit unweighed, but
> >> he tells a good story for scaring the kids in the
> >> dark.
>
> > Suzanne can't even claim to tell any good
> > stories...
>
> > Andre
>
> I'm not going to justify that swill you posted with
> a point by point rebuttal.
Your total concession is noted and appreciated.
> If you insist on
> remaining deliberately ignorant, are so mind-blind
> that you introduce conditions into events that had
> no reason to be affecting those events, and are not
> literate enough to read what I wrote intelligently,
> nor literate enough to review search results
> intelligently
"Ad Hominem Alone, the last refuge of the *whipped*
scoudrel". Thanks for so clearly outing yourself.
> [Of _course_ the most precise hits the search
> found are to this thread. Do you ever bother to
> _think_ before you type?]
<projection>
> which your responses confirm to be the case, me
> writing more is a waste of my time. YOU read what
> you wrote above (including several deliberate lies)
> and see all the places you have (again, if I recall)
> made a public laughingstock of yourself.
Ibid "whipped scoudrel".
> Then again, if you can't read what I wrote, why
> should you be able to read what you wrote?
Ibid "whipped scoundrel".
> xanthian.
>
> Oh, and just to give your unjustified smugness that
> you _must_ be correct a bit of a nudge, remember
> that isotope decay rates slow as radioactive
> particles approach the speed of light, and then read
> the "Plasma Separations" paragraph here:
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ya8n4ff
>
> So "u235 half-life in a cyclotron" is a perfectly
> valid concept.
Now, try to make the case that a rocket engineer
of the 50s would be in any position to speak on that.
Sheesh. What are you, trying to get Suzanne to go
out with you ?
Andre
Mitchell Coffey
> MitchellCoffeywrote:
Sure, but isn't that beating a long-deceased and decayed horse? it's
you own business, but why bother? She's just pathetic. I suppose,
though, that could go for any individual creationist.
Mitchell Coffey
Kent Paul Dolan
> Perhaps Braun had some reason to mention
> cyclotrons and some reason to mention uranium, but
> I simply don't believe he talked about half-life
> in cyclotrons.
Well, as I noted elsewhere, spinning U235 in
cyclotrons was a well known technology to separate
concentrations of it from U238, so he could have
talked about U235 in cyclotrons.
Spinning U235 in a cyclotron has two effects on its
half-life.
1) It lengthens the half life by slowing down time
for the U235 from the viewpoint of the external
observer. This is probably a trivial effect, what
with the half-life of U235 in isolation being around
700,000 years, if I recall correctly, and its time
in the cylotron probably being less than a minute.
2) It shortens the half life by concentrating U235
so that "in isolation" is no longer the case.
This is a non-trivial effect.
A critical mass of U235 has a half-life measured in
fractions of a second plus a very big boom.
Other, smaller size concentrations, such as might
occur in cyclotrons at the target location for
acquiring the concentrated U235, would range in half
life from that short one to the long half life in
isolation.
Therefore, considering the half-life of U235 in a
cyclotron is in fact a valid engineering concern.
You don't want too much of it in any one place, or
you increase your radioactive contamination due to
fissioning U235, and decrease your product yield.
There is therefore no particular reason von Braun
either would be unaware of that concern, or that it
would be surprising for him to mention it, in an
off-handed way in passing, in a public lecture,
long after the basic science was declassified.
Insisting that such an event _could not_ have
occurred shows an ignorance both of history and of
basic science.
For what that's worth.
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>> Andre Lieven wrote:
>>> And, a Google search on the phrase "The Half
>>> Life Of U235 In A Cyclotron" gets NOTHING BUT
>>> this thread. Ditto for "U235 In A Cyclotron".
>> Well, knowing how to use your tools is sort of a
>> pre-requisite for attempting to prove a negative
>> using those tools.
>> For instance, a google search for
>> u235 cyclotron half-life von-braun
>> gets around 1400 hits, lots of them false
>> positives, but at least one of which informs us
>> that von Braun was student to a professor well
>> known for using the half-life of uranium to do
>> useful mineral dating to estimate the age of the
>> earth, and several of which place cyclotrons in
>> Germany well before WW-II.
> Both fact are very true. However, the use of
> uranium in dating has nothing whatsoever to do
> with a cyclotron.
That has no affect on whether von Braun might have
mentioned U235 in a cyclotron and its half life,
though.
> WvB would not have had anything to do with nuclear
> matters once he started working on the military
> rocket programme.
That certainly would not have been the case in
Germany, may well not have been the case in the US
if he were working on ICBMs.
>> It's pretty much impossible to study under a
>> professor and learn nothing about that
>> professor's particular hobby horse subject.
> True.
>> It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
>> the German scientific community, would have
>> absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
>> uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
> Why would he?
We can't read his mind, nor make his decisions for
him; personal whim, showing off, making a point in
his lecture are a few of uncountable possibilities.
"Why would he" is a useless argument and a useless
rebuttal.
>> Cyclotrons would have been useful research
>> instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
>> war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
>> have been called in to talk bomb program
>> scientists and staff about, oh, say, missile
>> throw weights versus atomic bomb design weights,
>> or whatever.
> Possible, but in reality it would have been the
> other way round if there had been contact, which
> there wasn't, they would have been telling him how
> big a rocket they needed.
Well, no. He could just as easily have been being
consulted on the issue "how small a bomb do we have
to build". Designing a new, bigger throw weight
rocket is a non-trivial time consumer also (initial
V2s had a horrific failure rate), and Germany was in
a time crunch to get a weapon of mass destruction to
prevent their homeland from being overrun.
Later, in the US, if he were working on ICBMs,
exactly the same reasons for the bomb designers
consulting him would have held sway.
>>> Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
>>> shameless liar.
>> Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but
>> you've come nowhere close to exercising the due
>> diligence needed to prove your case against her
>> in this particular discussion.
> Rubbish, case proven long ago.
Not so far, IN THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION.
Merely declaring a win is nowhere nearly so
convincing as is winning.
You've got a long way to go to convince _me_, for
example, because as a former nuclear weapons handler
and maintainer, I got a rather excellent general
education in all things "nuclear weapon".
So far, most of the arguments against the
possibility of WvB having made the statements
Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
quality of your "why would he" above -- people
arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
statement, you have to give the widest latitude to
reasons he _might_ have been able to make the
statement.
So far, that hasn't been the case at all.
Arguments that a leading respected scientist _could
not have known_ some basic cyclotron science facts
are garbage, for example.
So far, most of the arguments against the
possibility of WvB having made the statements
Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
quality of your "why would he" above -- people
arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
statement, you have to give the widest latitude to
reasons why he _might_ have been able to make the
statement.
So far, that hasn't been the case at all. That kind
of response has been dismissed out of hand,
invalidly.
Arguments that a leading respected scientist _could
not have known_ some basic cyclotron science facts
are garbage, for example.
> One of my main points being that once in the USA
> WvB would not have been allowed within a mile of
> any nuclear secrets.
What he learned doesn't much have to have been
secrets, it's just basic science, known around the
world before WW-II began, and also doesn't have to
have been learned in the US; the information was
there to learn while he was working in Germany.
xanthian.
Notice that I'm not arguing that Suzanne _did_
hear any such thing from WvB under _any_
circumstances. Suzanne is far past senile, and she
has long ago suffered a severe disconnect from
reality that affects everything she says.
Mike Painter
> Nothing conclusive yet but the librarian at the Austin Campus of the
> University of Texas has no record of any talks by the man.
A final response
After having done searching to try to answer your question, I’m sorry
to say that it appears I cannot offer a confirmation of von Braun
having spoken here in the 1950s or 1960s at this time.
I checked our physics and engineering departments’ subject files, and
did not find mention of his speaking on campus. I did find one article
from the engineering department file that described the opening of the
1966 school year’s lecture series in the department, which was to
feature space scientists, but it did not mention von Braun
specifically and no follow-up articles were included.
I called the physics department office and its library, and neither
could confirm a record of such a talk. The email response I later
received from the physics librarian did note that it is certainly
plausible that he spoke here, and she included a link to a scanned
page in Google books that mentions a 1950s speaking tour through Texas
in which he especially focused on college students who might be
recruited to his program. You can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/yg5rkta
She also gave me the name of an aerospace engineering professor who
joined the department in 1960 and who is still here, and I emailed him
to ask if he might know anything about the talk, but I have not yet
received a reply. I will let you know if he writes back.
I searched through our UT Student Publications negatives and
photograph proofs collection to see if there might be photos from the
event, if it was covered in our yearbook or student newspaper, but did
not find any.
My best guess for additional resources here on campus would be issues
of the student newspaper, the Daily Texan, where there might have been
a write-up. Unfortunately, we do not have digitized archival issues
of the paper, so I cannot run any kind of search for the event. All
back issues are on microfilm, and due to staff constraints, I cannot
look through all of the coverage for that time period to find a
mention of von Braun speaking on campus. There are proxy researchers
that you could hire to do it for you, since you are located distantly
(see http://www.cah.utexas.edu/services/proxy_researcher.php).
heekster
Since Von Braun worked on the American ICBM program before joining
NASA, I don't think that dog will hunt.
Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
tests conducted by the United States.
Andre Lieven
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:40 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
>
> >Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>
> >One of my main points being that once in the USA WvB would not have
> >been allowed within a mile of any nuclear secrets.
>
> Since Von Braun worked on the American ICBM program before joining
> NASA, I don't think that dog will hunt.
>
> Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
> development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
> rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
> tests conducted by the United States.
VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not even an IRBM,
rather it was a battlefield weapon, with a range barely greater than
that
of the V-2.
Further, given the great secrecy over matters of nuclear technology,
just because a guy worked on one small delivery system for such
payloads, in no way indicates that said guy would be allowed any
information about the payload, other than basic size and mass.
Andre
Hatunen
<xant...@well.com> wrote:
>Hatunen wrote:
>
> > Perhaps Braun had some reason to mention
> > cyclotrons and some reason to mention uranium, but
> > I simply don't believe he talked about half-life
> > in cyclotrons.
>
>Well, as I noted elsewhere, spinning U235 in
>cyclotrons was a well known technology to separate
>concentrations of it from U238, so he could have
>talked about U235 in cyclotrons.
>
>Spinning U235 in a cyclotron has two effects on its
>half-life.
Yes, yes. I metnioned all this first. But I refuse to beleive vB
talked about it in this "class" Suzanne took. He was a rocket
engineer and scientist, not a physicist.
>1) It lengthens the half life by slowing down time
>for the U235 from the viewpoint of the external
>observer. This is probably a trivial effect, what
>with the half-life of U235 in isolation being around
>700,000 years, if I recall correctly, and its time
>in the cylotron probably being less than a minute.
>
>2) It shortens the half life by concentrating U235
>so that "in isolation" is no longer the case.
>
>This is a non-trivial effect.
Are you arguing that a single atom has a different half-life
thatn the atoms in a group of atoms? Single, or isolated, atoms
don't have a half-life; half-life is a property of groups.
>A critical mass of U235 has a half-life measured in
>fractions of a second plus a very big boom.
Um. That's not half-life; that's a collision effect of a neutron
on an atom. The concept of half-life doesn't appley.
>Other, smaller size concentrations, such as might
>occur in cyclotrons at the target location for
>acquiring the concentrated U235, would range in half
>life from that short one to the long half life in
>isolation.
>
>Therefore, considering the half-life of U235 in a
>cyclotron is in fact a valid engineering concern.
To which engineers??
>You don't want too much of it in any one place, or
>you increase your radioactive contamination due to
>fissioning U235, and decrease your product yield.
I know this gets mudddled up because hafl-life is a gorup
property and a large group of U-235 will engage in a chain
reaction, but you have to keep clear that the inducing of fission
by neutron bombardment is NOT a component of half-life. (Of
course, half-life is involved in the generation of the neutorns
to begin with).
>There is therefore no particular reason von Braun
>either would be unaware of that concern, or that it
>would be surprising for him to mention it, in an
>off-handed way in passing, in a public lecture,
>long after the basic science was declassified.
>
>Insisting that such an event _could not_ have
>occurred shows an ignorance both of history and of
>basic science.
>
>For what that's worth.
Not very much...
heekster
<andre...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>On Nov 20, 4:33�pm, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:40 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>>
>> >One of my main points being that once in the USA WvB would not have
>> >been allowed within a mile of any nuclear secrets.
>>
>> Since Von Braun worked on the American ICBM program before joining
>> NASA, I don't think that dog will hunt.
>>
>> Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
>> development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
>> rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
>> tests conducted by the United States.
>
>VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not even an IRBM,
>rather it was a battlefield weapon, with a range barely greater than
>that
>of the V-2.
>
I have no idea how I managed to type ICBM. VB was the director of the
Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville.
In 1958, the VB-led Army Ballistic Missile Agency proposed that
hydrazine be considered as an alternative to kerosene for first-stage
engines. Also recommended was an array of upper stages and engines:
large-thrust engines using space-storable (non-cryogenic) propellants,
hydrazine-fluorine, and *nuclear fission*; and small-thrust engines
using electric or solar power.
>Further, given the great secrecy over matters of nuclear technology,
>just because a guy worked on one small delivery system for such
>payloads, in no way indicates that said guy would be allowed any
>information about the payload, other than basic size and mass.
>
>Andre
VB was a rocket scientist, literally. Nukes are fairly simple
systems, compared to rockets. I have worked on both.
VB had a doctorate in physics.
Exactly what did you think was so "Secret", that it needed to be kept
from him, and why?
Do you actually believe that he could not figure it out on his own?
Besides, US nuclear security was a sieve until the 1970's, and even
afterwards, a hell of a lot of information got out, that shouldn't
have.
It was not right, but it did happen.
Ye Old One
<xant...@well.com> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
But he would have been a total fool if he had.
Some of the students there would have been physics majors who were
actually both knowledgeable and up to date on nuclear physics. They
would have torn him to shreds.
