Count Down

The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons

Sarah Scoles . . 2024 . . Beaverton Lib 355.8251

264 pages including references and index. I lost interest around page 70. Perhaps I will try again after I read the other thousand books in my incoming pile.

The focus is on stockpile maintenance. Electronics upgrades, new circuit technology replacing old unavailable devices, But the main problem is radioactive decay of the "pits", the vaguely described balls of plutonium/uranium/?? that radioactively decay into inert or fission damping elements. Very slow decay; the pits probably work fine, like the last US weapons tested in 1992, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by Clinton in 1996, but not ratified by the Senate, or by China, Russia, US, Iran, and Israel .

The subject matter is necessarily vague, because the most "interesting" information is classified. Hence my loss of interest. Some pointers to other books and documents that I might read someday.

References

CountDown (last edited 2025-03-05 08:48:43 by KeithLofstrom)