>
> > WvB would not have had anything to do with nuclear
> > matters once he started working on the military
> > rocket programme.
>
>That certainly would not have been the case in
>Germany,
It was the case in Germany.
>may well not have been the case in the US
>if he were working on ICBMs.
He was working on ICBMs but would not have been party to any of the
nuclear secrets, those were being VERY closely guarded.
>
> >> It's pretty much impossible to study under a
> >> professor and learn nothing about that
> >> professor's particular hobby horse subject.
>
> > True.
>
> >> It's thus unlikely that von Braun, as a member of
> >> the German scientific community, would have
> >> absolutely nothing, ever, to say either about
> >> uranium half lives, or about cyclotrons.
>
> > Why would he?
>
>We can't read his mind, nor make his decisions for
>him; personal whim, showing off, making a point in
>his lecture are a few of uncountable possibilities.
There was no mention of him being laughed down, ergo he could not have
been talking on the half live of uranium in a cyclotron. The whole
subject would have been totally meaningless.
>
>"Why would he" is a useless argument and a useless
>rebuttal.
It is a question. It was not an argument or a rebuttal. Though a
thoughtful answer would provide both if needed.
>
> >> Cyclotrons would have been useful research
> >> instruments, for example, in Germany's putative
> >> war-time atomic bomb research, so von Braun could
> >> have been called in to talk bomb program
> >> scientists and staff about, oh, say, missile
> >> throw weights versus atomic bomb design weights,
> >> or whatever.
>
> > Possible, but in reality it would have been the
> > other way round if there had been contact, which
> > there wasn't, they would have been telling him how
> > big a rocket they needed.
>
>Well, no. He could just as easily have been being
>consulted on the issue "how small a bomb do we have
>to build". Designing a new, bigger throw weight
>rocket is a non-trivial time consumer also (initial
>V2s had a horrific failure rate), and Germany was in
>a time crunch to get a weapon of mass destruction to
>prevent their homeland from being overrun.
It was easy to know the maximum delivery weight of any existing
missile for a given target range. At the time in question the main aim
was increased yield from the bombs not to reduce weight.
>
>Later, in the US, if he were working on ICBMs,
>exactly the same reasons for the bomb designers
>consulting him would have held sway.
Any consultation would have been restricted to size and weight. He
would not have had access to nuclear secrets either during his time
with the US Army or after as part of NASA.
>
> >>> Suzanne, as usual, is a willful idiot *and* a
> >>> shameless liar.
>
> >> Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but
> >> you've come nowhere close to exercising the due
> >> diligence needed to prove your case against her
> >> in this particular discussion.
>
> > Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>
>Not so far, IN THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION.
Rubbish, case proven a long time ago.
>
>Merely declaring a win is nowhere nearly so
>convincing as is winning.
She lost as soon as she gave the subject of the mythical lecture.
>
>You've got a long way to go to convince _me_, for
>example, because as a former nuclear weapons handler
>and maintainer, I got a rather excellent general
>education in all things "nuclear weapon".
Then you will understand that a lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A
cyclotron" would be very short:-
WvB: The half life of U235 is 703,800,000 years. It is the same at
anything other than relativistic speeds and we cannot produce those in
a cyclotron. The end.
>
>So far, most of the arguments against the
>possibility of WvB having made the statements
>Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
>quality of your "why would he" above -- people
>arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
Well, I would assume that you would apply a little common sense to the
evaluation of the evidence.
>
>To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
>statement, you have to give the widest latitude to
>reasons he _might_ have been able to make the
>statement.
>
>So far, that hasn't been the case at all.
Rubbish. Do you honestly believe that one of the leading rocket
engineers of his time, generally recognized by history as being second
only to Korolyov, would have lectured on "The Half Life of U235 In A
cyclotron"?
>
>Arguments that a leading respected scientist _could
>not have known_ some basic cyclotron science facts
>are garbage, for example.
>
>So far, most of the arguments against the
>possibility of WvB having made the statements
>Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
>quality of your "why would he" above -- people
>arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
The facts are that there is nothing whatsoever to lecture on "The Half
Life of U235 In A cyclotron". It would be a nonsense lecture ever to
the general public. To say it was a lecture given to university level
students who were learning real physics is just beyond belief.
>
>To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
>statement, you have to give the widest latitude to
>reasons why he _might_ have been able to make the
>statement.
>
>So far, that hasn't been the case at all. That kind
>of response has been dismissed out of hand,
>invalidly.
The concept of a lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron" is
what seems totally invalid.
>
>Arguments that a leading respected scientist _could
>not have known_ some basic cyclotron science facts
>are garbage, for example.
But anyone knowing even basic nuclear physics would not lecture on
"The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron".
>
> > One of my main points being that once in the USA
> > WvB would not have been allowed within a mile of
> > any nuclear secrets.
>
>What he learned doesn't much have to have been
>secrets, it's just basic science, known around the
>world before WW-II began, and also doesn't have to
>have been learned in the US; the information was
>there to learn while he was working in Germany.
When? Where?
And please explain what you think a lecture on "The Half Life of U235
In A cyclotron" could possibly contain.
>
>xanthian.
>
>Notice that I'm not arguing that Suzanne _did_
>hear any such thing from WvB under _any_
>circumstances. Suzanne is far past senile, and she
>has long ago suffered a severe disconnect from
>reality that affects everything she says.
Agreed.
--
Bob.
Ye Old One
Yes it will.
He would not have had clearance and did not need clearance for the
sort of work done on ICBMs. As their use for satellite launching
shows, they were just a delivery mechanism.
>
>Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
>development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
>rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
>tests conducted by the United States.
And for which neither he nor his team needed one jot of knowledge of
nuclear physics. The only needed to know the weight and size of the
warhead to be delivered and its intended targets.
--
Bob.
Ye Old One
enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>VB was a rocket scientist, literally. Nukes are fairly simple
>systems, compared to rockets. I have worked on both.
>
>VB had a doctorate in physics.
>
>Exactly what did you think was so "Secret", that it needed to be kept
>from him, and why?
The why is simple. Even after naturalization he was always considered
a possible security risk as, if you remember, many of his team had
gone to the Russians in 1945. Although legally an American citizen, he
and a lot of others were still considered "aliens" by many in power.
They were useful in their jobs, but you didn't give them an inch more
than necessary.
>
>Do you actually believe that he could not figure it out on his own?
Not relevant.
>
>Besides, US nuclear security was a sieve until the 1970's, and even
>afterwards, a hell of a lot of information got out, that shouldn't
>have.
Again, not relevant. We are not talking about him passing secrets but
rather the claim that he delivered a lecture on "The Half Life of U235
In A cyclotron".
>
>It was not right, but it did happen.
--
Bob.
Andre Lieven
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:46:51 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
> >On Nov 20, 4:33 pm, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:40 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>
> >> >Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>
> >> >One of my main points being that once in the USA WvB would not have
> >> >been allowed within a mile of any nuclear secrets.
>
> >> Since Von Braun worked on the American ICBM program before joining
> >> NASA, I don't think that dog will hunt.
>
> >> Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
> >> development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
> >> rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
> >> tests conducted by the United States.
>
> >VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not even an IRBM,
> >rather it was a battlefield weapon, with a range barely greater than
> >that of the V-2.
>
> I have no idea how I managed to type ICBM. VB was the director of the
> Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville.
Quite.
> In 1958, the VB-led Army Ballistic Missile Agency proposed that
> hydrazine be considered as an alternative to kerosene for first-stage
> engines. Also recommended was an array of upper stages and engines:
> large-thrust engines using space-storable (non-cryogenic) propellants,
> hydrazine-fluorine, and *nuclear fission*; and small-thrust engines
> using electric or solar power.
Yes, there were a lot of paper studies that went nowhere in getting
to any metal-cutting stage.
This continued once ABMA became Marshall SFC:
"Between 1960 and 1962, the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
designed rockets that could be used for various missions.
The C-1 was developed into the Saturn I, and the C-2 rocket was
dropped early in the design process in favor of the C-3, which was
intended to use two F-1 engines on its first stage, four J-2 engines
for its second stage, and an S-IV stage, using six RL-10 engines.
NASA planned to use the C-3 as part of the Earth Orbit
Rendezvous concept, with at least four or five launches needed for
a single mission, but MSFC was already planning an even bigger
rocket, the C-4, which would use four F-1 engines on its first
stage, an enlarged C-3 second stage, and the S-IVB, a stage with
a single J-2 engine, as its third stage. The C-4 would need only
two launches to carry out an Earth Orbit Rendezvous mission."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Ballistic_Missile_Agency
" In early 1958, NACA's "Stever Committee" included consultation
from the ABMA's large booster program,[3]headed by Wernher
von Braun.[3] Von Braun's Group was referred to as the
"Working Group on Vehicular Program." "
> >Further, given the great secrecy over matters of nuclear technology,
> >just because a guy worked on one small delivery system for such
> >payloads, in no way indicates that said guy would be allowed any
> >information about the payload, other than basic size and mass.
>
> >Andre
>
> VB was a rocket scientist, literally. Nukes are fairly simple
> systems, compared to rockets. I have worked on both.
Nukes may be simple, in principle. In execution, not so much.
> VB had a doctorate in physics.
>
> Exactly what did you think was so "Secret", that it needed to be kept
> from him, and why?
Because that is how classification works. VB had no "need to know".
Remember, this is the late 50s, just a couple of years after
Oppenheimer, who DID need to know, got run out of the nuclear
program, and Robert was never a German employee...
> Do you actually believe that he could not figure it out on his own?
If he did, I would expect that his career with AMBA, et al, would
have strongly sugested to him that he oughtn't talk about any of it
outside of cleared meetings.
> Besides, US nuclear security was a sieve until the 1970's, and even
> afterwards, a hell of a lot of information got out, that shouldn't
> have.
>
> It was not right, but it did happen.
Yet, not one bit of evidence has been offered up to suggest that VB
gave any such public talks on nuclear weapons or technologies.
Andre
Andre Lieven
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:33:02 -0600, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net>
And, just to make the point crystal clear, VB never worked on any
ICBMs or IRBMs. His work for the US Army was constrained by the
legislated limits that the Army had jurisdiction over only battlefield
missiles, such as the Redstone and it's successor Pershings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Ballistic_Missile_Agency
> >Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
> >development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
> >rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
> >tests conducted by the United States.
>
> And for which neither he nor his team needed one jot of knowledge of
> nuclear physics. The only needed to know the weight and size of the
> warhead to be delivered and its intended targets.
Exactly.
Andre
Hatunen
Being able to deliver a bomb is not the sameas knowing the
details of the bomb.
>Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
>development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
>rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
>tests conducted by the United States.
Do you really think the Redstone rocket people were privy to the
inner workings of the bombs they delivered?
I don't know for sure when the existence of the calutrons at Oak
Ridge were declassified. But if, for some strange reason vB felt
obliged to talk about them I would think he would have called
them "calutrons" and not "cyclotrons".
Come to think of it, did they make uranium bombs the whole time
after WW2, or did they go to plutonium bombs only after a while?
I think most of our ICBMs carried hydrogen bombs, and they use
plutonium bombs as their ignition.
Hatunen
>On Nov 20, 4:33 pm, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net> wrote:
>> Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
>> development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
>> rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
>> tests conducted by the United States.
>
>VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not even an IRBM,
>rather it was a battlefield weapon, with a range barely greater than
>that of the V-2.
America's first satellite, Explorer, was lauched into space 31
January 1958 by a modified Redstone rocket (yclept Jupiter-C).
That's a pretty good range.
>Further, given the great secrecy over matters of nuclear technology,
>just because a guy worked on one small delivery system for such
>payloads, in no way indicates that said guy would be allowed any
>information about the payload, other than basic size and mass.
Precisely.
Us old-timers remember the days after Sputnik as NASA fired
Vanguard rocket after Vanguard, watching each as it either blew
up on the launch pad or rose a few feet in the air smf exploded.
Comedian Bob Hope claimed they nicknamed the Vanguard "Civil
Service" because it wouldn't work and you couldn't fire it.
Finally, von Braun offered the modified Redstone and we got a
satellite into orbit.
Kent Paul Dolan
> On Nov 17, 2:02 pm, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>> Andre Lieven wrote:
>>> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylzc6hy
>>> The ONLY thing that this links to is your post.
>> If you think about it, that would be physically
>> impossible, as the posting would have to exist
>> somewhere in a news spool and have a URI before a
>> tinyURL pointer to it could be constructed, and
>> yet that pointer was already _in_ the post.
>> Of course, when I just checked that preview
>> tinyURL again, it points exactly where it was
>> supposed to point.
>> As I said earlier, you need to learn to use your
>> tools, not just let them mislead you into making
>> a public fool of yourself.
> <yawn>
So, rather than an apoiogy for lying to me nad the
group, that's your level of intellectual integrity
when presented proof that you were lying through
your teeth, and besides being a liar, being a
mindless incompetent fool in the process?
Do you have any question why you are held in such
deep contempt here and considered not worthy of
participating in civilized discussions?
You have no responses when you are humiliated but to
evade by waving around your invincibly ignorant
armament of "that's an argument fallacy" in response
to things for which you _have_ no valid response, so
that you don't have to think about them.
That puts you right at adman's level, an evasive,
compulsive, very public liar.
Do enjoy your hard earned reputation, I certainly
would not want it.
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> But I refuse to believe vB talked about it in this
> "class" Suzanne took.
"I refuse to believe" is an argument style every bit
as invalid when you use it as when any creationist
uses it to ignore the factual support for evolution.
> Single, or isolated, atoms don't have a half-life;
> half-life is a property of groups.
False, which makes the rest of your argument a waste
of time to have typed.
The half life of an isolated atom is well defined,
and is the middle
[probably the mean, since while the distribution
curve is unbounded on the right, the curve damps
out exponentially to the right; which should be
fast enough to keep the integral under the curve
finite, but I'm not going to pretend to
integrate the curve in my head]
of the distribution of times when it might decay.
The curve damps out because while the probability
for any time interval is the same if it still exists
at the beginning of that interval, the probability
for the interval is decreased by the probability
that it has already decayed and so does _not_ exist
at the beginning of the interval.
That is, decay is a statistical property, with a
probability distribution, but that distribution
applies every bit as much to one atom as it does
atom by atom to a mole of atoms.
If it did not, nuclear decay would be impossible,
because groups of atoms don't decay, only single
atoms do.
xanthian.
The difference with masses of U235 is that decay is
no longer only the spontaneous kind considered
above, but may also be induced by the decay products
of neighboring atoms, changing the half life of many
adjacent U235 atoms compared to the half life of one
isolated U235 atom..
Kent Paul Dolan
> VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not
> even an IRBM, rather it was a battlefield weapon,
> with a range barely greater than that of the V-2.
And yet again you entertain us with your adamant but
incorrect opinion, this time by a failed attempt to
divert the discussion.
One need not "work on an ICBM" to "work in the ICBM
program":
As Germany fell in 1945, Von Braun surrendered
to the American military. The arrangements that
he made would have him working again on rockets
-- this time for American military efforts --
while his Nazi peers were being tried and hung
in Nuremberg.
His work of the next 10 years culminated with
the 1953-54 birth of the ICBM. The terror and
death that he had transported across the English
Channel was now able to travel across
continents.
http://www.systemtoolbox.com/article.php?history_id=1
Von Braun worked on the American
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
program before joining NASA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
The development of the world's first practical
design for a ICBM, A9/10, intended for use in
bombing New York and other American cities, was
undertaken in Nazi Germany by the team of
Wernher von Braun under Projekt Amerika.
The ICBM A9/A10 rocket initially was intended to
be guided by radio, but was changed to be a
piloted craft after the failure of Operation
Elster.
The second stage of the A9/A10 rocket was tested
a few times in January and February 1945.
The progenitor of the A9/A10 was the German V-2
rocket, also designed by von Braun and widely
used at the end of World War II to bomb British
and Belgian cities.
All of these rockets used liquid propellants.
Following the war, von Braun and other leading
German scientists were secretly transferred to
the United States to work directly for the U.S.
Army through Operation Paperclip, developing the
IRBMs, ICBMs, and launchers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICBM
The progenitor of the ICBM was the German A9/10,
which was never developed but only proposed by
Wernher von Braun.
http://en.allexperts.com/e/i/in/intercontinental_ballistic_missile.htm
Werner von Braun's missile design team considered
themselves in competition with the developers of the
first US ICBM, the Atlas D, with the strong
implication that WvB and team thought they _were_
working on ICBM development.
Many engineers, including famed rocket designer
Wernher von Braun, worried that the Atlas'
design could not survive the intense aerodynamic
stresses placed upon it the early phases of
launch, so much so that von Braun's design team
derisively referred to the Atlas as a "blimp" or
their "inflated competition."
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/space/Atlas.htm
Was Werner von Braun directly involved in the ICBM
program? Why yes, he was. Was his interest improved
when smaller bombs were developed that could be
lofted with achievable rocket technology, just as I
discussed earlier? Why yes, it was.
From 1951 to 1954, the Atlas project was poorly
funded and had a low priority. However, in late
1953, the Atomic Energy Commission achieved a
breakthrough in nuclear weapons, making smaller
and lighter bombs available. In early 1954,
studies by the von Neumann Committee and the
RAND Corporation both recommended that the Air
Force pursue ICBMs. Project Atlas was given the
Air Force's top priority status in May 1954.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower elevated it to
the highest national priority in September 1955.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1955.html
The Google search
Werner.von.Braun ICBM
got 11,100 hits. This is enough of a sample to make
the point.
Once more, yammering without having your facts in
place has just let you prove yourself a fool before
the newsgroup readership.
What else is new?
You do this times beyond counting, and never learn
from your mistakes.
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>> Ye Old One wrote:
>>> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>>> Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but
>>>> you've come nowhere close to exercising the due
>>>> diligence needed to prove your case against her
>>>> in this particular discussion.
>>> Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>> Not so far, IN THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION.
> Rubbish, case proven a long time ago.
>> Merely declaring a win is nowhere nearly so
>> convincing as is winning.
> She lost as soon as she gave the subject of the
> mythical lecture.
I'm sorry? Suzanne up to now is NOT A PARTICIPANT in
this thread. It is not her against whom you must
make a case, but me and others telling you that your
opininos bear no resemblence to the facts of the
matter.
>> You've got a long way to go to convince _me_, for
>> example, because as a former nuclear weapons
>> handler and maintainer, I got a rather excellent
>> general education in all things "nuclear weapon".
> Then you will understand that a lecture on "The
> Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron" would be very
> short:-
Mentioning something in passing in a lecture is a
long way from giving a lecture on it. You are
arguing by extending the discussion's coverage
ridiculously far beyond its factual limits.
> WvB: The half life of U235 is 703,800,000 years.
> It is the same at anything other than relativistic
> speeds and we cannot produce those in a cyclotron.
> The end.
As explained by me in several other postings, that's
not the only way "half life of U235 in a cyclotron"
can be meaningfully discussed.
>> So far, most of the arguments against the
>> possibility of WvB having made the statements
>> Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
>> quality of your "why would he" above -- people
>> arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
> Well, I would assume that you would apply a little
> common sense to the evaluation of the evidence.
I have been, I wish you would start doing so. Your
mind is so poisoned against Suzanne, that you cannot
hold a sane discussion of anything on which she has
expressed an opinion. That's just shameful.
>> To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
>> statement, you have to give the widest latitude
>> to reasons he _might_ have been able to make the
>> statement.
>> So far, that hasn't been the case at all.
> Rubbish. Do you honestly believe that one of the
> leading rocket engineers of his time, generally
> recognized by history as being second only to
> Korolyov, would have lectured on "The Half Life of
> U235 In A cyclotron"?
That "do you honestly believe" is just more use by
you of intellectual dishonesty in a discussion. What
I may or may not _believe_ is of no interest in this
discussion. What you can or cannot _prove_ is.
You are the one claiming that was the subject of his
lecture, rather than merely a phrase spoken in his
lecture. Doing so is dishonest.
>> Arguments that a leading respected scientist
>> _could not have known_ some basic cyclotron
>> science facts are garbage, for example.
No response? Without one, the rest of your argument
is bankrupt.
> The facts are that there is nothing whatsoever to
> lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron".
> It would be a nonsense lecture ever to the general
> public. To say it was a lecture given to
> university level students who were learning real
> physics is just beyond belief.
Who has said that besides you?
> The concept of a lecture on "The Half Life of U235
> In A cyclotron" is what seems totally invalid.
Why? It is a perfectly valid engineering concern,
affecting all of worker safety, cyclotron useful
lifespan, and product yield.
> But anyone knowing even basic nuclear physics
> would not lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A
> cyclotron".
Apparently you are not someone knowing even basic
nuclear physics, then. Certainly you are not someone
knowing the engineering techniques to maximize
product yield rate over the lifespan of a cyclotron.
>>> One of my main points being that once in the USA
>>> WvB would not have been allowed within a mile of
>>> any nuclear secrets.
>> What he learned doesn't much have to have been
>> secrets, it's just basic science, known around
>> the world before WW-II began, and also doesn't
>> have to have been learned in the US; the
>> information was there to learn while he was
>> working in Germany.
> When? Where?
Einstein, for example, German born, came up with
E=MC^2, the basis for describing atomic decay
mechanisms, while working as a clerk in Switzerland.
It quickly became the darling of the international
physics community.
When was that? Oh, yes, 1905, 34 years before the
second world war, and significantly before the first
world war. That German researchers were interested
and participated in furthering that research during
that interval is well known. From the time Einstein
returned to Germany in 1914 until he fled Germany in
the run-up to WW-II, he was one of those German
scientists. There were thus decades of unclassified
research results available for perusing by anyone
who cared to remain scientifically literate in that
era. Surely that describes von Braun.
> And please explain what you think a lecture on
> "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron" could
> possibly contain.
Quite a bit of science and engineering techniques of
which you are not aware, but the "mention" on which
this discussion is focused was not a "lecture", you
are exaggerating dishonestly in an attempt to make
an invalid point.
Do keep trying, if your hatred of Suzanne won't let
you desist, but stopping to think first might serve
you better.
xanthian.
heekster
Yes, well, since you seem to have trouble with attributions, I'll give
you a hint. Take it up with Suzanne. That was her claim, not mine.
heekster
So you are unfamiliar with the A9/A10.
Andre Lieven
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:46:51 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
> >On Nov 20, 4:33 pm, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net> wrote:
> >> Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
> >> development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
> >> rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
> >> tests conducted by the United States.
>
> >VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not even an IRBM,
> >rather it was a battlefield weapon, with a range barely greater than
> >that of the V-2.
>
> America's first satellite, Explorer, was lauched into space 31
> January 1958 by a modified Redstone rocket (yclept Jupiter-C).
> That's a pretty good range.
Then, you are tragically UN-informed as to the difference between a
warhead carrying Redstone missile (One stage) and a Jupiter C (Where
the C stands for "composite"), which had 1) Two additional solid
fuelled
stages atop a stretched Redstone, and where 2) the SUB-orbital
payload
atop the third stage was about 80 pounds. Never mind the actual
orbital
4 stage Juno 1 rocket. There were, and still aren't any warheads of
such
SMALL size in any military's use for such delivery systems. When a
fourth stage was added atop the third, that burnt out stage and a 30
pound payload could be placed into Earth orbit.
Read these and learn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter-C
"The Jupiter-C was a type of sounding rocket used for three
sub-orbital spaceflights conducted in 1956 and 1957.
Each vehicle consisted of a modified Redstone ballistic missile
with two solid-propellant upper stages. The tanks of the Redstone
were lengthened by 8 ft (2.4 m) to provide additional propellant.
The instrument compartment was also smaller and lighter than
the Redstone's."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_I
"The Juno I was a satellite launch vehicle, derived from, and
commonly confused with, the Jupiter-C sounding rocket. It is
most well known for launching America's first satellite,
Explorer 1.
It consisted of a Jupiter-C rocket, with a fourth stage mounted
on top of the "tub" of the third stage. The fourth stage was fired
after the third stage burnout to boost the satellite to an orbital
velocity of 18,000 mph (8 km/s). The fourth stage would also
enter orbit itself."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-11_Redstone
"Redstone was capable of flights from 57.5 miles (92.5 km)
to 201 miles (323 km).
Redstone could be armed with either a 500 kilotonnes of TNT
(2.1 PJ) or a 3.5 megatons of TNT (15 PJ) thermonuclear warhead.
Payload capacity 6,305 pounds (2,860 kg)"
The difference between the two vehicles is that the Jupiter C had
three
stages, and it's payload was about 80 pounds, but without the Juno
1's
fourth stage, said payload could NOT be placed into orbit.
> >Further, given the great secrecy over matters of nuclear technology,
> >just because a guy worked on one small delivery system for such
> >payloads, in no way indicates that said guy would be allowed any
> >information about the payload, other than basic size and mass.
>
> Precisely.
>
> Us old-timers remember the days after Sputnik as NASA fired
> Vanguard rocket after Vanguard, watching each as it either blew
> up on the launch pad or rose a few feet in the air smf exploded.
Then, such old timers need to be checked for Alzheimer's:
The famous Vanguard launch failure happened on *one* occasion,
the launch failed attempt of Vanguard TV-3, on 6 Dec 1958.
The TV designation stood for Test Vehicle. TV-4, launched on 17
March, 1958, succeeded in orbiting the tiny Vanguard 1 satellite,
which remains the oldest satellite still in orbit, weighing 1.47
kilos.
Yes, that's one point four seven kilos.
However, by that time, the US already had the Explorer 1 satellite
in orbit.
Even the second Vanguard launch attempt (TV-3 BackUp) took
place 6 days after Explorer 1 went into orbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_(rocket)
> Comedian Bob Hope claimed they nicknamed the Vanguard "Civil
> Service" because it wouldn't work and you couldn't fire it.
It's a good thing that well informed people DON'T use lousy comics
as a source for citations...
> Finally, von Braun offered the modified Redstone and we got a
> satellite into orbit.
Wrong, VB made that offer hard on the heels of the orbiting of
Sputnik 1.
"Two months later, on October 4, 1957, the Soviets placed Sputnik
1 in orbit. Von Braun heard the news at a cocktail party,
accompanied by Medaris and the incoming Secretary of Defense,
Neil McElroy. He exploded in anger: “We knew they were going to
do it! Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the
shelf. For God’s sake, turn us loose and let us do something.
We can put up a satellite in 60 days, Mr. McElroy! Just give us
the green light and 60 days!” "
How America Chose Not to Beat Sputnik Into Space
BY T. A. HEPPENHEIMER
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/3/2004_3_44.shtml
The tasking of a Juno 1 to fire a satellite into orbit occured well
before
the famous singular Vanguard launch failure, and had nothing to do
with
it.
Andre
Andre Lieven
crapped:
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> > On Nov 17, 2:02 pm, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
> >> Andre Lieven wrote:
> >>> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>
> >>>>http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylzc6hy
>
> >>> The ONLY thing that this links to is your post.
>
> >> If you think about it, that would be physically
> >> impossible, as the posting would have to exist
> >> somewhere in a news spool and have a URI before a
> >> tinyURL pointer to it could be constructed, and
> >> yet that pointer was already _in_ the post.
>
> >> Of course, when I just checked that preview
> >> tinyURL again, it points exactly where it was
> >> supposed to point.
>
> >> As I said earlier, you need to learn to use your
> >> tools, not just let them mislead you into making
> >> a public fool of yourself.
>
> > <yawn>
>
> So, rather than an apoiogy for lying to me
Since I did NOT "lie", this *unsupported* claim is
the actual LIE...
> nad the
> group, that's your level of intellectual integrity
> when presented proof that you were lying through
> your teeth, and besides being a liar, being a
> mindless incompetent fool in the process?
<Massive Loon Projection>
> Do you have any question why you are held in such
> deep contempt here and considered not worthy of
> participating in civilized discussions?
<Massive Loon Projection>
> You have no responses when you are humiliated but to
> evade by waving around your invincibly ignorant
> armament of "that's an argument fallacy" in response
> to things for which you _have_ no valid response, so
> that you don't have to think about them.
<Massive Loon Projection>
> That puts you right at adman's level, an evasive,
> compulsive, very public liar.
<Massive Loon Projection>
> Do enjoy your hard earned reputation, I certainly
> would not want it.
"Ad Hominem Alone, the last refuge of the *whipped*
scoundrel."
Thank you for outing yourself so clearly.
PLONK.
Andre
Andre Lieven
Wernher von Braun worked on actual ICBM missiles.
On Nov 21, 7:47 am, Liar Idiot Dolan <xanth...@well.com> moroned:
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> > VB never worked on any ICBMs. The Redstone was not
> > even an IRBM, rather it was a battlefield weapon,
> > with a range barely greater than that of the V-2.
>
> And yet again you entertain us with your adamant but
> incorrect opinion, this time by a failed attempt to
> divert the discussion.
>
> One need not "work on an ICBM" to "work in the ICBM
> program":
>
> As Germany fell in 1945, Von Braun surrendered
> to the American military. The arrangements that
> he made would have him working again on rockets
> -- this time for American military efforts --
> while his Nazi peers were being tried and hung
> in Nuremberg.
>
> His work of the next 10 years culminated with
> the 1953-54 birth of the ICBM. The terror and
> death that he had transported across the English
> Channel was now able to travel across
> continents.
The error there is that "culmination" does NOT indicate any
link beyond a temporal one. One might as well claim that
Sergei Korolyov's work "culminated" in the US Atlas ICBM...
> http://www.systemtoolbox.com/article.php?history_id=1
>
> Von Braun worked on the American
> intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
> program before joining NASA
The one problem with Wikipedia is that it contains many
such techincal errors of fact, because the people who wrote
them didn't know any better.
Please post a list and citations describing any "ICBMs" that
VB is claimed to have worked on. Uh huh.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
>
> The development of the world's first practical
> design for a ICBM, A9/10, intended for use in
> bombing New York and other American cities, was
> undertaken in Nazi Germany by the team of
> Wernher von Braun under Projekt Amerika.
>
> The ICBM A9/A10 rocket initially was intended to
> be guided by radio, but was changed to be a
> piloted craft after the failure of Operation
> Elster.
>
> The second stage of the A9/A10 rocket was tested
> a few times in January and February 1945.
Since the second stage was a modified V-2, this means
little in terms of getting to any actual intercontinental rockets.
"The A9, second (upper) stage of IRBM A9/A10 rocket, was a
further development of the A4 rocket (as the prototype for the
A9 was the A4b). It was able to execute separate start and
flight also."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A10_(rocket)
> The progenitor of the A9/A10 was the German V-2
> rocket, also designed by von Braun and widely
> used at the end of World War II to bomb British
> and Belgian cities.
>
> All of these rockets used liquid propellants.
>
> Following the war, von Braun and other leading
> German scientists were secretly transferred to
> the United States to work directly for the U.S.
> Army through Operation Paperclip, developing the
> IRBMs, ICBMs, and launchers.
Once again, the same Wiki propblem, as the Paperclip
Germans never worked on any ICBMs. Further, the A9/A10
design was such a non starter that that Wiki article on VB
doesn't even bother to mention it.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICBM
>
> The progenitor of the ICBM was the German A9/10,
> which was never developed but only proposed by
> Wernher von Braun.
"Proposals" don't count as "worked to develop"... Duh.
> http://en.allexperts.com/e/i/in/intercontinental_ballistic_missile.htm
>
> Werner von Braun's missile design team considered
> themselves in competition with the developers of the
> first US ICBM, the Atlas D, with the strong
> implication that WvB and team thought they _were_
> working on ICBM development.
>
> Many engineers, including famed rocket designer
> Wernher von Braun, worried that the Atlas'
> design could not survive the intense aerodynamic
> stresses placed upon it the early phases of
> launch, so much so that von Braun's design team
> derisively referred to the Atlas as a "blimp" or
> their "inflated competition."
That quote does NOT say what you (Lyingly) claimed that
it did. It merely describes worries on the part of VB's team about
a part of the Atlas design, a part that, BTW, actually WORKED.
IOW, said "worries" were WRONG...
> http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/space/Atlas.htm
>
> Was Werner von Braun directly involved in the ICBM
> program? Why yes, he was
Wrong.
> Was his interest improved
> when smaller bombs were developed that could be
> lofted with achievable rocket technology, just as I
> discussed earlier? Why yes, it was.
Wrong.
> From 1951 to 1954, the Atlas project was poorly
> funded and had a low priority. However, in late
> 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission achieved a
> breakthrough in nuclear weapons, making smaller
> and lighter bombs available. In early 1954,
> studies by the von Neumann Committee and the
> RAND Corporation both recommended that the Air
> Force pursue ICBMs. Project Atlas was given the
> Air Force's top priority status in May 1954.
> President Dwight D. Eisenhower elevated it to
> the highest national priority in September 1955.
And notice that NOWHERE in that, is VB even MENTIONED...
> http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1955.html
>
> The Google search
>
> Werner.von.Braun ICBM
>
> got 11,100 hits. This is enough of a sample to make
> the point.
Yes, that 11,100 sites are WRONG. Hardly a record for
the Net...
> Once more, yammering without having your facts in
> place has just let you prove yourself a fool before
> the newsgroup readership.
<Massive Loon Projection>
> What else is new?
Not much, other than that you are a now PROVEN willfully
ignorant idiot and LIAR.
> You do this times beyond counting, and never learn
> from your mistakes.
<Massive Lying Loon Projection>
Please die last week, idiot.
Andre
heekster
So you essentially don't know anything about designing the
installation of a warhead on a missile. That is OK, it is a somewhat
eclectic field.
>>Besides, between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket
>>development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone
>>rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile
>>tests conducted by the United States.
>
>Do you really think the Redstone rocket people were privy to the
>inner workings of the bombs they delivered?
>
>I don't know for sure when the existence of the calutrons at Oak
>Ridge were declassified. But if, for some strange reason vB felt
>obliged to talk about them I would think he would have called
>them "calutrons" and not "cyclotrons".
>
>Come to think of it, did they make uranium bombs the whole time
>after WW2, or did they go to plutonium bombs only after a while?
IIRC, the decision was made to abandon the uranium gun design, and to
use Plutonium instead of Uranium, sometime in 1944. Little Boy was
the only uranium bomb, to my knowledge. There was also a plutonium gun
design planned, which was also abandoned. Los Alamos had built some
60 or so Fat Man style bombs by 1946, but only had enough fissile
plutonium cores for about 13 bombs. Fissile material extraction was
the most expensive part of the bomb program, and production was
curtailed within a month or so of the Japanese signing the document of
surrender.
>I think most of our ICBMs carried hydrogen bombs, and they use
>plutonium bombs as their ignition.
It is a bit more involved than that. Thermonuclear devices come in
several different designs.
All deployed US ICBMs carried thermonuclear warheads. You have to
remember that the Atlas did not come on line, until 1959, and Titan in
1961. The warhead designs evolved from the original bomb designs. See
the wikipedia link below.
The neutron bomb also happens to be a small H-bomb. If you were
familiar with the construction of an H-bomb, this would make sense.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Fusion/Fusion4.shtml
This article is fairly accurate. It also has some info on the
multiple stage thermonuclear devices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design
I just realized that all the engineers and physicists that I knew that
worked on underground testing in the US southwest, are now dead, and
they all died of various cancers. I had not worked with any of them
since the late 1980s, but this is a sobering thought.
I worked on Peacekeeper in Minuteman Silo program, around 1983, and I
had friends who worked on SICBM, and my Peacekeeper lead engineer had
worked on Minuteman in the early 60s. He had great stories about
attempting to deploy the Minuteman during the Cuban missile crisis,
and what was referred to as, "survivability testing".
Check out this Turkish page:
http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/hydrogenbomb.htm
Mike Painter
>
> Mentioning something in passing in a lecture is a
> long way from giving a lecture on it. You are
> arguing by extending the discussion's coverage
> ridiculously far beyond its factual limits.
The reason this thread is here is because Suzanne insists that the lecture
was on the half life of U235 in a cyclotron.
It was not mentioned in passing and ther is she does not even say that
rockets were mentrioned in passsing.
<snip>
>
>> Well, I would assume that you would apply a little
>> common sense to the evaluation of the evidence.
>
> I have been, I wish you would start doing so. Your
> mind is so poisoned against Suzanne, that you cannot
> hold a sane discussion of anything on which she has
> expressed an opinion. That's just shameful.
The evidence presented supports the idea that no such lecture happened.
If he was there he probably did what he did on all other such talks. Discuss
rockets and try to recruit.
If you examine the evidence concerning Suzanne and her claims you will find
that she rarely expresses opinion. What she says, according to her is
gospel truth.
I've seen no exceptions to this since she first told me that the word
"inane" does not exist and that I meant to say "insane".
>
<snip>
>
> That "do you honestly believe" is just more use by
> you of intellectual dishonesty in a discussion. What
> I may or may not _believe_ is of no interest in this
> discussion. What you can or cannot _prove_ is.
>
> You are the one claiming that was the subject of his
> lecture, rather than merely a phrase spoken in his
> lecture. Doing so is dishonest.
He is NOT the one making the claim. Suzanne is the one who makes the claim.
She goes to great (and contradictory detail) explaining the event and what
the topic was
<snip>
>
> Quite a bit of science and engineering techniques of
> which you are not aware, but the "mention" on which
> this discussion is focused was not a "lecture", you
> are exaggerating dishonestly in an attempt to make
> an invalid point.
It would appear that you have not followed the thread that prompted this
one.
According to Suzanne it was a lecture, or class, or a class with only one
session, or a class that needed more space for that particular session.
The subject was as I have stated above.
Ye Old One
<md.pa...@sbcglobal.net> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> >
>> Mentioning something in passing in a lecture is a
>> long way from giving a lecture on it. You are
>> arguing by extending the discussion's coverage
>> ridiculously far beyond its factual limits.
>
>The reason this thread is here is because Suzanne insists that the lecture
>was on the half life of U235 in a cyclotron.
>It was not mentioned in passing and ther is she does not even say that
>rockets were mentrioned in passsing.
In fact she specifically stated he spoke very little about rockets.
Thanks for the input.
--
Bob.
Ye Old One
<xant...@well.com> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>Ye Old One wrote:
> > Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> >> Ye Old One wrote:
> >>> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>
> >>>> Well, yes, she is, in the general case, but
> >>>> you've come nowhere close to exercising the due
> >>>> diligence needed to prove your case against her
> >>>> in this particular discussion.
>
> >>> Rubbish, case proven long ago.
>
> >> Not so far, IN THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION.
>
> > Rubbish, case proven a long time ago.
>
> >> Merely declaring a win is nowhere nearly so
> >> convincing as is winning.
>
> > She lost as soon as she gave the subject of the
> > mythical lecture.
>
>I'm sorry? Suzanne up to now is NOT A PARTICIPANT in
>this thread. It is not her against whom you must
>make a case, but me and others telling you that your
>opininos bear no resemblence to the facts of the
>matter.
Since my opinions are based on the facts...
>
> >> You've got a long way to go to convince _me_, for
> >> example, because as a former nuclear weapons
> >> handler and maintainer, I got a rather excellent
> >> general education in all things "nuclear weapon".
>
> > Then you will understand that a lecture on "The
> > Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron" would be very
> > short:-
>
>Mentioning something in passing in a lecture is a
>long way from giving a lecture on it.
I agree.
>You are
>arguing by extending the discussion's coverage
>ridiculously far beyond its factual limits.
Nope. Her claim was that he lecture, specifically, on "The Half Life
of U235 In A cyclotron". She did not claim, at any time, that he was
there to lecture on any other subject.
>
> > WvB: The half life of U235 is 703,800,000 years.
> > It is the same at anything other than relativistic
> > speeds and we cannot produce those in a cyclotron.
> > The end.
>
>As explained by me in several other postings, that's
>not the only way "half life of U235 in a cyclotron"
>can be meaningfully discussed.
Then how could it be discussed?
>
> >> So far, most of the arguments against the
> >> possibility of WvB having made the statements
> >> Suzanne recalls hearing have been of the null
> >> quality of your "why would he" above -- people
> >> arguing from gut feelings rather than from facts.
>
> > Well, I would assume that you would apply a little
> > common sense to the evaluation of the evidence.
>
>I have been, I wish you would start doing so.
I have done, from the start.
>Your
>mind is so poisoned against Suzanne,
No. It is against the lies she spouts and the ignorance she shows.
>that you cannot
>hold a sane discussion of anything on which she has
>expressed an opinion. That's just shameful.
What is? To counter and/or expose he lies and stupidity? In what way
is that shameful?
>
> >> To disprove that he _could_ have made such a
> >> statement, you have to give the widest latitude
> >> to reasons he _might_ have been able to make the
> >> statement.
>
> >> So far, that hasn't been the case at all.
>
> > Rubbish. Do you honestly believe that one of the
> > leading rocket engineers of his time, generally
> > recognized by history as being second only to
> > Korolyov, would have lectured on "The Half Life of
> > U235 In A cyclotron"?
>
>That "do you honestly believe" is just more use by
>you of intellectual dishonesty in a discussion.
No, it is a question to you. Do you have an answer?
>What
>I may or may not _believe_ is of no interest in this
>discussion. What you can or cannot _prove_ is.
>
>You are the one claiming that was the subject of his
>lecture, rather than merely a phrase spoken in his
>lecture. Doing so is dishonest.
Wrong. She is the once claiming that.
>
> >> Arguments that a leading respected scientist
> >> _could not have known_ some basic cyclotron
> >> science facts are garbage, for example.
>
>No response?
Ah! Selective reading. Did you skip over the bit below?
>Without one, the rest of your argument
>is bankrupt.
>
> > The facts are that there is nothing whatsoever to
> > lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron".
> > It would be a nonsense lecture even to the general
> > public. To say it was a lecture given to
> > university level students who were learning real
> > physics is just beyond belief.
>
>Who has said that besides you?
It is becoming clear that you have not read the thread.
>
> > The concept of a lecture on "The Half Life of U235
> > In A cyclotron" is what seems totally invalid.
>
>Why? It is a perfectly valid engineering concern,
>affecting all of worker safety, cyclotron useful
>lifespan, and product yield.
Not it is not - it is total nonsense.
>
> > But anyone knowing even basic nuclear physics
> > would not lecture on "The Half Life of U235 In A
> > cyclotron".
>
>Apparently you are not someone knowing even basic
>nuclear physics, then.
Since I've written on the subject, lectured on the subject and edited
books on the subject, yes I do know more than a lot of people on the
subject.
> Certainly you are not someone
>knowing the engineering techniques to maximize
>product yield rate over the lifespan of a cyclotron.
WTF are you talking about? What "product yield"?
>
> >>> One of my main points being that once in the USA
> >>> WvB would not have been allowed within a mile of
> >>> any nuclear secrets.
>
> >> What he learned doesn't much have to have been
> >> secrets, it's just basic science, known around
> >> the world before WW-II began, and also doesn't
> >> have to have been learned in the US; the
> >> information was there to learn while he was
> >> working in Germany.
>
> > When? Where?
>
>Einstein, for example, German born, came up with
>E=MC^2, the basis for describing atomic decay
>mechanisms, while working as a clerk in Switzerland.
>It quickly became the darling of the international
>physics community.
So what? What has that got to do with his not being involved in
nuclear research in either Germany or the USA?
>
>When was that? Oh, yes, 1905, 34 years before the
>second world war, and significantly before the first
>world war. That German researchers were interested
>and participated in furthering that research during
>that interval is well known. From the time Einstein
>returned to Germany in 1914 until he fled Germany in
>the run-up to WW-II, he was one of those German
>scientists. There were thus decades of unclassified
>research results available for perusing by anyone
>who cared to remain scientifically literate in that
>era. Surely that describes von Braun.
Ah! You are not aware of how secret the Germans kept anything that
could possibly be of military use? Are you aware that his university
thesis was kept classified by the army, and was not published until
1960? One of the reasons so many scientist left Germany in the
inter-war years was because they were not allowed to talk outside
their own small group.
>
> > And please explain what you think a lecture on
> > "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron" could
> > possibly contain.
>
>Quite a bit of science and engineering techniques of
>which you are not aware, but the "mention" on which
>this discussion is focused was not a "lecture",
Well, incorrectly she keeps claiming it was a class, but we have
worked out that it was a one-off lecture (if indeed it did take place)
and she has, from the start, claimed that the subject of the lecture
was "The Half Life of U235 In A cyclotron".
> you
>are exaggerating dishonestly in an attempt to make
>an invalid point.
I formally request an apology from you on that. I have in no way
either exaggerated or in any way been dishonest about this subject.
>
>Do keep trying, if your hatred of Suzanne won't let
>you desist, but stopping to think first might serve
>you better.
I think that you should first go back and read the bloody thread. You
have clearly missed most of her harpic claims, and ignored the many
people that have tried to deal with her lies.
>
>xanthian.
--
Bob.
You have not been charged for this lesson - learn from it rather than
continuing to make a fool of yourself.
Ye Old One
That was a project that never really got off the ground before the war
was over. Very prototype versions of the A9 (with V2 engines rather
than the larger ones that were still on the drawing boards) may have
flown, but there are some doubts on that. Certainly the A10 was never
more than a sketch.
Even if it had been built it would have only been able to reach New
York if launched from land the Germans no longer held.
>>
Only the A11 could have been classed as a true ICBM, and that
certainly was no more than a pipe-dream.
--
Bob.
Did you know that 1 in 4 people make up a quarter of the world's
population?
heekster
You are confused. There was an A9, and an A9/A10; they are not the
same.
There was also an A4b/A10.
See the link below.
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/a/a9a10com.gif
What you know as the V2, VB called the A4.
The fact that the war prevented production does not negate the fact
that VB was working on ICBM type missilies, even if for no other
purpose than as an intermediate exercise to keep his dream of space
travel going.
>
>Even if it had been built it would have only been able to reach New
>York if launched from land the Germans no longer held.
That is irrelevant to the fact that VB worked on it. It is that fact
which negates the claim,"And, just to make the point crystal clear, VB
never worked on any ICBMs or IRBMs."
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a10.htm
>
>Only the A11 could have been classed as a true ICBM, and that
>certainly was no more than a pipe-dream.
One true scotsman, Bob?
heekster
VB's designs were cumulative.
The A12 combined previousl designs.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a10a11.htm
Hatunen
<xant...@well.com> wrote:
>Hatunen wrote:
>
> > But I refuse to believe vB talked about it in this
> > "class" Suzanne took.
>
>"I refuse to believe" is an argument style every bit
>as invalid when you use it as when any creationist
>uses it to ignore the factual support for evolution.
It is obviously teh expression of a personal opinion.
> > Single, or isolated, atoms don't have a half-life;
> > half-life is a property of groups.
>
>False, which makes the rest of your argument a waste
>of time to have typed.
>
>The half life of an isolated atom is well defined,
>and is the middle
>
> [probably the mean, since while the distribution
> curve is unbounded on the right, the curve damps
> out exponentially to the right; which should be
> fast enough to keep the integral under the curve
> finite, but I'm not going to pretend to
> integrate the curve in my head]
You failed to proved a cite for the source.
>
>of the distribution of times when it might decay.
Precisely. The individual atom does not have a half life because
a half-life is the period it takes for a given mass of an element
to decay to half it's mass. A single atom can never decay to half
its mass.
>The curve damps out because while the probability
>for any time interval is the same if it still exists
>at the beginning of that interval, the probability
>for the interval is decreased by the probability
>that it has already decayed and so does _not_ exist
>at the beginning of the interval.
>
>That is, decay is a statistical property, with a
>probability distribution, but that distribution
>applies every bit as much to one atom as it does
>atom by atom to a mole of atoms.
Of course it's a statistical property. That's why a large number
of atoms of an element has a half life; it's a collective
property caused by the statistical decay of a large number of
atoms. But a single atom either is or isn't, having decayed to
something else, and the when of the decay is unpredictable;
that's why decay can be used to make a true random device.
>If it did not, nuclear decay would be impossible,
>because groups of atoms don't decay, only single
>atoms do.
Precisely. But half-life is a property of a group of atoms.
>The difference with masses of U235 is that decay is
>no longer only the spontaneous kind considered
>above, but may also be induced by the decay products
>of neighboring atoms, changing the half life of many
>adjacent U235 atoms compared to the half life of one
>isolated U235 atom..
Again, half-life is a property of a large group of isotopic atoms
of a single element. If the nature of the ambiance of the isotope
is changed so s to cause induced decay it is not considered to be
a change in the half-life of the first isotope.
Similarly, the number of atoms of an isotope in a critical mass
may be be almost instanteously reduced to near zero, but this
does not mean the half life of the isotope is now zero.
Ye Old One
No, I'm not.
> There was an A9,
Yes, and it is possible (thought there is disagreement) that the shell
of the A9 was launched a few times. However, the motors needed for the
A9 were never finished, as a result the one test firing that is known
to have taken place, a ground locked test of the fuel delivery system,
used a V2 engine.
> and an A9/A10; they are not the
>same.
Half right. The A8 was a single stage missile. Removing its fins and
mounting it on top of the A10 would have, if the design of the A10 had
been finished, produced a two stage launch system.
>There was also an A4b/A10.
That was just a design idea, it didn't even really got on to the
drawing board.
>See the link below.
>http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/a/a9a10com.gif
>
>What you know as the V2, VB called the A4.
Granny and egg sucking spring to mind.
>
>The fact that the war prevented production does not negate the fact
>that VB was working on ICBM type missilies,
No, even those would not have qualified as ICBMs
> even if for no other
>purpose than as an intermediate exercise to keep his dream of space
>travel going.
>>
>>Even if it had been built it would have only been able to reach New
>>York if launched from land the Germans no longer held.
>
>That is irrelevant to the fact that VB worked on it. It is that fact
>which negates the claim,"And, just to make the point crystal clear, VB
>never worked on any ICBMs or IRBMs."
I think that, at a stretch, the IRBM could just be accepted - but only
if you project his work forward by several years that he did not
actually have.
However, in the USA, No, he and his team did not work on either. Until
he moved to NASA he would not even have had the data on the work
carried out by teams working on longer range missiles.
>http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a10.htm
>>
>>Only the A11 could have been classed as a true ICBM, and that
>>certainly was no more than a pipe-dream.
>One true scotsman, Bob?
No, definitions.
ICBM > 3,500 miles
IRBM 1,865-3,420 miles
MRBM 650-1,864 miles
SRBM < 650 miles
Ye Old One
But they were not designs, anything beyond the A9 was just a
pipedream.
--
Bob.
Andre Lieven
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:15:25 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
> <andrelie...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >To the SSH folks: I have a loon here who continues to INSIST that
> >Wernher von Braun worked on actual ICBM missiles.
>
> have enough of them of our own fracking up the place.
I wanted to do so, in the hope that the ssh participation could
provide the evidence/argument that would nail this isue.
It's not like I did this with a CT type...
Andre
Pat Flannery
> I wanted to do so, in the hope that the ssh participation could
> provide the evidence/argument that would nail this isue.
>
> It's not like I did this with a CT type...
If the writer means did WvB work on any American ICBM designs, not that
I'm aware of...which is kind of surprising when you think about it, but
he was working for the Army, and it was decided that the Army's missiles
were not going to include ICBMs, so his missile work ended with the
Jupiter IRBM.
But if the writer is going to include all ICBMs, then he did indeed work
on the A9/A10, and that was a serious ICBM proposal that got to the
design if not construction phase.
As to whether it would have worked or not is a very open question, but
the Peenemunde team did figure out things like the interior structure of
the A10 and two different ways to make its engine.
Pat
Andre Lieven
The point that seems to me to rule that concept out is that, no post
war
ICBM project used a design even remotely similar to the A9/A10.
To suggest that doing any concept work on the A9/A10 translates to
any specific expertise with 1950s and/or 1960s ICBMs would be similar
to a suggestion that a Concorde engineer's work counts as working on
777s....
Andre
Garamond Lethe
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:22:13 -0700, Kent Paul Dolan
><xant...@well.com> wrote:
>
>>Hatunen wrote:
>>
>> > But I refuse to believe vB talked about it in this
>> > "class" Suzanne took.
>>
>>"I refuse to believe" is an argument style every bit
>>as invalid when you use it as when any creationist
>>uses it to ignore the factual support for evolution.
>
> It is obviously teh expression of a personal opinion.
>
>> > Single, or isolated, atoms don't have a half-life;
>> > half-life is a property of groups.
>>
>>False, which makes the rest of your argument a waste
>>of time to have typed.
>>
>>The half life of an isolated atom is well defined,
>>and is the middle
>>
>> [probably the mean, since while the distribution
>> curve is unbounded on the right, the curve damps
>> out exponentially to the right; which should be
>> fast enough to keep the integral under the curve
>> finite, but I'm not going to pretend to
>> integrate the curve in my head]
>
> You failed to proved a cite for the source.
I think that was intended as an aside by KPD, not a quote.
>>
>>of the distribution of times when it might decay.
>
> Precisely. The individual atom does not have a half life because
> a half-life is the period it takes for a given mass of an element
> to decay to half it's mass.
I think I know what you meant and it wasn't what you wrote.
Mass has nothing to do with half-life wrt radioactive decay.
> A single atom can never decay to half
> its mass.
This is a reasonably good definition:
<q>
Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time when
the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half
the original number. For example, one can start with a single radioactive atom,
wait its half-life, and measure whether or not it decays in that period of
time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. But if this experiment is
repeated again and again, it will be seen that it decays within the half life
50% of the time.
</q>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
<snip>
Hatunen
wrote:
The statement at issue, if I remember correctly, was on the lines
of "von Braun didn't work on ICBMs". So could one say that von
Braun worked on A9-A11?
Pat Flannery
>
> The point that seems to me to rule that concept out is that, no post
> war
> ICBM project used a design even remotely similar to the A9/A10.
The Soviets considered building something along those lines, and
actually started work on a modified version of Sanger's Antipodal
Bomber: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/kelomber.htm
Before deciding purely ballistic was the way to go.
Then there was Atlas in its original five-engined MX-1593 form:
http://www.spaceline.org/rocketsum/atlas-program.html
"When the MX-1593 contract was issued, Convair already had available for
the U.S. Air Force detailed ballistic missile design proposals that had
been refined in-house following the expiration of the MX-774. The
company offered design proposals for both pure ballistic and
semi-ballistic concepts.
In the pure ballistic approach, the missile would fly a ballistic
pattern to its target. In the semi-ballistic approach, the missile would
be launched in a ballistic pattern, but would glide toward its target
using wings.
A firm decision was made by the U.S. Air Force to press ahead with
Convair's pure ballistic missile warhead delivery system in September,
1951. It was decided that the semi-ballistic version would be too easy
to intercept. Even though a pure ballistic guidance system had yet to be
developed, the semi-ballistic approach was scrapped."
When Atlas was first designed, one of the proposals was to make the
warhead section into a hypersonic glider, although it used airbrakes
rather than fins or wings for steering, unlike the A9.
The idea was dropped in favor of a ballistic RV.
Later the Air Force got around to actually testing the hypersonic glider
concept; launched on a Atlas, no less:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/boohicle.htm
Pat
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:22:59 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:38:27 -0600, heekster <heek...@ifiwxtc.net>
>>enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
>>>So you are unfamiliar with the A9/A10.
>>
>>That was a project that never really got off the ground before the war
>>was over. Very prototype versions of the A9 (with V2 engines rather
>>than the larger ones that were still on the drawing boards) may have
>>flown, but there are some doubts on that. Certainly the A10 was never
>>more than a sketch.
>>
>>Even if it had been built it would have only been able to reach New
>>York if launched from land the Germans no longer held.
>>>>
>>
>>Only the A11 could have been classed as a true ICBM, and that
>>certainly was no more than a pipe-dream.
>
>The statement at issue, if I remember correctly, was on the lines
>of "von Braun didn't work on ICBMs". So could one say that von
>Braun worked on A9-A11?
A9 was not an ICBM, beyond conceptual sketches he did nothing on
other, bigger, rockets until the Saturn 4/5 which were not ICBMs.
--
Bob.
If someone annoys you, remember that it takes 42 muscles to frown -
but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the
head.
heekster
Apples and oranges.
Concorde was British-French SST.
777 is Boeing commercial subsonic transport.
The analogy is invalid on oh, so many levels.
heekster
Really?
From Wikipedia:
The A4b in reality was a two stage A10/A9 rocket. After funding for
the A-9 project was altogether halted in October 1942, Wernher von
Braun proposed the winged "A-4 Bastard" on October 10, 1944, and
serious A-4b development and then production was started.
See "Peenemuende", by Walter Dornberger, Moewig, Berlin 1985.
My copy is in German. I don't know if there is an English translation
available.
Adoption of the A4b designation disguised that this missile was an
entirely new project and permitted funding to be diverted from the A4
rocket.
See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem�nde and the Coming of the
Ballistic Missile Era", by Michael Neufeld, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard University Press 1996
The A-4b is known to have been launched eastwards on the night of 16
March 1945 from a rocket sled near Rudisleben at the Polte II
underground complex. One eyewitness account of this launch held in
East German Arnstadt archives came to light with the reunification of
Germany in 1989, but these records quickly became classified following
pressure from the US Government.
Three other accounts of the A-4b rocket sled device survive the war
from an inmate of the Jonsthal Concentration camp and two from former
German V-2 engineers.
Accounts suggest a number were fired at the urals in March 1945 before
Allies of the 4th Armoured Division and 89th Infantry Division reached
and liberated the Ohrdruf complex on 11 April 1945, to find that camp
inmates had been locked in bunk rooms and incinerated.
That wasn't how they were defined in the 1940s, was it? You are
applying late 20th century definitions to early 20th century
technology. The terms hadn't been coined yet, and the definitions
obviously did not yet exist. Be that as it may, Projekt Amerika was
for all intents and purposes, an ICBM, to use the late definition.
The A-4b is known to have been launched eastwards on the night of 16
March 1945 from a rocket sled near Rudisleben at the Polte II
underground complex. One eyewitness account of this launch held in
East German Arnstadt archives came to light with the reunification of
Germany in 1989, but these records quickly became classified following
pressure from the US Government. Three other accounts of the A-4b
rocket sled device survive the war from an inmate of the Jonsthal
Concentration camp and two from former German V-2 engineers. Accounts
suggest a number were fired at the urals in March 1945 before Allies
of the 4th Armoured Division and 89th Infantry Division reached and
liberated the Ohrdruf complex on 11 April 1945, to find that camp
inmates had been locked in bunk rooms and incinerated.
Andre Lieven
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:23:24 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
In a word, bullshit. The differences between those two planes are
similar to the differences between the A9/A10 and any actually
built ICBMs of the 50s and 60s.
Just the gross difference in the staging procedure of an A9/A10
and, say, a Titan 1/2 makes that point abundently clear.
Andre
Andre Lieven
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:17:21 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
> <andrelie...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >> ....Did you *have* to bring him here, Andre? It's not as if we don't
> >> have enough of them of our own fracking up the place.
>
> >I wanted to do so, in the hope that the ssh participation could
> >provide the evidence/argument that would nail this isue.
>
> totally fracking honest with me now: has this *ever* worked? Have we
> ever converted any of the whackos and CT nutters?
The thing is that the person whose views I had hoped to shift by
means of more evidence from well informed people *isn't* a whacko
or CT nutter. Thus, I cannot accept the analogy.
It does happen that otherwise reasonable people can, and do, often
enough, get the wrong idea because of all sorts of things, like "This
is how I remember it", and they *can* be moved towards the actual
facts, *if* a sufficient amount of evidence that shows that the facts
do not line up with what they recall.
> I'm serious, sir. Name. Me. One.
I pay so little attention to any group's actual nutters, that even if
one did rejoin the sane, it is not likely that I would see it.
Andre
Andre Lieven
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:54:30 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
> >enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:22:59 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
Really.
> From Wikipedia:
> The A4b in reality was a two stage A10/A9 rocket. After funding for
> the A-9 project was altogether halted in October 1942, Wernher von
> Braun proposed the winged "A-4 Bastard" on October 10, 1944, and
> serious A-4b development and then production was started.
And, this is one of those times when the popularly edited Wikipedia
is simply *wrong*.
http://www.project1947.com/gfb/a-9.htm
"The A9 was a winged version of the Peenemünde-designed A4 (V-2)
missile. The V-2 would fly a simple ballistic trajectory after its
fuel
was expended, essentially like a giant artillery shell, falling on a
target
some 200 miles away at about three times the speed of sound (2,000
mph). Although this tremendous speed added greatly to the
destructive power of the missile, there was another way it could be
used."
The picture of an A4b on the top of that page shows clearly that
the key difference between the A4b and the V2 ( aka A4 ) is that
the A4b has a pair of wings on it.
Also:
"Development was suspended around 1941, but several V-2s were
hastily modified in late 1944 to approximately the A9 configuration
under the designation A4b. (Loss of the V-2 launch sites in France
and the Low Countries after the D-Day invasion made it necessary
to consider ways to continue V-2 attacks on England from sites in
Germany). The first A4b launch on January 8, 1945 was
unsuccessful, but a second, on January 25, went better. The
missile was fired vertically and reached an altitude of 50 miles
and a speed of about Mach 4 -- 2,700 mph -- becoming the world's
first winged supersonic guided missile. One of the wings failed on
the descent and the glide portion of the trajectory was not
accomplished. Appatently no further launches of the A4b were
conducted."
> See "Peenemuende", by Walter Dornberger, Moewig, Berlin 1985.
> My copy is in German. I don't know if there is an English translation
> available.
>
> Adoption of the A4b designation disguised that this missile was an
> entirely new project and permitted funding to be diverted from the A4
> rocket.
>
> See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the
Well, for the ICBM prhase to meaningful, the missile would have to
reach
*another continent*. That, after all, if what the "C" in "ICBM" stands
for.
And, NO rocket that VB actually did any meaningful work on ever could
meet that standard. Thus, VB never worked on an ICBM. QED.
> The A-4b is known to have been launched eastwards on the night of 16
> March 1945 from a rocket sled near Rudisleben at the Polte II
> underground complex. One eyewitness account of this launch held in
> East German Arnstadt archives came to light with the reunification of
> Germany in 1989, but these records quickly became classified following
> pressure from the US Government. Three other accounts of the A-4b
> rocket sled device survive the war from an inmate of the Jonsthal
> Concentration camp and two from former German V-2 engineers. Accounts
> suggest a number were fired at the urals in March 1945 before Allies
> of the 4th Armoured Division and 89th Infantry Division reached and
> liberated the Ohrdruf complex on 11 April 1945, to find that camp
> inmates had been locked in bunk rooms and incinerated.
Posting this twice in one post doesn't make it any more accurate.
Bottom line; As I have shown, the A4b was nowhere near being an ICBM.
Heck, it doesn't even qualify as an IRBM. The diagram on the bottom of
the page I cited shows that the best range performance expected from a
winger V2 (Which is what the A4b was.) was 600 miles. To qualify as an
IRBM, the range had to be 1,500 miles.
Give it up. VB. ICBMs. No connection at all.
Andre
heekster
You are comparing aircraft to multistage missiles.
Having worked on ICBMs, the 777, and the British Airways Concorde,
I'm interested in what you think you know about them.
So produce these differences, and show similarity.
Ye Old One
Yes, really.
>
>From Wikipedia:
>The A4b in reality was a two stage A10/A9 rocket.
No it was not, the A4b used the shell of the V2, but the added
structure to support the wings reduced the fuel load by 20%. It would
have had a range a little higher than the V1 but there would have been
supersonic stability problems which they may or may not have been able
to iron out.
> After funding for
>the A-9 project was altogether halted in October 1942, Wernher von
>Braun proposed the winged "A-4 Bastard" on October 10, 1944, and
>serious A-4b development and then production was started.
The A4b never went into production. It required more space to launch
it, guidance was never perfected and the demand was for more V2s.
>
>See "Peenemuende", by Walter Dornberger, Moewig, Berlin 1985.
>My copy is in German. I don't know if there is an English translation
>available.
>
>Adoption of the A4b designation disguised that this missile was an
>entirely new project and permitted funding to be diverted from the A4
>rocket.
>
>See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the
>Ballistic Missile Era", by Michael Neufeld, Cambridge, Massachusetts
>Harvard University Press 1996
>
>
>The A-4b is known to have been launched eastwards on the night of 16
>March 1945 from a rocket sled near Rudisleben at the Polte II
>underground complex. One eyewitness account of this launch held in
>East German Arnstadt archives came to light with the reunification of
>Germany in 1989, but these records quickly became classified following
>pressure from the US Government.
>
>Three other accounts of the A-4b rocket sled device survive the war
>from an inmate of the Jonsthal Concentration camp and two from former
>German V-2 engineers.
Many consider the reports rather exaggerated.
It is how they are defined now, that is the only definition to use.
> You are
>applying late 20th century definitions to early 20th century
>technology.
Irrelevant. When we talk of ICBMs there is only the one valid
definition.
> The terms hadn't been coined yet, and the definitions
>obviously did not yet exist. Be that as it may, Projekt Amerika was
>for all intents and purposes, an ICBM, to use the late definition.
No, it was, if it had been perfected, a IRBM.
>
>The A-4b is known to have been launched eastwards on the night of 16
>March 1945 from a rocket sled near Rudisleben at the Polte II
>underground complex. One eyewitness account of this launch held in
>East German Arnstadt archives came to light with the reunification of
>Germany in 1989, but these records quickly became classified following
>pressure from the US Government. Three other accounts of the A-4b
>rocket sled device survive the war from an inmate of the Jonsthal
>Concentration camp and two from former German V-2 engineers. Accounts
>suggest a number were fired at the urals in March 1945 before Allies
>of the 4th Armoured Division and 89th Infantry Division reached and
>liberated the Ohrdruf complex on 11 April 1945, to find that camp
>inmates had been locked in bunk rooms and incinerated.
The A4b was certainly not an ICBM which, I thought, was the debate.
--
Bob.
heekster
>"The A9 was a winged version of the Peenem�nde-designed A4 (V-2)
>> See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem�nde and the Coming of the
It was accidentally pasted twice.
I can see how someone as intellectually bankrupt as you are, would
grasp at that straw, though.
>Bottom line; As I have shown, the A4b was nowhere near being an ICBM.
>Heck, it doesn't even qualify as an IRBM. The diagram on the bottom of
>the page I cited shows that the best range performance expected from a
>winger V2 (Which is what the A4b was.) was 600 miles. To qualify as an
>IRBM, the range had to be 1,500 miles.
>
>Give it up. VB. ICBMs. No connection at all.
>
>Andre
See Dornberger's book, and learn to read with comprehension.
Tell me, Kinde, what part of this do you not understand?
http://www.project1947.com/gfb/a9_10.jpg
The intercontinental A9 was equipped with radically modified,
highly-swept wings for a transatlantic glide beginning at hypersonic
(greater than Mach 5) speeds and was nested in the nose of the A10.
The A10 itself was about 65 feet long and was equipped with a 375,000
lb thrust rocket engine burning Diesel-grade oil and nitric acid.
During its 50 second burn, it could accelerate the A9 to a speed of
about 2,700 mph and an altitude of about 15 miles. With the A9
installed, the composite rocket would have stood about 84 feet tall.
Must be the word, "intercontinental", that throws you, eh?
If you look at this picture, you will see two different A4bs.
http://www.project1947.com/gfb/v2-chart3.jpg
The winged A4b (~580 km range) 2nd from the left; and the
A10/A4b two-stage supersonic-glide missile (~2500 km range)third from
the left.
Pat Flannery
> You are comparing aircraft to multistage missiles.
Meet the A9/A10, a multistage missile where the upper stage is an
aircraft: http://www.project1947.com/gfb/a-9.htm
I built a 1/72 scale model of one of these in the swept wing upper stage
version, and a 1/32 scale model of the A9 with the underslung ramjet
(which, according to Scott Lowther, was to be fueled by liquid acetylene).
Pat
Ye Old One
>>"The A9 was a winged version of the Peenemünde-designed A4 (V-2)
>>> See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the
Ah! The A9 was not intercontinental and the version shown strapped to
a A10 was never built.
> was equipped with radically modified,
>highly-swept wings for a transatlantic glide beginning at hypersonic
>(greater than Mach 5) speeds and was nested in the nose of the A10.
Ok, the A9 would have formed the second stage of an A10. Just as many
years later that Saturn IVB formed the third stage of the Saturn V.
The problem is that you are mixing up launch configurations.
>The A10 itself was about 65 feet long and was equipped with a 375,000
>lb thrust rocket engine burning Diesel-grade oil and nitric acid.
Hold on, the A10 was never built.
>During its 50 second burn, it could accelerate the A9 to a speed of
>about 2,700 mph and an altitude of about 15 miles. With the A9
>installed, the composite rocket would have stood about 84 feet tall.
>
>Must be the word, "intercontinental", that throws you, eh?
>
>If you look at this picture, you will see two different A4bs.
>http://www.project1947.com/gfb/v2-chart3.jpg
>The winged A4b (~580 km range) 2nd from the left; and the
>A10/A4b two-stage supersonic-glide missile (~2500 km range)third from
>the left.
But the only tests of the A4b were not configured that way. The tests
may not have been of real A4b rockets anyway - but rather modified V2
rockets with wings stuck on (reducing fuel tank size by 20% to allow
so the structural changes internally. The tests were to see if the
wings would stay on and if stable supersonic flight was possible.
Showing artist impressions of rockets that were simply ideas being
played with is not going to win the argument for you.
--
Bob.
Andre Lieven
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:17:40 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
No, to anyone who is not illiterate, I am comparing two different
kinds
of aircraft to each other, just as you tried to compare two different
kinds
of missiles to each other.
> Having worked on ICBMs, the 777, and the British Airways Concorde,
> I'm interested in what you think you know about them.
When I get to see your name, resume, and qualifications, I shall
be happy to discuss this.
> So produce these differences, and show similarity.
Once you produce the specific differences and similarities between
any actual missiles that VB worked on, and ICBMs.
Andre
Andre Lieven
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:29:38 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
> >On Nov 22, 11:50 am, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:54:30 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
> >> >On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:06 -0600, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net>
> >> >enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >> >>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:22:59 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
> >> >>>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:38:27 -0600, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net>
> >> >>>enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >> >>>>On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:34:36 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
> >> >>>><andrelie...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> >> >>>>>On Nov 20, 8:08 pm, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
> >> >>>>>> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:33:02 -0600, heekster <heeks...@ifiwxtc.net>
> >> >>>>>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >> >>>>>> >On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:40 GMT, Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
>
> >> >>>>>> >>On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:57:30 -0700, Kent Paul Dolan
> >> >>>>>> >><xanth...@well.com> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
> >> >>>>>> >>>Andre Lieven wrote:
>
<Laughs> Nice <Projection> there, sicne it is YOU who REFUSED to
address ANY of my points that refuted your nonsense...
> >Bottom line; As I have shown, the A4b was nowhere near being an ICBM.
> >Heck, it doesn't even qualify as an IRBM. The diagram on the bottom of
> >the page I cited shows that the best range performance expected from a
> >winger V2 (Which is what the A4b was.) was 600 miles. To qualify as an
> >IRBM, the range had to be 1,500 miles.
>
> >Give it up. VB. ICBMs. No connection at all.
>
> >Andre
>
> See Dornberger's book, and learn to read with comprehension.
>
> Tell me, Kinde, what part of this do you not understand?
> http://www.project1947.com/gfb/a9_10.jpg
> The intercontinental A9 was equipped with radically modified,
> highly-swept wings for a transatlantic glide beginning at hypersonic
> (greater than Mach 5) speeds and was nested in the nose of the A10.
> The A10 itself was about 65 feet long and was equipped with a 375,000
> lb thrust rocket engine burning Diesel-grade oil and nitric acid.
> During its 50 second burn, it could accelerate the A9 to a speed of
> about 2,700 mph and an altitude of about 15 miles. With the A9
> installed, the composite rocket would have stood about 84 feet tall.
>
> Must be the word, "intercontinental", that throws you, eh?
No, it is the words "Never even prototyped" that illuminate the
facts.
> If you look at this picture, you will see two different A4bs.
> http://www.project1947.com/gfb/v2-chart3.jpg
> The winged A4b (~580 km range) 2nd from the left; and the
> A10/A4b two-stage supersonic-glide missile (~2500 km range)third from
> the left.
And, precisely when did any of them fly a range that is even close to
being
intercontinental ?
Uh huh.
Andre
heekster
This is usenet, kid, not a job interview, get over yourself.
Your inability to respond reasonably to a civil request is duly noted.
>> So produce these differences, and show similarity.
>
>Once you produce the specific differences and similarities between
>any actual missiles that VB worked on, and ICBMs.
>
IOW, you can't.
heekster
>> >"The A9 was a winged version of the Peenem�nde-designed A4 (V-2)
>> >> See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem�nde and the Coming of the
The fact is that they were prototyped, at least partially. The
prototypes were never finished, because the Russians and the Allies
defeated Germany before they had the opportunity to finish them.
>
>> If you look at this picture, you will see two different A4bs.
>> http://www.project1947.com/gfb/v2-chart3.jpg
>> The winged A4b (~580 km range) 2nd from the left; and the
>> A10/A4b two-stage supersonic-glide missile (~2500 km range)third from
>> the left.
>
>And, precisely when did any of them fly a range that is even close to
>being
>intercontinental ?
>
>Uh huh.
>
Try to focus, kid. The discussion was whether WVB worked on an ICBM.
He did design them.The A9/A10, and the A4b/A10, qualify, regardless of
whether they were built, or used in anger. The ICBMs of the US and
USSR were never used.
According to von Braun's own writings, a rocket of this class was
envisioned as early as 1936, when yet-to-be built propulsion testing
stand in Peenemunde was designed to accommodate engines with the
thrust up to 200 tons. It would be eight times more than needed for
the A-4, but enough for what would become known as an ICBM.
The first flight for the A9/A10 would have been in 1946, except for
the fact that the war ended the year before. That doesn't change the
fact that WVB was working on the design of a rocket with
intercontinental range
See "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space", by Willy Ley.
Ye Old One
>>> >"The A9 was a winged version of the Peenemünde-designed A4 (V-2)
>>> >> See "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the
Ok, as I've already said. The A4b may, possibly, have reached first
prototype stage. However, most of the tests seem to have been carried
out with modified V2 rockers instead. At least one was launched in
vertical take off mode to test the wings in ballistic flight - it
failed. At least two more modified V2s were launched from an extended
V1 launch system to test lift from the wings and steering in
horizontal flight. How successful those were seems to be uncertain.
Purpose build A4b rocket bodies may have been prototyped but I'm not
sure. Certainly I can find no record of any being discovered when the
factories were captured at the end of the war.
> The
>prototypes were never finished, because the Russians and the Allies
>defeated Germany before they had the opportunity to finish them.
>>
>>> If you look at this picture, you will see two different A4bs.
>>> http://www.project1947.com/gfb/v2-chart3.jpg
>>> The winged A4b (~580 km range) 2nd from the left; and the
>>> A10/A4b two-stage supersonic-glide missile (~2500 km range)third from
>>> the left.
>>
>>And, precisely when did any of them fly a range that is even close to
>>being
>>intercontinental ?
>>
>>Uh huh.
>>
>Try to focus, kid. The discussion was whether WVB worked on an ICBM.
He didn't. He may have thought about them, but that is as far as it
got.
>He did design them.The A9/A10, and the A4b/A10, qualify, regardless of
>whether they were built, or used in anger.
Only the A10 would qualify and that never even got on to the drawing
board proper.
> The ICBMs of the US and
>USSR were never used.
>
>According to von Braun's own writings, a rocket of this class was
>envisioned as early as 1936, when yet-to-be built propulsion testing
>stand in Peenemunde was designed to accommodate engines with the
>thrust up to 200 tons. It would be eight times more than needed for
>the A-4, but enough for what would become known as an ICBM.
>
>The first flight for the A9/A10 would have been in 1946, except for
>the fact that the war ended the year before. That doesn't change the
>fact that WVB was working on the design of a rocket with
>intercontinental range
Only a pipedream.
>
>See "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space", by Willy Ley.
--
Bob.
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the
day they start making vacuum cleaners.
Andre Lieven
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:51:33 -0800 (PST), Andre Lieven
>
<Projection>
> Your inability to respond reasonably to a civil request is duly noted.
<Projection>
> >> So produce these differences, and show similarity.
>
> >Once you produce the specific differences and similarities between
> >any actual missiles that VB worked on, and ICBMs.
>
> IOW, you can't.
<Projection>
You're an idiot. HTH.
Andre
Hatunen
I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
Garamond Lethe
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
><cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2009-11-21, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>> A single atom can never decay to half
>>> its mass.
>>
>>This is a reasonably good definition:
>>
>><q>
>>Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time when
>>the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half
>>the original number. For example, one can start with a single radioactive atom,
>>wait its half-life, and measure whether or not it decays in that period of
>>time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. But if this experiment is
>>repeated again and again, it will be seen that it decays within the half life
>>50% of the time.
>></q>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
>
> I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
> single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
> group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
> a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
1. Atoms and groups of atoms don't decay to half of their "mass", they decay
to half of their *count* over their half life.
2. A half life of a single atom is well-defined *because* half-life
is a measure of probability.
Your quote in full: "Precisely. The individual atom does not have
a half life because a half-life is the period it takes for a given
mass of an element to decay to half it's mass. A single atom can
never decay to half its mass."
That is wrong on both counts.
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
><cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2009-11-21, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>> A single atom can never decay to half
>>> its mass.
>>
>>This is a reasonably good definition:
>>
>><q>
>>Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time when
>>the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half
>>the original number. For example, one can start with a single radioactive atom,
>>wait its half-life, and measure whether or not it decays in that period of
>>time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. But if this experiment is
>>repeated again and again, it will be seen that it decays within the half life
>>50% of the time.
>></q>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
>
>I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
>single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
>group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
>a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
Yes, I would agree with that.
And since the half-life of Uranium 235 is 703,800,000 years (U238 is
4.46 billion years) it really is daft to even consider a lecture on
its half-life in a cyclotron. A cyclotron is not capable of raising
the speed of U235 atoms to a level where relativistic speeds change
that figure. And, of course, that would be a tiny slowing down of the
decay.
I'm still unable to find any record of WvB lecturing on anything other
than rockets.
--
Bob.
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't
make an exception for the last one.
alextangent
> Hatunen wrote:
>
> > But I refuse to believe vB talked about it in this
> > "class" Suzanne took.
>
> "I refuse to believe" is an argument style every bit
> as invalid when you use it as when any creationist
> uses it to ignore the factual support for evolution.
>
> > half-life is a property of groups.
>
> False, which makes the rest of your argument a waste
> of time to have typed.
True; see below.
>
> The half life of an isolated atom is well defined,
> and is the middle
>
> [probably the mean, since while the distribution
> curve is unbounded on the right, the curve damps
> out exponentially to the right; which should be
> fast enough to keep the integral under the curve
> finite, but I'm not going to pretend to
> integrate the curve in my head]
>
> of the distribution of times when it might decay.
Yet it cannot be predicted the way you describe; individual atoms do
not have statistical histories. Individual atoms do not have half-
lives. The curve you appear to have pinched a description of without a
cite is an exponential decay curve.
>
> The curve damps out because while the probability
> for any time interval is the same if it still exists
> at the beginning of that interval, the probability
> for the interval is decreased by the probability
> that it has already decayed and so does _not_ exist
> at the beginning of the interval.
The curve is the same at any point, regardless of where you start. In
other words, a mole of U235 has a half-life of 700M years. The half-
mole of U235 that's left at the end of 700M years has a half-life of
700M years.
>
> That is, decay is a statistical property, with a
> probability distribution, but that distribution
> applies every bit as much to one atom as it does
> atom by atom to a mole of atoms.
No it does not. The distribution is a function of a group of atoms.
>
> If it did not, nuclear decay would be impossible,
> because groups of atoms don't decay, only single
> atoms do.
That is the nature of QM. Impossible doesn't mean much to QM.
>
> xanthian.
>
> The difference with masses of U235 is that decay is
> no longer only the spontaneous kind considered
> above, but may also be induced by the decay products
> of neighboring atoms, changing the half life of many
> adjacent U235 atoms compared to the half life of one
> isolated U235 atom..
You're way off base here. Fission caused by neutron bombardment is not
half-life decay. U235 decays to Th231 and an alpha radiation; U235
fission does not produce any Th (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product_yield
for the fission products of U235).
alextangent
> On Nov 21, 11:22 am, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > That is, decay is a statistical property, with a
> > probability distribution, but that distribution
> > applies every bit as much to one atom as it does
> > atom by atom to a mole of atoms.
>
> No it does not. The distribution is a function of a group of atoms.
>
>
>
> > If it did not, nuclear decay would be impossible,
> > because groups of atoms don't decay, only single
> > atoms do.
>
> That is the nature of QM. Impossible doesn't mean much to QM.
>
>
I couldn't find the original reference when I was writing the original
answer to this post, but I've found it; there's an article here (The
Zeno's paradox in quantum theory, B. Misra and E. C. G. Sudarshan,
Center for Particle Theory, University of Texas at Austin,
http://link.aip.org/link/?JMAPAQ/18/756/1).
[Strangely, the University of Texas, Austin; I wonder if Suzanne ever
scaled Sudarshan and Misra's intellectual heights in her claimed year-
long tenure as a physics major there?]
Boiled down to its essence; a watched kettle never boils (please
excuse the pun). "A simple natural approach to this problem leads to
the conclusion that an unstable particle which is continuously
observed to see whether it decays will never be found to decay!"
Wikipedia has an overview; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect.
There are referenced experimental confirmations, including that of the
opposite; the anti-Zeno effect.
Common sense and QM don't go together.
J. J. Lodder
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
> <cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On 2009-11-21, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> >> A single atom can never decay to half
> >> its mass.
> >
> >This is a reasonably good definition:
> >
> ><q>
> >Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time
> >when the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is
> >equal to half the original number. For example, one can start with a
> >single radioactive atom, wait its half-life, and measure whether or not
> >it decays in that period of time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will
> >not. But if this experiment is repeated again and again, it will be seen
> >that it decays within the half life 50% of the time. </q>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
>
> I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
> single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
> group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
> a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
The half life immediately follows
from the statistical distribution of decay times,
(as a parameter of the distribution)
Jan
alextangent
wrote:
> On 2009-11-23, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
>
> >>On 2009-11-21, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> >>> A single atom can never decay to half
> >>> its mass.
>
> >>This is a reasonably good definition:
>
> >><q>
> >>Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time when
> >>the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half
> >>the original number. For example, one can start with a single radioactive atom,
> >>wait its half-life, and measure whether or not it decays in that period of
> >>time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. But if this experiment is
> >>repeated again and again, it will be seen that it decays within the half life
> >>50% of the time.
> >></q>
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
>
> > I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
> > single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
> > group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
> > a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
>
> 1. Atoms and groups of atoms don't decay to half of their "mass", they decay
> to half of their *count* over their half life.
>
> 2. A half life of a single atom is well-defined *because* half-life
> is a measure of probability.
The half-life of a single atom is undefined, not well defined.
Only with a large population does the statement "the half life is x"
make sense, and even then we can only make statements about
probability confidences within an error range; for example, "we're 95%
confident that 50% +/-1% of these atoms will have decayed in 700M
years". For large populations, we can be highly confident (although
never 100% sure) and have low error ranges (although never 0%). In
general, the larger the population, the higher the confidence and the
smaller the error range can be.
For populations of 1, the best we can say is; "we are 0% confident
that there's a 50% chance +/-50% this atom will have decayed in 700M
years". In other words, it's random. A single atom doesn't have a well
defined half-life.
Garamond Lethe
Sigh.
>
> Only with a large population does the statement "the half life is x"
> make sense, and even then we can only make statements about
> probability confidences within an error range; for example, "we're 95%
> confident that 50% +/-1% of these atoms will have decayed in 700M
> years". For large populations, we can be highly confident (although
> never 100% sure) and have low error ranges (although never 0%). In
> general, the larger the population, the higher the confidence and the
> smaller the error range can be.
>
> For populations of 1, the best we can say is; "we are 0% confident
> that there's a 50% chance +/-50% this atom will have decayed in 700M
> years". In other words, it's random. A single atom doesn't have a well
> defined half-life.
I'm not sure what domain you're coming from. In the domains I work with,
"unknown" and "undefined" are on two completely different axes. 5/0 is
known (there are no variables) and undefined, y=x/(1-x) is unknown but
well-defined for x!=1, and the results of transfering control to
uninitialized memory are unknown and undefined.
Following this set of definitions, the results of a coin flip are unknown
and well-defined, as is the decay (or not) of a single atom over a known
amount of time.
There probably are different senses of the word in other fields, but
I'm not familiar with them. Any references you have handy would be
appreciated.
Hatunen
<cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>On 2009-11-23, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
>><cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2009-11-21, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> A single atom can never decay to half
>>>> its mass.
>>>
>>>This is a reasonably good definition:
>>>
>>><q>
>>>Instead, the half-life is defined in terms of probability. It is the time when
>>>the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half
>>>the original number. For example, one can start with a single radioactive atom,
>>>wait its half-life, and measure whether or not it decays in that period of
>>>time. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. But if this experiment is
>>>repeated again and again, it will be seen that it decays within the half life
>>>50% of the time.
>>></q>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
>>
>> I see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Since the
>> single atom may not decay at the time of the half-life for a
>> group of atoms, the single atom obviously has not half life, only
>> a statistical probability of decaying at some time.
>
>1. Atoms and groups of atoms don't decay to half of their "mass", they decay
>to half of their *count* over their half life.
Yeah. Teh person doing the experiment gets out his magnifying
glass and counts the atoms of the element that haven't radiated
yet.
>2. A half life of a single atom is well-defined *because* half-life
>is a measure of probability.
Half-life is a result of probability.
>Your quote in full: "Precisely. The individual atom does not have
>a half life because a half-life is the period it takes for a given
>mass of an element to decay to half it's mass. A single atom can
>never decay to half its mass."
>
>That is wrong on both counts.
So you are saying a single atom has a definite half-life?
And that a singel atom can decay to half its mass? Or is it that
the single atom becomes half the original atom and half the decay
product, half the count, so to speak?
Hatunen
Of course. I haven't said otherwise.
Garamond Lethe
If you're equating "known" and "defined", that is true. I'm certain the
two are not equivalent in computer science and some of the shallower
ends mathematics. There may be fields where the two terms are equivalent,
but I'm not aware of them. Any pointers you can suggest?
I'm heading in to campus now, so I'm afraid this is the best cite I
can give you on short notice.
Don Cates
the amount of isotope that we have, even if it is only a single atom.
> Only with a large population does the statement "the half life is x"
> make sense, and even then we can only make statements about
> probability confidences within an error range; for example, "we're 95%
> confident that 50% +/-1% of these atoms will have decayed in 700M
> years".
Umm, no. For large numbers of atoms it's more like "50% of these atoms
will decay in 700M +/- 100 years".
For a single atom it would be "there is a 50% probability that it will
decay sometime in the next 700M +/- 10 years".
All the uncertainty is taken up in that last "+/-".
For large populations, we can be highly confident (although
> never 100% sure) and have low error ranges (although never 0%). In
> general, the larger the population, the higher the confidence and the
> smaller the error range can be.
>
> For populations of 1, the best we can say is; "we are 0% confident
> that there's a 50% chance +/-50% this atom will have decayed in 700M
> years". In other words, it's random. A single atom doesn't have a well
> defined half-life.
>
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
Hatunen
<cartogr...@gFNORDmail.com> wrote:
>Following this set of definitions, the results of a coin flip are unknown
>and well-defined, as is the decay (or not) of a single atom over a known
>amount of time.
One cannot say of a radio-isotope that it may or may not decay.
It will decay save for the probablility being asymptotic to zero
at "infinity".
It may or may not decay over a specific length of time. Once can
say that single atom A has a .37 probablility of decay over D
days or Y years.
You can't compare coin flips with radioactive decay. A coin flip
results in either heads or tails, and knowing, Laplace-like, the
initial conditions the result could, in theory, be determined
before making the bet; this would, of course , be neglecting any
QM indeterminancy. Also, consider the coin flip made by catching
the coin in mid-air and slapping it on the forearm with the hand
hiding it. Some people will say there is a 50-50 chance the coin
is heads, but this is not true. The coins is already either heads
or not. But there is a 50-50 chance you will guess correctly.
All this is not true of an atom of a radio-isotope; it has either
decayed or it has not decayed, and if it has not you cannot
determine when it will decay no matter what you know about the
initial conditions. The only thing you might say is that half of
a group of the atoms will have decayed by the time of the
half-life.
I am not quite sure whether the probability of decay can be
determined for an isotope by QM, but the half-life can be
determined by observing the behavior of large numbers of the
atoms, and it is not necessary to wait a full half-life to make
the determination.
Hatunen
In physics, "defined" is somewhat the same as in mathematics. In
fact, a well-defined phenomenon would be one that could be stated
mathematically with a high degree of precision. There is no waay
to precisely define when a given atom will decay.
alextangent
wrote:
Where's Carlip when you need him?
>
>
> > Only with a large population does the statement "the half life is x"
> > make sense, and even then we can only make statements about
> > probability confidences within an error range; for example, "we're 95%
> > confident that 50% +/-1% of these atoms will have decayed in 700M
> > years". For large populations, we can be highly confident (although
> > never 100% sure) and have low error ranges (although never 0%). In
> > general, the larger the population, the higher the confidence and the
> > smaller the error range can be.
>
> > For populations of 1, the best we can say is; "we are 0% confident
> > that there's a 50% chance +/-50% this atom will have decayed in 700M
> > years". In other words, it's random. A single atom doesn't have a well
> > defined half-life.
>
> I'm not sure what domain you're coming from.
Left field.
> In the domains I work with,
> "unknown" and "undefined" are on two completely different axes. 5/0 is
> known (there are no variables) and undefined, y=x/(1-x) is unknown but
> well-defined for x!=1, and the results of transfering control to
> uninitialized memory are unknown and undefined.
>
> Following this set of definitions, the results of a coin flip are unknown
> and well-defined, as is the decay (or not) of a single atom over a known
> amount of time.
>
> There probably are different senses of the word in other fields, but
> I'm not familiar with them. Any references you have handy would be
> appreciated.
Undefined. For any selected atom, its decay as it is understood to be
random, and radioactive decay (a characteristic of a population) is a
Poisson process. You may talk about the average atom over all atoms as
they behave in a population. You cannot characterise the behaviour of
a specific atom in this way. Half-life is characteristic of a
population, not an individual.
What the statistics tell us (if we use them properly) is that n
radioactive atoms after a period that is their (collective!) half-
life, will give us 50% decayed, and 50% undecayed. We can't say the
same of a specific atom.
alextangent
Same thing. You have simply swapped the axis.
alextangent
> On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:29:00 GMT, Garamond Lethe
>
>
>
> >On 2009-11-23, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:57:54 GMT, Garamond Lethe
That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
*count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and the *count of Th231
atoms doubles. The mass of the Th231 atoms plus the mass of the same
number of alpha particles, and the mass-energy equivalent lost due to
ejecting the alpha particles, equal the original mass of U235 that
decayed.
>
> --
> ************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatu...@cox.net) *************
alextangent
Correcting myslef here. I meant to say
> That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
> particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
> *count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and becomes the *count of Th231
> atoms. The mass of the Th231 atoms plus the mass of the same
Hatunen
<bl...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>On Nov 24, 8:16 pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 24, 5:14 pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> > And that a singel atom can decay to half its mass? Or is it that
>> > the single atom becomes half the original atom and half the decay
>> > product, half the count, so to speak?
>>
>> That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
>> particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
>> *count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and the *count of Th231
>> atoms doubles. The mass of the Th231 atoms plus the mass of the same
>> number of alpha particles, and the mass-energy equivalent lost due to
>> ejecting the alpha particles, equal the original mass of U235 that
>> decayed.
>>
>
>Correcting myslef here. I meant to say
>
>> That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
>> particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
>> *count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and becomes the *count of Th231
>> atoms.
Of course. Those were rhetorical questions to Garamond Lethe who
thinks a single atom has a half-life.
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
Garamond Lethe
I've not seen "precisely defined" used in mathematics, nor in physics
for that matter. Or in this thread, if it comes to that.
The sense in which I am using "defined" (and have provided a citation
for elsewhere) means that there is a set of values that can be assigned
to a variable. In this case, "didn't decay yet" and "decayed". As such,
radioactive decay is well-defined.
Contrast this with division by zero where the result cannot be
represented by any number (unless you're using a more specialized
number line.
You disagree. That's fine. What I'd like to know is if anyone else
defines the terms that way. Can you point me to anyone who does?
Garamond Lethe
<grin>
>
>> In the domains I work with,
>> "unknown" and "undefined" are on two completely different axes. 5/0 is
>> known (there are no variables) and undefined, y=x/(1-x) is unknown but
>> well-defined for x!=1, and the results of transfering control to
>> uninitialized memory are unknown and undefined.
>>
>> Following this set of definitions, the results of a coin flip are unknown
>> and well-defined, as is the decay (or not) of a single atom over a known
>> amount of time.
>>
>> There probably are different senses of the word in other fields, but
>> I'm not familiar with them. Any references you have handy would be
>> appreciated.
>
> Undefined. For any selected atom, its decay as it is understood to be
> random, and radioactive decay (a characteristic of a population) is a
> Poisson process. You may talk about the average atom over all atoms as
> they behave in a population. You cannot characterise the behaviour of
> a specific atom in this way. Half-life is characteristic of a
> population, not an individual.
>
> What the statistics tell us (if we use them properly) is that n
> radioactive atoms after a period that is their (collective!) half-
> life, will give us 50% decayed, and 50% undecayed. We can't say the
> same of a specific atom.
I believe that the term "undefined" can be defined as you're using it,
and I believe you consider this use to be useful. I'd like to be
convinced that you're not the only one who is using it this way. Did
you pick this up in a class? A book?
heekster
>On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:22:54 -0800 (PST), alextangent
><bl...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>
>>On Nov 24, 8:16�pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>>> On Nov 24, 5:14�pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> > And that a singel atom can decay to half its mass? Or is it that
>>> > the single atom becomes half the original atom and half the decay
>>> > product, half the count, so to speak?
>>>
>>> That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
>>> particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
>>> *count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and the *count of Th231
>>> atoms doubles. The mass of the Th231 atoms plus the mass of the same
>>> number of alpha particles, and the mass-energy equivalent lost due to
>>> ejecting the alpha particles, equal the original mass of U235 that
>>> decayed.
>>>
>>
>>Correcting myslef here. I meant to say
>>
>>> That's confusing. When U235 decays, it does so to Th231 plus an alpha
>>> particle (helium, basically). The mass of U235 doesn't halve. The
>>> *count of U235 atoms halves over 700M years, and becomes the *count of Th231
>>> atoms.
>
>Of course. Those were rhetorical questions to Garamond Lethe who
>thinks a single atom has a half-life.
If the atom is a radioactive isotope, it does.
In describing the decay of discrete entities, such as a single
radioactive atom, it does not work to use the definition "half-life is
the time required for exactly half of the entities to decay" . For
example, if there is just one radioactive atom with a half-life of one
second, there will not be "half of an atom" left after one second.
There will be either daughter atoms left or the original atom left,
depending on whether or not the atom happens to decay.
You can start with a single radioactive atom, wait its half-life, and
measure whether or not it decays in that period of time.
It may decay, or it might not decay.
If this experiment is repeated again and again, it will be seen that
it decays within the half life, 50% of the time.